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Meet the women helping save the planet right now, starting with Naomie Harris PLUS: Greta Thunberg, Amy Powney, Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, Lucy Siegle, Naomi Klein, Deepika Kurup, Katharine Hamnett, Venetia Falconer, Caroline Lucas, Emily Penn and Livia Firth Our guide to greener living • Elizabeth Uviebinené on race in the workplace Life lessons from Dame Stephanie Shirley • How to refresh and reset this autumn C E L E B R AT I N G A N D C H A M P I O N I N G W O M E N T O I N S P I R E C H A N G E ALLBRIGHT COVER B.indd 1
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F o r o v e r 10 0 y e a r s , g e n e r a t i o n s o f w o m e n h a v e l a u g h e d, m a r c h e d, d a n c e d, d e b a t e d, l a u n c h e d companies, grew families, and won awards while w e a r i n g Ke d s . We ’r e p r o u d o f t h e f e a r l e s s w o m e n w h o t a ke o n t h e w o r l d w e a r i n g o u r s n e a ke r s , a f t e r a l l, t h e y ’r e j u s t l i ke u s .
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ISSUE THR EE AUTUMN 2019
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The Autumn Edit PATEK PHILIPPE Twenty~4 watch, £43,410, patek.com TORY BURCH Dress, £940, toryburch.co.uk TIFFANY T Square Bracelet, £10,900, tiffany.co.uk MIU MIU Boots, £790, myteresa.com TORY BURCH Lee Radziwill bag, £845, toryburch.co.uk
e’re thrilled to be featuring our friend and founder member Naomie Harris OBE as this issue’s cover star. Naomie has been a brilliant supporter of AllBright from the very beginning, joining us in leading the charge on female empowerment. It’s an issue close to her heart – you only need to look at the hard-hitting roles she tackles, from Winnie Mandela to her Oscar-nominated turn in Moonlight, to see that. She is also a keen environmentalist and perfectly embodies the AllBright aim to constantly learn, grow and evolve. Our first international club, The AllBright West Hollywood, has now opened its doors on Melrose Place, providing a home for our stateside sisterhood. The club features elegant interiors and a rooftop with one of the best views in Los Angeles, as well as an exceptional collection of art by female artists, compiled by our resident curator Beth Greenacre. She gives us an exclusive tour of the collection’s highlights on p.12. The founder members at our West Hollywood club are a diverse and eclectic mix of women, including the New York Times bestselling author Elaine Welteroth, who tells us how she navigates the eternal struggle to find work/life balance on p.64. More words of wisdom come from the trailblazing entrepreneur and philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley, who shares her life lessons (and what a life it’s been!) on p.58. As autumn begins, we’re hitting refresh and setting some wellbeing resolutions. Read our guide on how to do just that on p.84. What’s more, with the climate crisis reaching breaking point, environmental issues are weighing heavily on our minds. Which is why, in partnership with BMW i, we’re launching AllGreen, a week of curated events and a dedicated section in this issue to explore how simple everyday actions can help us live more sustainably. Finally, on p.24, you’ll find further inspiration via our list of the most influential women in green, whose stories can’t help but motivate you to do more to fight climate change. See you in the club.
Anna Jones Co-founder
Debbie Wosskow, OBE Co-founder
debbieandanna@allbright.co @AllBright
@WeAreAllBright
AllBright
ALLBRIGHT MAGAZINE is published for THE ALLBRIGHT by Neighbourhood Media Limited EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Charlotte Adsett (charlotte@allbright.co) EDITOR Georgie Lane-Godfrey (georgie@allbright.co) SUB EDITOR Katie Wyartt CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ray Searle (ray@allbright.co) CONTRIBUTORS Luciana Bellini, Fran Bailey, Elizabeth Bennett, Nicola Colyer, Lisa Conway-Hughes, Harriet Cooper, Venetia Falconer, Beth Greenacre, Tabitha Lasley, Rachel Ward DIRECTOR, COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIPS Nicki Singh (nicki@allbright.co) COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER Sarah Gardiner (sarah@allbright.co) VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, US Natacha Hildebrand (natacha@allbright.co) THE ALLBRIGHT, 24-26 MADDOX STREET, LONDON, W1S 1QH © 2019 Neighbourhood Media Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, whether in whole or in part, without written permission. The publishers and editors are not responsible for unsolicited material and it will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication subject to AllBright magazine’s right to edit.
allbrightcollective.com
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CONT ALLBRIGHT. I S S U E
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8 ON THE AGENDA
Where to go and what to do this autumn
12 NEW PERSPECTIVES
Art curator Beth Greenacre discusses The AllBright West Hollywood's inaugural hang
16 THE DOWNLOAD
The best things to watch, listen and read right now
18 TAKING THE LEAD
Naomie Harris on feminism and finding success in her forties
24 GUARDIANS OF THE PLANET
Meet the most influential women in environmentalism
33 GO ALLGREEN
Discover the simple everyday changes you can make to live a more sustainable life
38 GOOD LOOKS
From recycling to refills, this is how to do green beauty
42 SCENT OF CHANGE The sustainable and clean fragrances edit
44 TAKE IT SLOW
Venetia Falconer explains how to be a follower of slow fashion
48 PAINT IT GREEN
The best ways to make your interiors eco-friendly
52 SHE'S ELECTRIC
AllBright's executive chef Sabrina Gidda tours London's ethical food suppliers with the BMW i3
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58 BE THE CHANGE
Life lessons from tech trailblazer Dame Stephanie Shirley
62 THE POWER OF TWO
Platform Presents co-founders Gala Gordon and Isabella Macpherson on working together
64 FINDING THE BALANCE
Media star Elaine Welteroth reveals how she schedules joy
66 MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Elizabeth Uviebinené discusses race in the workplace
68 TIME TO CONNECT
Introducing The AllBright's latest course for freelancers
70 BANK ON GREEN
Lisa Conway-Hughes explains why the green economy is rising
72 THE FASHION UPDATE
Style notes for the season ahead
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ENTS. CEL EBR AT ING A N D CH A M PION I NG WOM E N T O INSPIR E CH A NGE ALLBRIGHT. I S S U E
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Meet the women helping save the planet right now, starting with Naomie Harris PLUS: Greta Thunberg, Amy Powney, Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, Lucy Siegle, Naomi Klein, Deepika Kurup, Katharine Hamnett, Venetia Falconer, Caroline Lucas, Emily Penn and Livia Firth PLUS: Our guide to greener living • Elizabeth Uviebinené on race in the workplace Life lessons from Dame Stephanie Shirley • How to refresh and reset this autumn C E L E B R AT I N G A N D C H A M P I O N I N G W O M E N T O I N S P I R E C H A N G E
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Naomie Harris photographed by Erik Madigan Heck
74 PEARLS OF WISDOM
Mother of Pearl creative director Amy Powney talks ethical luxury
78 WEARING WELL
The sustainable fashion brands you need to know right now
82 BEAUTY NOTES
The latest launches and products, plus AllBright's new treatments
84 HIT REFRESH
Set a resolution to be happy this autumn
88 FIRST LOOK
Get an exclusive look at the new AllBright West Hollywood
90 WE MET AT THE ALLBRIGHT Meet the members joining forces
94 SOCIAL AFFAIRS
The AllBright's very best events from the summer
96 A WOMAN TO REMEMBER Shining a light on Rachel Carson, one of the first environmentalists
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MEET THE CONTRIBUTORS I
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LISA CONWAY-HUGHES With over fifteen years experience, chartered financial adviser and author Lisa Conway-Hughes has helped countless people improve their personal economics. Alongside working at a wealth management firm in the City of London, Lisa also runs misslolly.com – a blog dedicated to helping people solve their financial conundrums. “The world would be a better place if we spent time to think about the impact of our actions more,” she says. “In today’s throwaway consumerist culture, a little more consideration can make all the difference.”
VENETIA FALCONER Venetia is a digital content creator and sustainability activist who is on a mission to slow fast fashion. As well as being the creator of the 5 star-rated podcast Talking Tastebuds. Venetia has been featured discussing sustainable fashion on BBC World News, Channel 4 News and BBC Radio London. “The less time spent on our phones and more time spent connecting to what’s really in front of us would make the world a better place,” says Venetia. “It’s time we woke up to the devastation fast fashion causes.”
AMY POWNEY Amy Powney is Creative Director of Mother of Pearl, a London-based ethical luxury fashion label with feel-good values at its core. In this issue, she explains why sustainability should be the norm, not the exception. “The fashion industry is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, but most people don’t make this connection,” says Amy. “There are plenty of simple solutions we can undertake for a better future – small changes can really make impactful change.”
ELAINE WELTEROTH ELIZABETH UVIEBINENÉ Elizabeth Uviebinené is a freelance brand consultant, a columnist at the Financial Times and the award-winning co-author of bestselling book, Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible. Inspired by her time working in banking as a marketing manager, she saw an opportunity to co-write the first guide to life for young black British women. “I see so many knee jerk reactions to discussions around race and sexism that could benefit from greater empathy,” says Elizabeth. “We don’t put ourselves in the shoes of other people enough – the world would benefit from more compassion.”
Elaine Welteroth is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning journalist, Project Runway judge, and the former Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue. Throughout her magazine career Elaine broke new ground as the youngest person and the second African-American to hold this title in Condé Nast’s 107-year history. Now she’s a leading expert, advocate and voice for the next generation of change-makers. “I think we should take responsibility for being a true sister to other women in our lives,” she says. “That means offering help proactively – opening doors, solving problems and looking for opportunities for them.”
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A U T U M N
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Zandra Rhodes:
50 Years of Fabulous
FA S H ION A N D T E X T I L E MUSEUM 27 S e p t e m b e r – 2 6 Ja n u a r y
Celebrating the 50-year career of acclaimed British designer Dame Zandra Rhodes DBE, this retrospective highlights 100 keys pieces from her collections. Founded in 1969, her label was a Pop Art-infused commentary of 1960s Britain, reflecting the new structural shapes coming into fashion. Zandra’s distinctive approach to cut and form, along with her colourful style, made her become - and remain - one of London’s most recognisable designers.
ftmlondon.org
TheLONDON Diary b y G E O RG I E L A N E G O DF R E Y
One of South Africa’s most prominent contemporary artists, Mary Sibande tackles the imagination and collective anger shaping identity in a post-Apartheid world. I Came Apart at the Seams features unsettling humanscale sculptures based on Sibande herself, documenting the impactful story of a woman transgressing racial stereotypes to embody different empowered characters; 3 October - 5 January; somersethouse.org.uk
BRIDGET RILEY H AY WA R D G A L L E RY 2 3 O c t o b e r - 2 6 Ja n u a r y
Celebrated British artist Bridget Riley gets her first major retrospective in 16 years in this large-scale survey of her work. One of the foremost exponents of ‘Op Art’ (optical art), Riley’s perceptual paintings are displayed together here to trace pivotal moments in her career. Expect to see her iconic black-and-white works from the 1960s, as well her expansive colourful canvases.
southbankcentre.co.uk
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GAUGUIN PORTRAITS The National Gallery, 7 October - 26 January The first exhibition that is dedicated to the portraits of the French artist. Through selecting attributes or placing the sitter in a suggestive context, Gauguin was able to give his portraits meaning beyond their obvious personalities. Today, the painter is a controversial figure in art history, so this exhibition is an excellent opportunity to reassess his work. nationalgallery.org.uk
DORA MAAR
TAT E M ODE R N 2 0 No ve m b e r - 5 Ma rc h The 1930s photographer Dora Maar was an active member of the decade’s left-wing revolutionary artistic groups, sharing her politics with the surrealists. At the centre of her career was her mutually influential relationship with Pablo Picasso, who immortalised her as Weeping Woman in 1937. Now, in the largest retrospective of the artist in the UK to date, expect a thought-provoking range of social documentary images, whimsical portraits and provocative nudes.
BALLET
MANON ROYA L OPE R A HOU S E 2 O c tobe r 6 Nove mbe r
tate.org.uk
Tim Walker:
Wonderful Things
V IC T OR I A & A L B E RT M U S E U M 21 S e p t e m b e r - 8 Ma rc h Enjoy an immersive journey into the fantastical worlds created by celebrated fashion photographer Tim Walker. The V&A exhibition is set to be his largest one yet, bringing together works from a career spanning more than 20 years and a long-standing relationship with Vogue. As well as his own brand of personal magic, expect to see a series of ten new photos that Walker worked on over three years, inspired by the museum’s collections.
vam.ac.uk
allbrightcollective.com
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If ever there was a victim of the patriarchy, it’s Manon Lescaut. A tragic love story set to music by Massenet, Manon is ultimately caught between men’s lust and greed, leading to tragic results. In the title role of Manon is Royal Ballet prima ballerina Francesca Hayward, who stars in the Cats movie, which is released later this year. See her onstage now, before she becomes a global star.
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LUCIAN FREUD: THE SELF PORTRAITS ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS
27 October - 26 January
Set to be a world first, this exhibition will unite 50 of Lucien Freud’s selfportraits from his extraordinary 70year career in one comprehensive exhibition. In each of these portraits, Freud recreates his self-image anew, whether that’s painting himself as the Greek hero Acteon in his youth, or posing naked but for a pair of boots in his 70s. As well as his self-image, the mediums he employs to depict himself also evolve, moving from linear graphics to the bold, fleshier oils he is best associated with. Intensely compelling, these portraits provide an intimate depiction of ageing that confronts the viewer with not only its inevitability, but its beauty too. royalacademy.org.uk
London Literature Festival S OU T H BA N K C E N T R E
17-27 O c tobe r
Expect a bumper offering this year as international names descend on the capital for 11 days of talks, readings, poetry and performance based around a theme of disruption. Look out for appearances from AllBright member Liv Little and writer Elizabeth Day, as well as poet Nikki Giovanni and writer Fatima Bhutto.
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ANTONY GORMLEY ROYA L AC A DE M Y OF A RT S
21 S e pt e m b e r - 3 D e c e m b e r
You’re likely to have seen some of British sculpture Antony Gormley’s pieces before - he’s the artist behind the Angel of the North in Gateshead as well as Another Place, the series of lonely figures on Crosby Beach in Liverpool. This series of experiential structures is intended to make visitors slow down and become aware of their own bodies. Mindful stuff.
royalacademy.org.uk
TAY L O R W E S S I N G PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT PRIZE
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
7 November - 16 February
This world-renowned photographic competition brings together the best shots from both emerging young talent and established names to create a collection of fascinating visual stories, from socially revealing snapshots to spontaneous moments captured between loved ones.
npg.org.uk
It’s an exciting season for female voices this autumn, as women dominate the listings. First up, Zoë Wanamaker stars alongside Zrinka Cvitešić in Two Ladies at the Bridge Theatre (until 26 October) playing the first ladies of America and France at loggerheads, in Nancy Harris’s new play. Next, critically acclaimed playwright Caryl Churchill is back at the Royal Court with four new short plays, Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp, until 12 October. After a brilliant turn together in The Crown, Claire Foy and Matt Smith reunite in Lungs at The Old Vic (14 October - 9 November) playing a couple grappling with the ethical and environmental challenges of modern life in the most topical play of the season. Pulitzer Prizewinner Annie Baker returns to the National with The Antipodes (21 October - 23 November), a startling play about the realities of fake news and extreme publicity. April De Angelis’s adaptation of My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante’s beloved novel, then transfers to the National (12 November - 18 January) following a sell-out run at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. The hot ticket this season, however, is for Fairview at the Young Vic (28 November - 18 January) to see American playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Pulitzer Prizewinning family drama - a runaway success in New York.
ECO-VISIONARIES
This exhibition presents a fascinating look at how architects, artists and designers are working to remedy a planet that’s in a state of emergency. Tackling today’s most urgent ecological issues, from climate change to species extinction and resource depletion, each piece is a response to the damaging effects of human life. 23 November - 23 February; royalacademy.org.uk allbrightcollective.com
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HANGING IN HOLLYWOOD Now that the new AllBright West Hollywood has opened its doors, curator Beth Greenacre gives us the inside track on the female-focused art that is gracing its walls
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or the new AllBright West Hollywood, I took the club’s location as the starting point for the inaugural hang. As well as showcasing work from local artists and those with a connection to the region, the hang also references the local geography and terrain. This, of course, includes the Hollywood Hills, which provide the backdrop to the club on Melrose Place. With such a view, we are inevitably reminded of the area’s cinematic credentials and how the act of looking is inescapably tied to the history of film. In this hang, I wanted to examine the ways in which we see the world via the act of viewing through a lens or on a screen. Bringing together 40 femaleidentifying artists, the hang includes works dating from the 1970s to the present day. Some of the pieces relate to the Californian topography and the ways in which external factors – both natural and artificial – impact on viewing. Others focus on the role of technology in the era of the selfie. But many consider how the act of looking is conditioned, and the gaze gendered. However, as artists, all are inevitably concerned with re-visions. They ask us to look in new ways and endeavour to turn viewers into actors. Here, I’ve highlighted just a few from the hang…
Genevieve Gaignard Lace Front Lawn, 2017 Chromogenic print © the artist, courtesy Vielmetter Gallery, Los Angeles vielmetter.com
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Gaignard investigates the aesthetic and cultural divide between black and white, a chasm as palpable as it is “invisible”. She interrogates notions of “passing” by positioning her own female body as the chief site of exploration - challenging viewers to navigate the powers and anxieties of intersectional identity.
LAURA LANCASTER
Sadie Benning Blow Up #20, 2018 Wood, aqua resin, casein and acrylic gouache © the artist, courtesy Vielmetter Gallery, Los Angeles vielmetter.com
SADIE BENNING
This hang doesn’t just address the concept of viewing, but also the physical act of looking, meaning that some of the work here is almost verging on abstraction. Sadie Benning’s work is a great example of this. Throughout their career Sadie Benning has explored the operation and influence of cultural material. Benning, who has made video, animations, paintings, and works that combine elements of all these media and more, emphasises associative relationships in their work and in between the works in a space. The process of amassing, appropriating, editing, cropping, sequencing, and destabilising both found and original content informs Benning’s current practice. The Blow Up painting at the Allbright is sculptural, colourful and minimal. The indeterminacy of the subject is as important to the artist as the indeterminacy of the medium itself, which is equal parts painting and sculpture.
British artist Laura Lancaster recently exhibited here in LA. She makes paintings from an archive of photographs and cine film found at thrift stores and flea markets, or bought on eBay. Many artists are generous with their titles, Laura Lancaster being one of them. The work displayed at the AllBright West Hollywood is called Me 12-25-35, but there’s no central figure in this portrait. Exploring the relationship between photograph and human presence, mediated through painting, Laura creates the feeling of a presence removed by making us ask, “who is the me?” The piece implicates the viewer, making you the subject and encouraging you to ask who the “me” is. The work reminds us of the basic human need to be remembered – and the role that film plays in this – as well as our fear of being forgotten.
GENEVIEVE GAIGNARD
Genevieve Gaignard is a Los Angelesbased artist whose work focuses on installation, sculpture and photographic self-portraiture to explore race, femininity and class. As a biracial woman in America,
allbrightcollective.com
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Laura Lancaster Me 12-25-35, 2012 Oil on canvas © the estate of the artist, courtesy Louise Clarke Collection, London
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Rose Finn-Kelcey The Restless Image: a discrepancy between the seen position and the felt position, 1975-2011 Selenium-toned bromide editioned print. © the Estate of Rose Finn-Kelcey, courtesy Louise Clarke Collection, London
ROSE FINN-KELCEY
British artist Rose Finn-Kelcey was a central figure in feminist art in the UK, working in a variety of media, including performance, video, sound, installation, sculpture, photography, papercut and posters. The photograph included in the AllBright West Hollywood hang is a self-portrait of Rose re-enacting a photograph she had found of her mother performing a handstand. In it the artist calls into question our perceptions of reality. The portrait depicts a seemingly carefree and confident figure as the artist’s skirt billows, revealing her legs. However, the fact that her face is obscured is telling. The photo’s title, The Restless Image: a discrepancy between the felt position and the seen position, points to an inconsistency between the internal experience and the one we see externally. As such, we question the ‘reality’ of a captured moment in time and space, where what we see isn’t always what we are being shown. A pertinent piece in the time of social media.
MARY KELLY
Mary Kelly is an artist that I have admired since I could read art history books. Practising from a feminist perspective for the past 50 years, Kelly interweaves the conceptual concerns with personal ones. Back in 1976, her installation at the ICA in London called Post-Partum Document caused a stir for its contents - an honest and objective depiction of the meaning of motherhood and discussions around the sexual division of labour. Mary Kelly is now based in LA but studied in the UK, at which point she became involved in the early women’s
addresses the history of cinema, referencing people such as Charlie Chaplin and exploring Modernist film devices. This is often done through a Cubist approach, such as her work on display in the club called Odeon. This portrays an old camera - like the one used by Chaplin - which has been reduced down to its parts and planes in a Cubist reference. It’s no coincidence that Story makes a connection between early cinema and European Cubism – both in their own way sought to reconsider the illusions within a given reality. Through her works, Story asks us to look at these realities via different dimensions. But these works also suit their surroundings, providing an aesthetic echo of the AllBright West Hollywood building itself – a modernist structure of glass and concrete.
Mary Kelly Peace is the Only Shelter, 2019 Duratran mounted on acrylic, powder-coated aluminium LED light box. © the artist, courtesy Vielmetter Gallery, Los Angeles vielmetter.com
liberation movement, and feminist theory and political discourse remain a constant theme throughout her practice. Displayed in the AllBright West Hollywood inaugural hang is Peace is the Only Shelter – a piece specific to LA because it employs slogans from the Women Strike for Peace group, which was formed in 1961 to protest against nuclear weapons testing in California. It’s a really beautiful light box where you see Mary’s silhouette with the desert behind her, holding an umbrella with the slogan around the rim.
CATHERINE STORY
Within the context of film, Catherine Story is another artist to highlight. In her practice, the English artist often
Catherine Story Odeon, 2011 Oil on wood, 76 x 102 cm photo: Stephen White © the artist, courtesy the artist catherinestory.com
I really hope this hang encourages you to actively look when you encounter the work. Whether that is by questioning how natural surroundings impact upon us, or thinking about how artificial, external factors like technology influence us, I hope these works encourage you to look in new ways and question what we’re seeing. I want the artists I’ve selected to inspire you to be active members of the AllBright community. After all, one way or another, we share an experience with of all of these artists.
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Spotlight on:
Sarah Ann Weber Curator Beth Greenacre meets one of the artists installed in the AllBright West Hollywood’s inaugural hang
Beth Greenacre: Let’s talk about your creative process. The drawings are often very large, with delicate, intricate detail. You ask the viewer to actively engage with the work, to decipher what they are looking at. Viewing your work takes time, there are slow reveals... Sarah Ann Weber: My process of making work is meandering in nature. |I start with intuitive gestures - a light outline of quick scribbles, sometimes watercolour pours - as a way to find and build forms out of the initial, instinctive moves. Then I take my time, honing in on small sections that grow and intertwine with others. The landscape’s flora bend and disappear to make room for the figures, which only exist in a state of evacuated detail. Even when the works are very large in scale, the marks I make stay small. I do this to draw the viewer in close to the surface, where subtlety of colour and hidden forms reveal themselves more clearly. Upon closer inspection, the beauty starts to shift: violence and decay start to creep in. BG: The flora and fauna that you reference, as well as your colour palette and the way you achieve something akin to that that bright light has on looking, made me presume that you were based somewhere more exotic than, say, my home in London. SAW: I have lived in Los Angeles for the past five years, but, like you, am more familiar with a very different landscape. I grew up in the Midwest, first in the
suburbs and then in the city of Chicago. When I moved to California, the change in sunlight and scenery was so transformative I had to adapt. Before my cross-country move my drawings were all graphite, grey scale. The switch to colour was immediate and natural. I would go on long walks in my new neighbourhood, soaking in the pink saturated sunsets and the wild, unfamiliar desert succulents.
SAW: Yes, in the past I pulled the photographs from a variety of sources, including fashion magazines, rock’n’roll photography books and movie stills. I print the photograph without colour so only the figure is reproduced. In this way I use the photograph as a skeleton – it provides the bones for the composition upon which I can elaborate with invented and remembered forms.
BG: You are currently preparing for an installation at Expo Chicago – your first presentation of work there since you left five years ago. What will you be showing?
BG: One of those forms is Hugh Hefner, of whom many people, including myself, will have negative memories. Yet when one explores his life you learn he was a political agitator, campaigner and philanthropist.
SAW: When I was preparing, I knew I wanted to create a timeless world that could exist in both cities, despite their natural and spatial differences. I began to pull photographic references from the late 1960s and early 1970s, an era that’s similar to now in its extreme social and political transformation. The Expo Chicago drawings include everything from the violent protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention to the opulent posturing of Hugh Hefner in the original Playboy Mansion in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighbourhood. BG: Is this the first time you’ve use photographs and reference real-time events in your work? If you are referencing visual material from significant historical events, I wonder how our collective memory mediates the reading of these new drawings?
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SAW: Hugh Hefner is a complex figure whose legacy continues to incite debate. Growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s I saw Hefner as a creepy old man in a silk bathrobe on the reality show The Girls Next Door. When I attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago I learnt that Hefner was an alumnus who had donated the original Playboy Mansion to the school. So whether I like it or not, I am a direct beneficiary of this polemic figure. As a feminist living in the era of #metoo and “grab them by the pussy” I find Hefner’s controversial legacy compelling territory. History is full of creepy, exploitative men, and to pretend that they are not part of the landscape seems irresponsible and disrespectful to those who are exploited. In my work, Hefner becomes “the antihero” instead.
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BOOKS
5 reads to see you through autumn THE CONFESSION by Jessie Burton
The bestselling author of The Miniaturist returns with her third novel, about a woman looking for her mother, who disappeared when she was a baby. Travelling to LA to meet the last woman to have THE TESTAMENTS seen her, this is a powerful tale of secrets, storytelling by Margaret Atwood and how we can both lose Atwood’s eagerly and find ourselves. awaited sequel to The Out now Handmaid’s Tale returns Picador us to the toxic world of Gilead, 15 years on from the end of the author’s dystopian masterpiece. Hailed as the literary event of the year, get ready to see Gilead’s story brought to a dramatic conclusion in this angry, pacey novel.
Out now Chatto & Windus
GRAND UNION by Zadie Smith
A collection of ten new short stories from the indefatigable Zadie Smith. Grand Union’s richly diverse stories take place across multiple genres and perspectives, from historical fiction to dystopian futures. Providing a wise, playful and richly varied THE DUTCH portrait of modern society, HOUSE Smith navigates themes by Ann Patchett of place, identity and rebirth with aplomb. Taking the guise of a dark fairytale, this novel about Out 3 October family, love and betrayal Hamish Hamilton centres on the bond between two siblings. Orange Prize-winning author Patchett employs her signature blend of wit and heartbreak to explore the powerful bonds of place and time, and the shadows cast by absent mothers.
Out 25 September Bloomsbury
OLIVE, AGAIN
by Elizabeth Strout The loveable Olive Kitteridge is back and adjusting to life with her second husband. Strout won a Pulitzer Prize and a place at the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list after she introduce readers to Olive first time around, so expect to be charmed all over again.
Out 31 October Viking
W H A T W E ' R E R E A D I N G , W AT C H I N G , D O W N L O A D I N G & F O L L O W I N G
FILM
The CULTURE Fix Cinema’s best upcoming offerings OFFICIAL SECRETS Based on a true story, this political docudrama about whistleblower Katharine Gun stars Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode and Rhys Ifans. Out 18 October. THE GOLDFINCH Nicole Kidman and Sarah Paulson star in this adaptation of the award-winning book by Donna Tartt. After an explosion at a New York museum, a young boy becomes the owner of a priceless piece of art. But as the work becomes a symbol of grief, guilt and loss to him, he has to work out how to get it back to where it belongs. Out 27 September. JUDY Renée Zellweger stars as Judy Garland in this biopic of the singer’s life. Set 30 years after The Wizard of Oz, Garland finds herself playing sell-out concerts in London in what would be the final weeks of her life. Out 4 October.
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arts & culture
APPS
3 stand-out self-care apps
MY POSSIBLE SELF Fill out a questionnaire and get a bespoke plan of self-help modules with this mental health app that's clinically proven to reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety and mild depression.
WHITE NOISE LITE White noise has been found to improve sleep, and this app lets you choose from different frequencies and sounds - rain falling or birds calling - for a personalised playlist.
Te l e v i s i o n
3 shows to stream this season
HAPPY NOT PERFECT With the help of neuroscientists and researchers, Poppy Jamie developed this app to help people proactively change their mindset. Expect an interactive workout of gratitude, breathing exercises and journalling.
PODCASTS
CONSCIOUS CHATTER Sustainability advocate Kestrel Jenkins sits down with industry pioneers to encourage conversations around those uncomfortable questions, such as where our clothes come from, who made them and with what materials. TALKING TASTEBUDS Hosted by AllBright contributor and vegan Venetia Falconer, this weekly podcast sees her chat to special guests about their life with food, from favourite comfort dishes to death-row dinners. WARDROBE CRISIS Presented by Clare Press, Australian Vogue’s sustainability editor-at-large, Wardrobe Crisis is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about sustainable fashion, from the circular economy to modern slavery and plastic pollution.
Seven Worlds, One Planet Out soon Sir David Attenborough’s BBC documentaries always pull in serious viewing figures, but his next venture, Seven Worlds, One Planet is set to be his landmark series. Taking a total of four years to film, it explores each of the seven continents, uncovering the different natural wonders that make each one special.
MUSIC
All available from the App Store
Get ready for former Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon to flex her creative muscles as she releases her debut solo album, No Home Record (Out 11 October). A well-regarded figure in the New York indie rock scene, Gordon recorded this album in LA, the city she now calls home. The second album from FKA twigs, Magdalene (Out 25 October) was a transatlantic endeavour, having been recorded in LA, London and New York. Written after a period of heartbreak and serious illness, it’s filled with intense vulnerability. Finally, under-the-radar North London trio Girl Ray release their new album, Girl (Out 8 November). Expect a playful, synth-heavy, retro pop vibe.
The Crown Out 17 November A new season and a new cast as Olivia Colman succeeds Claire Foy i n this third instalment of Netflix’s royal biopic. Picking up from the Profumo affair, expect plenty more aristocratic drama, from Princess Margaret’s marriage breaking down to Prince Charles’s early romance with Camilla Parker-Bowles.
The Politician
If there’s one thing that will inspire you to protect the natural world, it’s Shannon Wild’s incredible wildlife photography. This is still a male-dominated field, but supporting women like Shannon is one way to help change that.
Out 27 September This blockbuster new dark comedy series on Netfllix sees Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Zoey Deutch and Jessica Lange unite in a political satire set in a Californian high school. In the director’s seat is Ryan Murphy, the man behind American Crime Story, so expect an equally compelling, binge-worthy series.
@shannon__wild
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Taking the Lead As her first lead role is set to hit the screens, actor and AllBright founding member Naomie Harris talks sustainability, sexism and success in her forties INTERVIEW LUCIANA BELLINI PHOTOGRAPHY ERIK MADIGAN HECK
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“I do think for women there are these markers in their lives – 27 and then 35 and beyond. For me, there’s been a significant shift at those ages, and I think that’s connected to a sense of confidence that comes from maturity” 20
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pend a few minutes in the company of Naomie Harris and you’ll quickly forget you’re in the presence of a Hollywood megastar. In fact, one phone interview with the north London-born, Cambridge-educated actress confirms her as one of the most disarmingly down-to-earth, easy-going people you’re likely to meet. Warm and funny, she frequently breaks off mid-chat to enthuse about London’s unusually sunny weather - “It’s amazing what a difference it makes - everyone just comes alive” - or erupt into peals of laughter over a self-deprecating remark, like recalling her former red carpet fashion mishaps: “Oh my gosh, what was I thinking?” Yet Naomie Harris, 43, also belongs to that rare breed of actress who is almost as well known for what she says off screen as on it. Ferociously smart and extremely eloquent, she has spoken out in the past about her passion for the environment, being a woman of colour in Hollywood and sexism in the industry. Take her turn as the steely Eve Moneypenny in the James Bond franchise, when she famously asked the press to stop referring to them as “Bond girls”, as she found the term demeaning, preferring “Bond women”. Harris prioritises complex, fascinating female characters and has always been incredibly choosy about the roles she takes on. To date, her CV includes stellar performances as Winnie Mandela, barrister Gail Perkins in the film adaptation of John le Carré’s Our Kind of Traitor, and an impressive turn as drug-addict Paula in the Oscar-winning hit Moonlight, which earned Harris
her own Academy Award nomination. Harris explains that strong female roles are the only ones she’s interested in playing, because she knows them to be the truth. “That’s my experience of being with women,” she says. “I think we have been sold a lie, ultimately, that women are the weaker sex. I grew up in an environment full of strong, powerful women - my aunts, my mum’s friends, and also my mum, who is this really incredible role model for me. I want to represent those women, because that’s what I know to be my truth.” Harris grew up working class, the only child of a single mother - a former journalist turned healer. The two are extremely close and still live on the same street in north London. She had no relationship with her father, who left her mother before she was born, until four years ago, when she sought him out as part of a form of therapy she was undertaking. “Family is really important to me,” she explains. “It’s vital to my sanity.” And, it would seem, her education. It was her mother who persuaded her to continue her studies when all Harris wanted to do was pursue acting, leading her to Cambridge to study social and political science. Despite concerns over coming from a different background to the majority of the students, Harris didn’t let that faze her. Instead, she has said in the past that “it’s an important statement, given my visibility, as to what can be achieved from any background”. And achieve she has, though in her own way and on her own terms. Her next film, Black and Blue, is out in October and - hard as this may be to believe - it will be Harris’s first lead role. “I’ve always said that I never wanted to play a lead, because as the lead you’re in every scene, you have the weight of the movie on you,” she says thoughtfully. “I find acting pressured enough as it is. I love it, it’s my chosen profession, but you’re running on adrenalin a lot of the time, so I thought, ‘Being number two or three on the call sheet is perfectly fine’.” It was the script that swayed her. In the film she plays Alicia West, a rookie cop who witnesses her fellow police officers murder a kid, unwittingly capturing it on her bodycam. “I’d just done the Moonlight awards season and I was burnt out,” recalls
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“We have power, and the power is in our purse, and where we choose to spend our money - it’s about having awareness about which brands are supporting sustainability and which aren’t” Harris. “But it’s so unusual to have a female lead who’s a cop, and the film deals with so many topical issues. It’s just a beautiful story about how one person can make a difference, which I think is a really powerful message that we need right now.” The shift to leading lady came about after Moonlight - the last film Harris expected to make a difference. “Throughout my career people have said, ‘When you do Pirates of the Caribbean, that’s going to really change your career.’ Or when I did 28 Days Later, ‘all the doors are going to open for you now’. But what really had the biggest impact was Moonlight. It has meant a huge shift in terms of the amount of material that’s come my way - I wouldn’t have been offered the lead in Black and Blue if it wasn’t for Moonlight, for sure.” Now that filming for Black and Blue has wrapped, all her focus is on the next Bond film, No Time to Die, which has signed up Phoebe Waller-Bridge as part of the writing team. I ask if this means we’re likely to see more fully fleshed-out female characters than we might usually expect from a Bond film. “I would say we’ve seen a gradual progression to the women’s narrative being in the foreground, and I think this is going to be the biggest exploration of that,” says Harris. “It makes complete sense, therefore, that Phoebe has joined the writing team at this stage.” Along with Bond, Harris has noticed other seismic changes within the industry with regards to women, especially since the Time’s Up petition, which she publicly signed. “I’m actually blown away by how powerful the movement has been in changing culture,” she says.
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“There’s been a massive shift. It’s really wonderful to see, because it’s becoming much more of an egalitarian environment, a safer environment for women - and that’s what it always should have been.” As a result, she’s particularly excited by the launch of The AllBright West Hollywood this month, saying she expects it to be embraced with open arms by the industry. “There’s a new culture that’s emerged of women helping other women, so there’s a real camaraderie in place of the competition that existed before. Any environment that fosters that is definitely going to be welcomed.” She’s also happy to report that the way Hollywood sees mature actresses is changing, and Harris is living proof of that. In the past few years, her career has gone stratospheric, with her Oscar nomination coming at the age of 40 and being swiftly followed by an OBE for services to drama that same year. “If you look at the most successful actresses, they’re in their fifties and sixties,” says Harris. “I don’t know how old Meryl Streep is, or Judi Dench, but these women are the most sought-after actresses in their profession. If you love your craft and do a good job, there’s room for everyone at every age, and that’s really fantastic to see.” Alongside acting and female empowerment, there’s one more cause close to her heart: sustainability. Harris says it’s something she’s been interested in ever since being diagnosed with a rare condition as a teenager that meant she had to look after her health and her diet. “I was very focused on the power of good nutrition to heal the body and I wanted to understand where our food came from. Because the more that we abuse nature, the more it
affects the food chain.” She now eats a largely plant-based diet and is very conscious about the way she consumes, whether it’s what she eats, the events she goes to - such as the Formula E Championship for electric cars, which she attended in Monaco earlier this year - or what she wears. As a result, she became the face of H&M’s Conscious collection earlier this year, where all the pieces are made from sustainable materials, such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. “I know lots of people knock H&M and fast fashion, and no brand is going to be perfect - this is a road with pitfalls and people are going to slip up. I don’t think you should knock people who are trying to progress in the right direction, and that’s what H&M is doing. The power is in our purse, through where we choose to spend our money - it’s about having awareness about which brands are supporting sustainability and which aren’t.” As for her own wardrobe, she’s worked with several stylists who focus on pulling together sustainable looks, including Rebecca CorbinMurray, who created an entirely sustainable wardrobe for one of Emma Watson’s film tours - a feat Harris describes as “a massive statement, but actually a very hard thing to do”. She’s about to head off to enjoy London in the sunshine, so I ask if we can expect to see her in more lead roles in the future, now that she’s nailed her first one. She laughs. “I never thought I’d play a lead, but then I absolutely LOVED it. So I’ve said to my team, ‘Ok, just lead roles from now on!’” Somehow, I don’t think she’ll have any problem with that. Black and Blue is out on 25 October
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The
Trailblazers Whether it’s campaigning for conservation, promoting clean energy or battling against plastic, women are making waves within environmentalism and sustainability. Meet the most influential females in green… WORDS HARRIET COOPER
Greta Thunb e rg
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Climate activist and founder of Fridays for Future
hen Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was invited to attend this year’s UN Climate Action Summit in New York, she categorically refused to fly, instead hitching a lift on a 60-foot zero-carbon racing yacht to make the journey across the Atlantic. The crossing took two weeks, on rough seas, and when Greta sailed into NY harbour, she was greeted by hundreds of supporters and, of course, the world’s press. Stepping onto dry land, she declared: "The climate and ecological crisis is the biggest humanity has ever faced and if we don't manage to work together and co-operate despite our differences, we will fail…Let's not wait any longer, let's do it now." What makes this all the more astonishing is the fact that Greta is just 16 years old. And yet, despite her young age, she has single-handedly galvanised a whole generation into
taking a stand about the state of our planet, recently receiving Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for her efforts. Her pledge to strike every single Friday for climate action is now a worldwide movement – Fridays For Future – with almost 2 million young people involved across 150 countries. It has catapulted Greta onto the world stage; she’s told members of Congress in Washington DC to “wake up”, given a TED talk, addressed delegates at the Davos World Economic Forum, and made speeches in Parliament, using these as a platform to repeatedly call world leaders to account, castigating them for their decades of inaction. “This ongoing irresponsible behavior will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind,” she declared in the House of Commons earlier this year. A few days later, MPs approved a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency.
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the eco inf luencers
MAY BOEVE
KIKO MATTHEWS
K ATE GARVEY
May Boeve has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change since 2007, when she co-founded the US grassroots organisation 350.org, which aims to build a world of community-led renewable energy for all. Now its executive director, she is unswerving in her dedication, earning herself the nickname activist-in-chief after being instrumental in the historic People’s Climate March in New York in 2014.
Following a diagnosis of Cushing’s disease, Kiko Matthews put her job on hold to do things that helped the planet and that challenged her in the process, including becoming the fastest woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean as a solo rower. Her latest project, KikPlastic, saw Kiko cycle 7,000km around the UK and Ireland, completing regular beach cleans to raise awareness of the problem of single-use plastic.
Kate Garvey - whose career has seen her work as an aide to Tony Blair at Downing Street and now as a director at PR firm Freud Communications - is the co-founder of Project Everyone. The brainchild of Richard Curtis, the not-for-profit agency is made up of communications and campaign specialists aiming towards a fairer world by 2030, in which poverty has been eradicated and climate change is properly addressed.
JUDY LING WONG
ERIN BROCKOVICH
WINONA L ADUKE
Hong Kong-born Judy Ling Wong established the Black Environment Network in 1987, focusing on integrating environmental, social and cultural issues in the context of sustainable development, earning both an OBE and a CBE in the process. These days, she divides her time between her work as an artist and sitting on a number of advisory boards and committees, where she is a major voice on policy towards social inclusion.
She was the legal researcher who, through dogged determination, helped build a case against Pacific Gas and Electric Company for their contamination of California groundwater, which resulted in the largest medical settlement lawsuit in history - a tale made famous in the 2000 film starring Julia Roberts. As president of Brockovich Research & Consulting, Erin continues to be involved in environmental projects worldwide, as well as running her charitable foundation.
Winona LaDuke - who lives on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota - is executive director of Honor the Earth, which creates awareness and support for Native environmental issues and develops resources for sustainable Native communities. Her CV is impressive: she also ran for vice president as the nominee of the Green Party of the United States in both 1996 and 2000.
Director of 350.org
Environmental activist and artist
Social entrepreneur and environmental champion
Environmental activist
Co-founder of Project Everyone
Executive director of Honor the Earth
CAMPAIGNERS allbrightcollective.com
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Naomi Klein
Au t h o r, j o u r n a l i s t , f i l m m a k e r a n d a c t i v i s t The 1999 publication of No Logo, a critique of consumer culture, took the world by storm and shot its author Naomi Klein to fame. She has since used her public platform to campaign tirelessly, addressing issues from factory workers’ rights to disaster capitalism and championing ecological justice. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate (2014), arguably one of Naomi’s most provocative works, tackles the war our economic model is waging against life on earth, winning her the acclaimed Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-fiction. Though her new book On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal - a series of longform essays about the climate crisis - promises to be equally as thoughtprovoking, prompting Greta Thunberg to say: “Naomi Klein’s work has always moved and guided me. She is the great chronicler of our age of climate emergency, an inspirer of generations.”
Naomi is currently serving as the first Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, and is a founder of Canada’s Leap Manifesto, a series of political demands that would get the country off fossil fuels. She also sits on the board of climate change action group 350.org.
Annie Leonard Filmmaker and founder of The Story of Stuff Project In December 2007, a 20-minute animated film was launched online that would take the world by storm. The Story of Stuff, written and narrated by Annie Leonard, looks at the way we make, use and throw away all the “stuff” in our lives. Heavily critical of global consumption patterns, the film has been watched by millions. On the back of its success, The Story of Stuff Project was founded, making other films to inspire viewers to do their bit for the
environment. Annie is now executive director of Greenpeace USA, though remains a strategic advisor to The Story of Stuff Project and is on the board of directors.
LU C Y SIEGLE JOURNALIST, AUTHOR & BROADCASTER What Lucy Siegle doesn’t know about ethical living isn’t worth knowing. She has written a weekly Observer column on the subject for 15-plus years, while also authoring books including Green Living in the Urban Jungle and To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?, which formed the basis of the 2015 documentary The True Cost. Although the eco lifestyle expert is well-versed on all environmental issues, speaking about them regularly on TV and radio and as a reporter on BBC One’s The One Show, fast fashion is a particular bugbear and she is credited with devising the Green Carpet Challenge - an initiative led by sustainability consultancy Eco-Age (for which Lucy is a contributing editor) - that champions brands who put sustainability in the spotlight. For her latest book, Turning the Tide on Plastic, Lucy turns her attention to single-use plastic, providing a practical guide to help us take decisive and effective action to end the pandemic.
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the eco inf luencers
E N T E RTA I N M E N T I N D U S T RY
Daryl Hannah A c t o r
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No one could accuse Daryl Hannah of jumping on the green bandwagon. The Hollywood actor - who has a string of films to her name including Splash and Kill Bill - has been a bona fide eco activist for years. Her home is solar-powered, her car runs on biodiesel and she’s been a vegetarian since the age of 11. But that’s not the half of it. She has been on a whale-saving mission to Antarctica, was executive producer of Greedy Lying Bastards, a 2012 documentary exposing the climate change deniers, and has been arrested a handful of times for her environmental activism, largely as a result of her vehement opposition to the Keystone Pipeline, an oil pipeline system in Canada and the US.
L AURIE DAVID Author, producer & environmental advocate
Laurie David burst onto the environmental stage in 2006 with her film An Inconvenient Truth, based on Al Gore’s 30 years of research on global warming. Scooping up every accolade possible, including an Academy Award, the film woke the world up to climate change. That same year also saw the release of her cautionary TV documentary Too Hot Not to Handle, which touched on everything from the greenhouse effect to alternative power sources. Laurie continues to be a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the hugely influential New York-based environmental action organisation with more than three million members and online activists, and writes (she is a regular blogger for The Huffington Post) and campaigns about matters close to her heart, from environmental issues to America’s obesity epidemic. Her unfailing commitment to the cause has seen Laurie receive a Humanitas Prize Special Award, the Feminist Majority’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award and the NRDC Forces for Nature award, among many others.
Orla Doherty BBC producer of Planet Earth: Blue Planet II and expert in underwater filming It’s Orla Doherty we have to thank for the gripping 60-minute deep sea episode of Blue Planet, for which she and her team spent more than 500 hours in a submarine. She also produced the series’ final episode, Our Blue Planet, which highlights the devastating impacts that pollutants and plastics can have on the ocean. “I’ve seen plastic on a remote island thousands of miles from any human to the very bottom of the ocean 3,000 metres from the surface,” she says. “It’s everywhere.”
E M M A WAT S O N Actress, activist & ethical fashion pioneer
Actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson is passionate about ethical fashion. Since signing up for the Green Carpet Challenge in 2015 - and working closely alongside stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray - Emma has drawn our attention to the fashion houses leading the eco way, as well as shining a light on the lesser-known responsibly produced labels. Earlier this year she partnered with Good On You, an app that provides trusted brand ratings for ethical and sustainable fashion. Of the partnership she said: “Fashion is a creative force. It has the power to persuade, to influence, and transform. When fashion truly embraces transparency and sustainability, other spheres will follow. We’re on a journey towards a more sustainable future. This is just the beginning.”
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Fashion designer Katharine Hamnett was campaigning for the environment 30 years ago - and she shows no signs of giving up the fight
FASH Vivienne Westwood
Fashion designer and environmental campaigner Vivienne Westwood has been mobilising international attention around the ecological crusade for decades. Whether sending climate zombies down the runway or driving a tank to David Cameron’s house in an anti-fracking protest, the outspoken septuagenarian has been fearless and tireless in her positive activism. She and her husband and design partner Andreas Kronthaler are patrons of rainforest charity Cool Earth, having donated over £1.5 million to date.
Orsola de Castro and Carry Somers
Back in the 1980s, I started trying to make my business as sustainable as possible, using organic cotton and doing what I could to reduce carbon emissions. The industry wasn’t keen at all. People who had been friendly were suddenly unfriendly. People I’d bought hundreds of thousands of metres of conventional cotton from were saying, “why should we do organic cotton when you’re the only one asking for it?” It’s hugely encouraging now that people are talking about sustainability. But there hasn’t been nearly enough action. The same things within the fashion industry that were bad for the environment 30 years ago are still bad - intensive conventional cotton farming, the tanning process, polluting dyes, the use of plastics. I’ve seen the growth of consumer concerns but I’ve also seen the rise of companies ‘greenwashing’ and “let’s pretend we’re doing something”.
I was feeling disillusioned and took a break from the fashion industry. It was difficult to get cooperation. I didn’t want to make a living at the expense of environmental degradation and human suffering. It’s a moral dilemma. Anyone can get successful being a bastard. I think the challenge is trying to be successful on your own terms and being a decent human being. It’s great to be back on the fashion scene. We’re selling all over the world, in beautiful shops. And every season, sustainability is getting easier - you can now find the materials, and people cooperate because people actually care and support you because they believe in it. I want to get involved in recycling ocean plastics, using new sustainable fabrics, and continuing to promote organic cotton and championing legislation that would improve the lives of clothing-factory workers. People say these things usually take about 30 years, but 30 years is too long.
Founders of Fashion Revolution Following the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh in 2013, where 1,138 people died, Orsola de Castro and Carry Somers felt compelled to launch Fashion Revolution. Now a global movement, it works towards systematic reform of the fashion industry, with a particular focus on transparency. Its annual Fashion Revolution Week encourages consumers to ask brands #whomademyclothes.
Bethany Williams Fashion designer Bethany Williams is driven by her strong belief in effecting change through fashion, achievable through collaborations with communities and charities. She worked alongside the Vauxhall Foodbank and Tesco, for example, on her much-lauded Breadline collection (all completely recycled), to highlight the hidden hunger in the UK. Her social and environmental conscience saw her become the second recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design earlier this year, an honour that recognises talent, community values and sustainability practices.
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ION Arizona Muse
Model, designer and environmental activist She’s graced magazine covers the world over, but model Arizona Muse is also something of an eco-fashion heavyweight. She sits on the board of The Sustainable Angle - a not-forprofit organisation that focuses on lowering the environmental impact of the fashion industry; and last year, she became an ambassador for the work of Synchronicity Earth, highlighting fashion’s impact on biodiversity. “The work I’m doing now on sustainability is so fascinating to me and fills me with so much energy and enthusiasm because I really see the potential for change,” she says.
the eco inf luencers
Livia Firth Creative director of Eco-Age and co-founder of the Green Carpet Challenge
Safia Minney Social entrepreneur and founder of People Tree When Safia Minney MBE founded the ethical label People Tree in 1991, it was a trailblazer in sustainable Fairtrade fashion. Over the following three decades, the brand’s core mission has never wavered: every product is made to the highest ethical and environmental standards. Having stepped down as its Global CEO after 20+ years in Japan and the UK, Safia runs a consulting business to promote leadership for sustainable business and responsible supply chains.
Eco-Age was once a store in Chiswick offering stylish eco products, established by Livia Firth and her brother Nicola. All that changed when Livia visited a garment factory in Bangladesh and was appalled at the conditions. “When I came back I told Nicola we had to forget about the shop - this is gigantic. We have huge human rights and environmental issues within fashion - what can we do about it? And that was the new phase of Eco-Age.” A decade on, and the London-based sustainability consultancy agency goes from strength to strength, advising businesses worldwide on how best to achieve growth by adding value through a more ethical outlook. Livia, alongside her friend, the writer Lucy Siegle, is also behind the hugely successful Green Carpet Challenge, an Eco-Age initiative that puts sustainability in the spotlight via the red carpet.
Céline Samaan Designer and founder of Slow Factory Céline Samaan wears many hats. She is the founder of Slow Factory, a fashion label and design lab that works on products that raise consciousness about social issues. She’s also behind the annual UN summit on fashion sustainability Study Hall, and even finds the time to write thought-provoking pieces on ethical matters for everyone from The Cut to the Huffington Post indeed, it was Céline who first coined the term “fashion activism”.
Livia Firth with Alberta Ferretti, who collaborated with Eco-Age on the Love Me collection
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Oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer
ver since she was knocked over by a wave when she was just three years old, Dr Sylvia Earle has been fascinated by the ocean. Moving to the Florida coast as a teenager, her passion showed no sign of abating and, after obtaining a master’s degree in botany from Duke University, her successful career as a research biologist and scientist spanned more than five decades. Hers is a life of truly humbling achievements. In 1970, Sylvia, together with four other female oceanographers, lived in an underwater chamber for two weeks to study undersea habits. In 1979, she walked untethered on the seafloor at 1,250ft - a lower depth than any human had gone before. Sylvia and her former husband designed the submersible in the 1980s, opening up the deep sea to scientists. The following decade, she became the first female chief scientist of the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; she founded Deep Ocean Exploration and Research to further advance marine engineering; and, since 1998, she has been a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. Often referred to as Her Royal Deepness or The Sturgeon General, in her lifetime Sylvia has led more than 100 marine expeditions - from the Galápagos to the Indian Ocean - logging more than 7,000 hours under the water; in fact, she reckons she’s spent nearly a year of her life submerged since she first dived in Florida, aged 16. After winning the 2009 TED Prize, Earle launched the charity Mission Blue, which aims to establish marine-protected areas, otherwise known as ‘Hope Spots’. She works tirelessly towards its vision of achieving 30% protection of the ocean by 2030. She also serves on several boards, including that of the Marine Conservation Institute. At the age of 84, the indefatigable oceanographer shows no signs of slowing down. “I just can’t give up and I won’t give up, because I can see the better place that we have to get to if we are to succeed as a civilisation,” she said in an interview with Whalebone magazine. “We have to have greater respect for the natural world, for wildlife. We have to be able to explore and understand and communicate to a much broader audience than is now involved about why we must step back from the killing of the ocean systems that keep us alive. Fall down 1,000 times, get back up 1,001 times.”
Katharine Hayhoe Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist, which, in her own words, means, “I study climate change, one of the most pressing issues we face today. I don’t accept global warming on faith: I crunch the data, I analyse the models, I help engineers and city managers and ecologists quantify the impacts.” She’s also an evangelical Christian and climate change advocate, serving as an advisor on every manner of boards, committees and panels; she’s written countless papers, teaches, and gives talks to academic and religious groups, as well as interacting with cities, stakeholders and decision-makers “to provide the climate information they need to prepare for the future. There’s never a dull moment.”
Jane Goodall Primatologist and environmental activist In July 1960, equipped with little more than her notebook and a pair of binoculars, 26-year-old Jane Goodall left the UK for what is now Tanzania and ventured into what was then the little-known world of chimpanzees. So began 60 years of groundbreaking work, not only field research to protect her beloved primates from extinction, but also as an environmental activist. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, redefining traditional conservation efforts to include the needs of local people and their surroundings. At the age of 85, Jane continues to travel the world to spread her message of hope for a better world, and she was recently interviewed by Prince Harry in the September 2019 issue of Vogue, guest-edited by Meghan Markle.
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Emily Penn Ocean advocate and co-founder of eXXpedition It was during a trip from England to Australia aboard a biofuel boat that Emily Penn first encountered microplastics and the harm they cause, prompting her to devote eight years at sea researching how vital the ocean is to the health of our planet. Today, her focus is eXXpedition, of which she is co-founder and mission director, a series of all-female voyages around the world that looks at toxics and plastics in our ocean. The next trip, eXXpedition Round The World 2019-21, will cover over 38,000 nautical miles and 30 voyage legs, enabling 300 women to go to sea as hands-on crew.
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CAROLINE LUCAS Green Party MP Caroline Lucas’s lightbulb moment was while reading Jonathon Porritt’s Seeing Green: The Politics of Ecology Explained in her bedsit in Clapham in the 1980s. Two decades later and she was leading the Green Party, a tenure she repeated between 2016 and 2018, sharing the post with Jonathan Bartley. Caroline was also the first ever Green MP to be elected to Westminster when she won Brighton Pavilion in the 2010 General Election, a role she still holds since stepping down as leader of the Green Party last year. She continues to be steadfast in her dedication to tackling climate change and is fiercely anti-fracking. “The world's top scientists are warning we need to halve global climate emissions in the next 11 years to avoid catastrophe. The facts demand a huge international effort - from governments, business and the public. But those in power will only act if we tell them to. So talk about climate breakdown - to your friends, your family, your neighbours and your colleagues. Join young people on school strikes. Join peaceful direct action initiatives such as Extinction Rebellion. Write to your MP. Write to your councillors. Write to your banks. This is a climate emergency. Let’s treat it like one."
Deepika Kurup Scientist and clean water advocate When New Hampshire-born Deepika Kurup witnessed children in India drinking from a pool of stagnant water she knew she had to help. So, aged just 14, she developed a solar-powered purification system in her backyard, which would quickly and inexpensively remove bacteria from water. The prototype not only saw Deepika garner countless awards, including America’s Top Young Scientist, it also caught the eye of President Obama, who asked the Harvard student to become an advocate for getting young people interested in science. Deepika continues to focus on the global water crisis as founder and CEO of the social enterprise Catalyst for World Water.
M A R I N A S I LV A Brazilian former minister and environmental activist One of 11 children, Marina Silva grew up in a community of rubber workers in rural Brazil. After moving to the city of Rio Branco, aged 16, she became the first woman in her family to read and write, going on to complete a university degree in history. It was during this time that she became politically active - in 1994, she was the first rubber tapper ever elected to the Federal Senate. Her focus as a politician has always been the Amazon rainforest; over 25 years, Marina has been relentless in promoting the protection of the reserves, as well as for social justice and sustainable development in the region - often to much opposition from the large agribusinesses. In addition to this, she’s won the Goldman Environmental Prize for South and Central America, was appointed Brazil’s environment minister, launched a new political party called the Sustainability Network in 2013, and even ran for president.
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Lisa Jackson Vice pre side nt o f E nvironme nt, Polic y a nd Socia l Initiativ e s , App le
Danielle Azoulay
Head of sustainability for L’Oréal USA By the end of 2019, L’Oréal’s 21 US Operations facilities will all be carbon neutral. This is in large part thanks to Danielle Azoulay, who, along with the L’Oréal team, has also seen the beauty giant surpass its 2020 carbon reduction goals way ahead of schedule and achieve 100% renewable electricity. It’s all part of L’Oréal Group’s global sustainability programme, Sharing Beauty With All, which is led by L’Oréal’s chief corporate responsibility officer Alexandra Palt. The brand recently announced its commitment to make all its plastic packaging rechargeable, refillable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, as part of the New Plastics Economy Initiative led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Lisa Jackson (previously administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency under Barack Obama) joined Apple in 2013, and has since implemented a number of high-profile environmental projects at the tech company, including the use of renewable energy, more eco-friendly manufacturing processes and the deployment of greener materials. Her success is multifold: last year Apple reached its goal of being powered by 100% renewable electricity and it is well on track to exceed its goal of putting four gigawatts of clean energy online by 2020. Lisa was also instrumental in the enclosures of the new MacBook Air and Mac Mini being made from 100% recycled aluminum. In her introductory letter for the company’s Environmental Responsibility 2019 Progress Report, she wrote: “In a time where the threats facing our planet are too great to ignore,
we are demonstrating that businesses must play a vital role. We are proud to do the hard work, to make the breakthroughs, and tirelessly search for ways to ensure the better future for our planet that we all deserve.”
JESSI BAKER D e sig ne r, te chnolo gis t, socia l e ntre p re n eur a nd founde r o f Prov e nance Juliet Davenport Founder and CEO of Good Energy As the great storm of 1987 raged outside, Juliet Davenport was sitting in an Oxford University library as a student, pondering climate physics. It was, she said, her eureka moment and, from then on, she became determined to do her bit for the environment. In a bid to create a greener, cleaner future, Juliet founded Good Energy in 1999, a 100% renewable energy company. Thanks to Juliet’s hard graft and grit, the company is now one of the largest of its kind in the UK, with six solar and two wind parks in its portfolio, serving around 250,000 customers. Juliet continues to lead and innovate in the energy sector and was awarded an OBE for her services in 2013.
With a master’s in engineering from the University of Cambridge and in design from the Royal College of Art under her belt, Jessi Baker went on to do a PhD in computer science at UCL. It was during this time that she founded Provenance, in 2013. Born out of her frustration at the lack of information available around the things we buy, and the fact that opaque supply chains can harm the environment, people, animals and communities, Jessi developed the digital platform to help ethical businesses and organisations build customer trust through transparency. This is done through blockchain technology - essentially, software that involves everyone in the supply chain. The result? Not only can businesses bring a “digital dimension to products, to reinforce a genuine connection between the people who create and consume them”, but it also enables customers to see where a product
comes from, from its origin to its point of sale. "Behind every product is a complex chain of people and places and that's a really important part of why people buy things," Jessi has said. "Provenance is all about making that information transparent to shoppers but also to businesses all along the supply chain."
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HEN WE STARTED ALLBRIGHT, WE WANTED TO CREATE A COMMUNITY THAT WOULD HELP ELICIT CHANGE FOR WOMEN.
Since then, a wave of feminine energy has been rising and the world is changing fast as women themselves lead the charge. It’s remarkable to see the positive impact that occurs when this community comes together, but it also makes us reflect on the world we’re living in and ask what else needs to improve. The most obvious answer to that is the profound impact we’re having on our planet. Our mission to turn ALLBRIGHT ALLGREEN is an incredibly important initiative for us. We’re still learning about how we can make AllBright as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible, and we hope that you will join us on that journey. This guide covers the simple, everyday things we can all do to protect our planet. Change starts with the smallest actions, but undertaken together these can make a real difference. As we all now know, great things happen when women come together… Anna Jones & Debbie Wosskow, OBE
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Ditch chemical pesticides for organic gardening solutions instead. Broken eggshells, coffee grounds and copper piping will deter slugs, while plant oils such as peppermint, cedarwood and orange will kill or deter pests. Hide your more vulnerable plants beside hardier species, and make your garden welcoming for natural predators such as birds, ladybirds, lacewings and frogs, who pick off aphids and slugs. Finally, make a compost heap - composting scraps reduces climate impact while also recycling nutrients.
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Bees are an essential part of the food chain. Around a third of our food is pollinated by them, without counting the food that other species rely on. Honeybees are still dying, but we can help by growing flowering plants all year round - crocus, primroses and lavender are particular favourties. Better still, build a bee B&B and give them a home - the RSPB site has instructions (rspb.org.uk).
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GET GREEN-FINGERED
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Climate change is the most pressing matter of our time – it’s up to all of us to help. Small changes can make a big difference when everyone adopts them. Here are a few tips to help you start… WORDS TABITHA LASLEY
GO ELECTRIC Electric cars are not only better for the planet, they’re cheaper to own and run than their gas-guzzling competitors. They may cost more upfront, but studies have shown you’ll recoup that money in about four years through savings on petrol and diesel. Up until now, the only drawback has been the distance they can last, making them more suitable for city driving, but this is changing. The sporty BMW i3 (bmw.co.uk) can go 190 miles on one charge – that’s the equivalent of travelling from London to the Cotswolds and back again.
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H O M E SWITCH TO GREEN ENERGY Know your options: Pure Planet (purepla.net) produces 100% renewable electricity and carbonoffset gas. People’s Energy (peoplesenergy.co.uk) offers 100% green electricity and - as the name suggests - returns 75% of its profits to members. Good Energy (goodenergy.co.uk) offers 100% green electricity and some green gas, produced by breaking down organic matter. Ecotricity (ecotricity.co.uk) supplies 100% green electricity, frack-free gas and is the only UK energy company registered with The Vegan Society. CRUNCH THE NUMBERS Download an app like Oroeco (oroeco.com) or go to WWF’s footprint calculator (footprint.wwf. org.uk) to calculate your carbon footprint. Next, use Omni Calculator (omnicalculator.com/ ecology/plastic-footprint), which will do the same for plastic. Then use the JouleBug app (joulebug. com), which helps you form eco-friendly habits. TAKE SIMPLE STEPS Remember, the little things make a big difference.
Turn lights off when you leave a room. Keep the central heating low unless it’s freezing. Don’t leave devices on standby. Opt for showers over baths, and don’t leave the tap running when you clean your teeth. GET SMART Installing a smart meter (smartenergygb.org) in your home helps the world and your wallet. These clever devices send details of your usage straight to suppliers, so they’ll send you an accurate bill back, rather than an estimate. From there, you’ll know exactly what you’re using and how much it costs, helping you reduce consumption. CLEAN UP YOUR ACT Ditch the chemical-laden cleaning products, and make your own allpurpose cleaner with bicarbonate of soda, essential oils and vinegar instead. Alternatively, choose an non-toxic brand such as Method, Tincture and Bio D. FIND FURNITURE A NEW HOME Household goods don’t need to go to landfill. Donate unwanted furniture to reuse-network.org. uk, which supports families in crisis.
C ARE FOR YOUR CLOTHES BAG IT UP Put laundry in a Guppy Friend wash bag (polarnopyret.co.uk). It will stop 90-95% of microfibers getting into the water, and protect your clothes. WEAR TWICE Washing clothes less frequently increases their lifespan and saves on both water and energy. Try airing them first, hanging them by an open window or in the bathroom when you have a shower. STICK TO 30 Turning the temperature down means you use less energy, release fewer microfibres into the water and your colours fade more slowly. Just make sure you put a full load on every time. DITCH STANDARD DETERGENTS A chemical-free Ecoegg (ecoegg. com) can last for up to 50 washes, but if you do use detergent, choose an eco-friendly brand such as Ecover, The Gentle Label and Faith In Nature. TURN OFF THE TUMBLE-DRYER Tumble-dryers damage fibres, use up a tremendous amount of energy and contribute to indoor air pollution, so go back to basics and air-dry
your clothes instead. If you don't have an alternative, use Ecoegg’s Dryer Egg (ecoegg.com), which cuts drying time by 28%. DRY CLEAN NATURALLY If you have garments that need dry cleaning, use an eco-friendly company like BLANC (blancliving. co) in London, or Bee Organic in LA (beeorganicla.com). MAKE DO AND MEND When it comes to pollutants, the textile industry is second only to oil, so repair clothes, rather than throwing them away and buying anew. If you don’t know how to sew, get them mended. Most dry cleaners do repairs and cobblers will re-heel and re-sole shoes for a fraction of their price. SEEK A SECOND CHANCE Once clothes have come to the end of their life, use an app such as Gone for Good to donate them to charity shops. Recycle old trainers at Runners Need (runnersneed.com), Unicef’s Shoe Share (clarks.co.uk/unicef) or A Mile in Her Shoes (amileinhershoes.org.uk).
TRAVEL
HIT THE GROUND RUNNING
If you’re staying in a city, hire a bike to get around, or go on foot, rather than taking a taxi. If you’re booking activities or a tour, try and do it through an on-the-ground operator, rather than a big hotel. You’ll be helping the economy, and can assume most of your money will go straight to locals.
CHOOSE TRAINS NOT PLANES
Even short-haul flights generate huge amounts of carbon, so where you can, opt for trains and ferries - in many cases they are quicker too. If you must fly, go non-stop. Take-off and landing are not only the most dangerous parts of a flight, they also emit the most carbon.
STAYCATION IN STYLE
You don’t have to fly to get away. Consider a break closer to home and choose hotels that have sustainable policies in place. The newly opened Saorsa 1875 (saorsahotel.com) in Pitlochry is the UK’s first vegan hotel, while the Langdale (langdale.co.uk) near Ambleside and The Pig in Brockenhurst (thepighotel.com) both offer low-impact living. In LA, head to the Terranea Resort (terranea.com) or the Hotel Palomar (hotelpalomar-lawestwood.com), or go further up the coast to the Treebones Resort in Monterey (treebonesresort.com) for low-impact luxury.
DO YOUR RESEARCH
If you’re going abroad, check for sustainable suppliers and advice on how to make your trip as green as possible. Green Globe (greenglobe.com), the Green Tourism Business Scheme (greentourism.com), and The International Ecotourism Society (ecotourism.org) are good places to start.
SLEEP IN
At the hotel, leave the Do Not Disturb sign on your door to minimise cleaning. This will reduce the amount of energy used, as well as the volume of chemicals being splashed about. Hang towels up – if you dump them on the floor, staff will assume they’re to be washed.
GO NEUTRAL
Book a carbon-offset trip with an operator such as Intrepid Travel (intrepidtravel.com), which has been carbon neutral since 2010 and aims to be carbon positive by 2020. Otherwise, work out the carbon footprint of your journey then offset it, either through your airline (most have a facility to do this when you book) or a portal like tripzero.com. Some credit cards, such as carboncreditcapital.com, have a carbon offset scheme for customers too.
BOTTLE IT
In 2007, the Pacific Institute estimated that the amount of oil used in the production of plastic water bottles was enough energy to fuel more than a million cars and light trucks for a year. So take a reusable bottle with you, and refill it.
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FOOD & DRINK SHOP SMART Plan meals, use shopping lists and avoid impulse buys. Don’t succumb to marketing tricks that lead you to buy more food than you need, particularly for perishable items, and don’t go shopping when you’re hungry – it’ll impact your decisions. LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS Shockingly, over a third of all food produced is never eaten. What’s more, it’s not just the food itself that goes to waste; it takes a landmass larger than China to grow this produce, accounting for 25 per cent of the world’s annual water consumption. Download an app like Olio (olioex.com), which allows you to share surplus food with neighbours, or Too Good To Go (toogoodtogo.co.uk) and Karma (new.karma.life) which sell restaurant meals at a 50% discount.
GET TO KNOW YOUR MILKMAN Delivery services use recyclable glass bottles and many now have organic options too. TAKE A TEA BREAK Switch your usual brand for fully biodegradable tea bags (try Abel & Cole, Pukka Herbs or Waitrose Duchy Organic), and boil the water in an energy saving kettle. The Vektra eco kettle (vektra.uk), keeps water hot for up to four hours after boiling.
TAKE SUPERMARKETS TO TASK Slowly supermarkets are changing their stance on plastic. Morrisons now lets customers bring their own containers for meat and fish, and Tesco is trialling a similar scheme. Speed the process up by going straight to the top, and giving your feedback. You can reach the CEOs of the big four at the following addresses: Waitrose: rob.collins@waitrose.co.uk; Tesco: dave.lewis@uk.tesco.com; Sainsburys: mike.coupe@sainsburys.co.uk; Marks and Spencer: steve.rowe@marks-and-spencer.com
GROW YOUR OWN Most herbs and salad leaves can be grown in a window box, meaning you don’t even need a garden. Alternatively, invest in a hydroponic system, like Plantui’s Smart Garden 6, (plantui.com), or Ikea’s VÄXER (ikea.com), which lets you grow without soil. VEG OUT Go flexitarian and save meat for weekends, or try the VB6 diet (that’s vegan before 6pm). It’ll make a big difference – a vegan’s carbon footprint is half that of a meat eater’s. SAY GOODBYE TO USE-BY Fish, meat and dairy can be dangerous if eaten past their use by date, but with fruit and vegetables the date is more of a guideline. If they look ok, and smell ok, they’re probably fine to eat. MIND YOUR BEESWAX Swap clingfilm for beeswax wraps, which can be reused for up to a year and composted afterwards. If you don’t want to use animal products, try soy wax wraps (thekindstoreonline.co.uk) or vegan wax wraps (rowenstillwater.com) made out of cotton, plants waxes and tree resin.
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DRINK GEORGIAN Georgia’s amber ‘natural wines’ are made by fermenting whole grapes in qvevri – beeswax-lined terracotta pots – and burying them in the ground, a process which gives white varieties their distinctive orange colour. This low-intervention method eschews additives and chemicals, so by buying Georgian, you’ll be supporting a sustainable viticulture. Try Biodynamic QvevriMtsvane 2016 Gotsa (£19.99, georgianwinesociety.co.uk) or Okoros Wines Rkatsiteli (£21.99, haywines.co.uk).
SEASON WELL Eating seasonally means you’ll cut down air miles and get to taste produce at its best. Slash food miles further by shopping at farm shops and farmers’ markets. Try Islington Farmers’ Market (lfm.org.uk), Marylebone Farmers’ Market (lfm.org. uk) and Blackheath Farmers’ Market (lfm.org.uk) in London. In LA, visit Brentwood Farmers’ Market (sanvicente-brentwood.com) or the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market (smgov.net). EAT WONKY Supermarkets used to discard fruit and vegetables that were small or misshapen, but most now offer ‘wonky’ vegetables at discounted prices. You can also sign up to wonky veg box schemes such as Oddbox (oddbox.co.uk).
ZERO IN Better still, vote with your feet and start shopping at zero waste stores that sell unpackaged food. In the UK, check zerowastenear.me for your closest store, meanwhile in LA, try Cookbook Market (cookbookla.com), Belcampo Meat Co (belcampo.com) and Cooppurtunity Market + Deli (coopportunity.com). FEED FIDO WELL Pets consume around 20 per cent of the world’s meat, so swap their usual food to an insect-based product like Yora (yorapetfoods.com). GOODBYE TO GREENWASHING The HowGood app (howgood.com) cuts through specious marketing claims, so you can make informed decisions on your shopping. Just scan the bar code of the product, and it will give it a rating – Good, Very Good or Great – based on sixty indicators of sustainability.
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OFFICE CALCULATE YOUR CARBON
RENT-A-WARDROBE
CHANGE THE CULTURE
Sustainable and affordable, renting clothes is the future of fashion
Tot up your business’s footprint using one of the free calculators at carbonfootprint.com, resurgence.org or myclimate.org – then offset it. If your office doesn’t have a sustainability team, start one. Implement a recycling programme, order your stationary from an eco-friendly supplier like thegreenoffice.co.uk and organise a No Impact Week at work; un.org/sustainabledevelopment/be-the-change has lots of ideas.
SEARCH SMART
Make Ecosia your new search engine (ecosia.org). The company donates 80% of its ad revenues to planting trees in places like Peru, Morocco, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Brazil. So far, more than 60 million have been planted.
RECYCLE YOUR ELECTRONICS
Almost 80 per cent of businesses in the UK don’t recycle. When it comes to mobile phones, our record is especially bad. It’s estimated that as little as 5 per cent of the metal in our electronics is recycled, despite around 80 per cent of a mobile phone being recyclable, so don’t just leave your old phone in a draw. In the UK, it is actually the retailer’s responsibility to take the old model and dispose of it. Or you could try and initiative like Oxfam’s (oxfam.org.uk), where old phones and tablets are refurbished and sold, with the money raised going towards seeds, school books and water tanks. Laptops and PCs can also be recycled: IT For Charities (itforcharities.co.uk) and the Turing Trust (turingtrust.co.uk) are two good places to start.
WORK FROM HOME
Given that the average commute takes almost an hour, working from home even one day a week will cut carbon emissions. Studies show that home workers are more productive and less likely to take sick days, too. If that isn’t possible, make your commute greener by car sharing, cycling, or taking public transport.
SWITCH OFF
Set your computer to energy saving mode, and don’t leave your devices on standby. The average UK office wastes £6,000 a year this way.
GO PAPERLESS
Paper accounts for 25 per cent of landfill waste, so keep communication digital where you can. If you do have to print, us software like GreenPrint (printgreener.com) to cut waste and choose paper with the 100% FSC Recycled label. Meanwhile, apps like Wunderlist (wunderlist.com) and Google Keep (google.com/keep) are a good substitute for post it notes.
GO BACK TO NATURE
Desk plants absorb pollutants and oxygenate rooms, making for a happier, healthier, more efficient workforce.
BUY LOCAL
When you make workplace purchases – anything from stationary to catering services – buy from nearby suppliers, so the money stays local and the carbon footprint stays low.
USE YOUR TIME WISELY
There are lots ethical jobs out there, even in big corporations. If you’re thinking of changing careers or moving into a more sustainable role, The Ethical Careers Guide: How to Find the Work You Love by Paul Allen has lots of good advice.
HURR
An invite only peer-to-peer rental service that puts technology at the forefront to offer a seamless rental experience with geo-tagging and AI-powered stylists. Prices determined per item. hurrcollective.com
MY WARDROBE HQ
Access the covetable wardrobes of A-listers and influencers alike, and have your own stylist to help you find the perfect look for a special event. From October, subscription is £9.99 per month and items are individually priced. mywardrobehq.com
BY ROTATION
Fashion at your fingertips: this soon-to-be launched app offers a great selection of brands from Ganni through to Dior. From £10 per item. byrotation.com
ONLOAN
Take the hard work out of choosing what to wear with this subscription service that will send you a selection of clothes based on your answers to their survey. From £79 a month. onloan.co
HIGHER STUDIO
Dress to impress with fashionforward selections from brands including Phoebe English and Comme des Garçons. From £85 a week for one item at a time. higher.studio
FRONT ROW
Of-the-moment dressing with a curated edit of the hottest trends and new designers. Priced per item. frontrow.uk.com
GIRL MEETS DRESS
Discover your dream dress wardrobe with this collection of over 4,000 pieces from designers including Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartney. Priced per item. girlmeetsdress.com
COCOON
Join the club and have the most sought-after new season, limited edition and vintage bags on your arm in no time with this sameday delivery service. Membership from £99 a month. cocoon.club
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The
GR EEN BEAUTY GUIDE
The beauty industry is due a green makeover – but where to start? Here’s how you can reuse, recycle and reduce through some savvy shopping and innovative swaps WOR DS ELIZABETH BENNETT & NICOLA COLYER
S H O C K I N G S T A T I S T I C A L E R T: The global cosmetics industry produces 120 billions units of packaging every year – much of which aren’t recyclable so end up in landfill or the sea. But it’s not only plastic containers which are the problem – many of these products use toxic, unsustainable ingredients that further pollute our planet. Fortunately, it’s not all doom and gloom; thanks to clever technology and conscientious consumerism, you can easily reduce your impact. From refillable packaging to bamboo alternatives and small batch brands, these are our top tips for a more sustainable beauty routine. THE RECYCLING 411
The majority of cosmetics packaging can be recycled, but knowing how and where to do it can be a minefield. Here are some things you can do to make it easier: • Dismantle, rinse and dry all packaging. • Bottle pumps, mascara brushes and makeup palette components (eg mirrors and magnets) tend not to be recyclable, so remember to remove them before recycling the rest of the packaging. If the collected waste is deemed ‘contaminated’ with incorrect items, it will usually be sent to landfill. • Look for the recyclable logo on the bottle (the arrowed triangle symbol) to determine which bin it needs to go in. • Electricals can be sold, donated or taken to a recycling centre. You can find your nearest centre that will accept particular items by searching your postcode on recyclenow. com or berecycled.org. Throwing out your old hair straighteners? Send any brand to hairstyling appliance brand Cloud Nine and they’ll recycle them – they’ll even pay the postage. • For items that seem destined for the dump, check on terracycle.com first - the site offers solutions for many hard-to-recycle objects. Simply drop them off at set locations across the UK, and they’ll do the rest. • Already available in the US and launching in the UK early next year is Loop, a new initiative from TerraCycle that lets you buy your favourite beauty products, use them up, then get the bottles collected from your home for a refill. Already partnered with Dove, REN, Pantene Pro-V and Gillette Venus, the service is available via loopstore.com. It will soon be offered by Tesco and John Lewis too.
PLANET-POSITIVE PACKAGING Want to take sustainability to the next level? Then try using innovative packaging that actually benefits the planet. Take Margatebased Haeckels, which recently created its first range of products housed in ‘biocontributing’ packaging. Made from mycelium - a mushroom-like fungus - once used it can be composted or planted in your garden, where it adds nutrients as it breaks down to improve the quality of the soil. Meanwhile, pioneering planet-friendly brand Lush has been thinking along similar lines with its new cork packaging, which actually removes CO2 from the air. Designed to keep the brand’s packaging-free shampoo bars dry, each 35g cork pot also sequesters over 33 times its weight in CO2, removing approximately 1.2kg CO2 from the atmosphere. Genius.
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GREEN BEAUTY, DECODED Swot up on these symbols
LEAPING BUNNY CERTIFICATION The gold standard in cruelty-free certification, this symbol signifies no animal-testing at any point in the supply chain.
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RET H IN K ING WAST E
The food waste problem is at crisis level on both sides of the Atlantic, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reporting that global food waste contributes 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The circular beauty trend is here to change that; it uses food waste to create cosmetic products and challenge how we view waste. Londonbased start-up UpCircle began by collecting leftover coffee beans from local cafes to make scrubs and soaps. Now it has a whole range of face and body products inspired by waste, and also has plans to use by-products from hemp manufacturing, olive and avocado stones, and used flower petals from weddings and florists. Other circular beauty brands to look out for are MontaMonta, which also uses coffee grounds to create scrubs, and Beauty Kitchen, which uses oils from juicing industry waste to create its Berry British Sustainable Beauty Oil.
HAC K YOUR HAIR ROU T IN E VEGAN SOCIETY TRADEMARK This symbol certifies that products do not contain any animal extracts or animal by-products in the ingredients or the manufacturing process.
SOIL ASSOCIATION ORGANIC CERTIFICATION Products with this symbol have been declared 100% organic throughout the entire manufacturing process.
When it comes to an eco-savvy beauty routine, haircare is arguably the biggest offender. Washing your hair daily uses about 14,222 litres of water and 12,52kWh of energy annually, equating to a carbon footprint of 500kg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) – and that’s before you take into account the energy use from hair drying and styling electricals, chemicals in haircare products and the excessive plastic packaging. Instead, try these sustainable switch-ups to lessen your load. • Switch to a planet-friendly hair care brand, such as Davines, Rahua or We Are Paradoxx. • Buy in bulk (bigger sizes equals less packaging) or refill your bottles in store (Davines salons offer refills). • Streamline your shower time by skipping the conditioner and using a leave-in alternative instead. • Save energy by braving a cold shower. • Stretch out the days between washing your hair by using dry shampoo. Rahua’s Voluminous Dry Shampoo (£30, net-a-porter.com) is a great eco option.
AVOIDING A EROSOL S
SOIL ASSOCIATION COSMOS NATURAL CERTIFICATION Products that are truly ‘natural’ but not necessarily organic. They contain no GM ingredients, controversial chemicals, parabens and phthalates, or synthetic colours, dyes and fragrances.
Aerosol packaging is one of the hardest to recycle and the compressed gases can have a harmful impact on CO2 emissions. Instead, switch to aerosolfree formulas housed in glass, such as Aurelia Botanical Cream Deodorant £18 and Modern Botany Deodorant, £25.
SMA LL BATCH BEAU T Y THE MOBIUS LOOP This indicates a product can be recycled, but not necessarily that it has been itself produced from recycled materials.
With tight control over their entire supply chain, small batch beauty brands can offer high-quality ingredients and impressive eco credentials. We love Austin Austin’s hair and body range, Neighbourhood Botanicals’ face oils and Wildsmith’s natural yet high-performing skincare.
RA ISE THE BA R THE FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL LOG This identifies products that are made from well managed forests independently certified in accordance with the rules of the FSC A.C.
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Bars are back and better than ever. From gentle facial washes to solid shower gels and hydrating shampoos, they’re not only effective and aesthetically pleasing, but nearly always plastic-free
23/09/2019 01:01
green up your life
Five bamboo swaps for a more sustainable bathroom Say goodbye to singleuse plastic products with these biodegradable or reusable alternatives BAMBOO COTTON BUDS Swapping out everyday items like cotton buds with a 100% biodegradable version is an easy way to reduce your plastic pollution. Simply dispose of them in your organic waste or compost bin. EcoLiving Bamboo Cotton Buds, £2.49, boobalou.co.uk
THE REFILLABLE REVOLUTION
Refillable packaging is one step better than recyclable, eliminating an entire round of waste. In cosmetics, New York-based Kjaer Weis is paving the way, with beautifully designed metal compacts that can be used repeatedly thanks to an intelligent refill system. Other makeup brands that offer a refillable service for some of their products include Hourglass, Surratt, Chantecalle, Clarins, Charlotte Tilbury and MAC.
PL AST IC-FREE PERIODS
With 100 billion menstrual products thrown away each year, period pollution is a serious problem. Over our reproductive lifetime, we each use, on average, 11,000 disposable period products, so embracing plastic-free periods will have a significant impact. A single sanitary pad contains the same amount of plastic as four carrier bags and takes 500 years to break down. When it does, it releases chlorine, which further pollutes our waterways. Tampons aren’t much better, with applicators, strings, packaging and the cotton bud containing plastic. Menstrual cups mean waving goodbye to tampons (and the waste that comes with them) for good. We’re fans of OrganiCup – a 100% soft medical-grade silicone that is changed once a day and lasts ten years. If a cup isn’t for you, there are a host of eco-friendly sanitary brands that offer sustainable alternatives to traditional products, including Ohne, Albany Mae and Totm with tampons made from organic cotton and minimal recyclable packaging; Bloom & Nora, which offers a fabric pad that can be washed and reused for up to a decade; and Dame, which pioneered the first ever reusable tampon applicator. Meanwhile, innovative brand Thinx has developed periodproof underwear that can be used instead of (or alongside) tampons and pads, thanks to the highly absorbent, odour-eliminating material and leak-proof design.
GR EEN GI VEAWAYS
In the UK, 37% of people go without hygiene or grooming essentials every day. Offering a solution is Beauty Banks, a charity that works like a food bank but for essential personal care and beauty items instead. The scheme was created by beauty writer Sali Hughes and PR Jo Jones to address the huge amounts of waste created by the industry, as well as to help those in need. After all, the ability to wash your hair and clean your teeth is a right, not a privilege. Send your unused and unwanted beauty products via post or arrange a collection by visiting droppoint.org/buylabels/beauty-banks. Alternatively, there are also ‘Beauty Spots’ at selected locations across the country where you can take drop off donations (see beautybanks.org.uk for further details).
BAMBOO RAZOR Disposable razors have a short life and are made primarily from plastic that’s difficult to recycle. A stainless steel and bamboo safety razor, on the other hand, is designed to last, and only the razor blade itself - which you can recycle responsibly - will require replacement. Bambaw Safety Razor, £19.48, bambaw.com BAMBOO MAKEUP REMOVER PADS Not only are traditional cotton pads usually sold in plastic packaging, cotton production is a water-intensive process that uses large amounts of fertilisers and pesticides - a hefty price for a pad used only for a few seconds. Reusable bamboo cotton pads provide a sustainable alternative, as you can simply wash them with your usual laundry. Bambaw Reusable Makeup Remover Pads, £13.28, bambaw.com BAMBOO TOOTHBRUSH The average person uses about 300 toothbrushes in their lifetime, of which around 80% end up in the sea, taking up to 1,000 years to decompose. Opting for a bamboo version is an effortless step towards reducing such troubling statistics. Truthbrush Bamboo Toothbrush, £5, contentbeautywellbeing.com BAMBOO DENTAL FLOSS STICKS Conventional, non-biodegradable dental floss sticks contain harmful chemicals like fluorine and are invariably housed in plastic. For ethical oral hygiene, choose a zero-waste variety such as these anti-bacterial, charcoal-infused bamboo dental floss sticks with corn starch handles. Knotty Floss Knotty Picks, £5.99, wearthlondon.com
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Scents &
Sustainability With clean ingredients and a conscious ethos, these luxury fragrance brands demonstrate that being green needn’t mean compromising on quality
WORDS KATIE WYARTT
As we fight back against the throwaway culture of modern living, fragrance brands must put sustainability first in order to survive, considering the ecological and social impact of everything from ingredients to production processes, and, of course, packaging. Although most fragrances come in recyclable glass bottles, many feature complex lids and multilayered boxes encased in cellophane. Much of this ends up in landfill, so switching to 100% recyclable or recycled materials is a big improvement, while using compostable boxes or offering refills is even better. Meanwhile, other fragrances are focussing on clean ingredients, opting for natural materials that provide a beautiful scent without the ecological cost. These sustainable fragrance brands are all committed to reducing their environmental impact, while maintaining their luxe credentials.
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SANA JARDIN Sana Jardin bills itself as the world’s first socially conscious, luxury fragrance house, and it has the credentials to prove it. Created by social campaigner Amy Christiansen Si-Ahmed as a vehicle for social change, the company’s Beyond Sustainability Movement has changed the lives of the low-income women in Morocco who hand-pick the floral ingredients for Sana Jardin’s perfumes. To achieve economic independence, the women are taught how to create products to sell from by-products of the harvest, as well as learning financial, business and marketing skills. They keep 100% of the proceeds from selling these upcycled products, with the added bonus that the amount of waste is reduced. sanajardin.com
BAMFORD At the heart of socially responsible clothing and skincare brand Bamford is a philosophy that rejects today’s throwaway culture. Its mindfully created pieces are inspired by our connection to the earth, respecting nature’s resources and considering the environmental impact of the ingredients, fibres, dyes and water it uses. This year, Bamford launched its first fragrances - two handcrafted scents, Gray and Camille, made from 80% organic ingredients and inspired by founded Carole Bamford’s personal memories. The vegan-friendly fragrances are packaged in artisanal glass bottles, finished with sustainably sourced mango-wood caps and organic ink. The outer carton is biodegradable, while the bags are made from upcycled offcuts from Bamford fabrics. bamford.com
CLEAN RESERVE As its name suggests, Clean Beauty Collective is passionate about protecting the planet – and its customers. Since it was set up in 2003, the fragrance brand has promised to be transparent with its simple list of ingredients, which are always simple, vegan, cruelty-free and non-toxic. The brand only works with partners who use green manufacturing processes, and it gives back to them by funding projects that provide clean water in their communities. Fragrances are packaged in a recyclable glass bottle with a cap made from sustainable wood, wrapped in compostable cellophane derived from corn. Ever mindful of warning consumers about the dangers of toxic ingredients in fragrances, the website has a helpful A-Z list of ingredients it promises never to use. cleanbeauty.com
ABEL Unable to find a natural perfume that was also chic, modern and long-lasting, Abel founder Frances Shoemack set out to create the world’s best natural fragrances. The former winemaker knew only too well that nature’s finest raw materials could produce something powerful and distinctive, without the need for chemicals. Abel’s unusual, unisex fragrances work with your natural body chemistry to create a unique scent that will continue to evolve throughout the day. All ingredients are organic, vegan and mindfully sourced, and the company gives back 1% of its revenue to environmental causes. abelodor.com
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green up your life
TIMOTHY HAN
HERETIC
A former design assistant to John Galliano, Timothy Han takes inspiration from renowned works of literature for his small-batch vegan fragrances. Working with mostly natural materials, the scents (or ‘editions’) are seasonal, each edition carefully handcrafted and released in small production runs. Each scent tells a story through specific aromas, and Timothy aims to use 100% natural ingredients, unless ethical reasons prevent it - for example, using a synthetic alternative to natural musk (that isn’t obtained from the Himalayan Musk Deer). timothyhanedition.com
Heretic is a brand that likes to follow its own path – in this case, finding nuances and character in natural ingredients that can’t be achieved with synthetic versions. Its 100% natural, hand-crafted fragrances blend natural essential oils with organic (non-genetically modified) grape and sugarcane alcohols, exploring homeopathy, Ayurveda and herbology practices in its blends. For those who want to know more about the potentially damaging effects of synthetic components, the website helpfully lists common perfume ingredients alongside their associated health risks. hereticparfum.com
BULY 1803
LARK & BERRY
Named after the perfumer Jean-Vincent Bully, who helped establish French perfumery in 1803, Paris-based L’Officine Universelle Buly has revisited traditional fragrance-making techniques and draws on the virtues of natural ingredients for its water-based perfume range, Eau Triple. Free from dehydrating solvents and chemical preservatives, the delicate fragrances, which come in plastic-free packaging, are kind to your skin, while the authentic, surprisingly vibrant aromas will continue to evolve throughout the day. buly1803.com
HENRY ROSE Not your usual ‘celebrity fragrance’, Henry Rose is the brainchild of the actor Michelle Pfeiffer, who decided to launch her own collection of five fragrances after being unable to find a perfume she could wear - let alone endorse - due to a lack of sustainability credentials. Dismayed at how many perfume brands don’t disclose their full list of ingredients, Henry Rose (the middle names of Pfeiffer’s two children) is transparent with its list of ingredients, and is the first fragrance line to be certified by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a not-for-profit that researches and rates consumer goods for safety and environmental impact. The five fragrances come in bottles made from 90% recycled glass, with lids made from soy. henryrose.com
Ethical jewellery brand Lark & Berry has launched its first fragrance collection, using the same all-natural, environmentally conscious approach as it does when sourcing cultured, rather than mined, diamonds. The three organic flower compositions contain only ingredients that are 100% natural and cruelty-free. Always mindful of its social responsibility, Lark & Berry also works with US tree-planting non-profit One Tree Planted, planting five trees worldwide for every purchase made. larkandberry.co.uk
LABORATORY PERFUMES Inspired by the great outdoors, Laboratory Perfumes blends the all-natural oils of flowers, herbs and aromatic botanicals for its vegan, paraben-free fragrances that are designed to react to your skin, the aromas gradually developing as the day goes on. Working with a small, UK-based supply chain, the socially conscious fragrances are all made in the UK and are presented in gender-free packaging that is sustainably sourced and widely recycled. laboratoryperfumes.com
LE LABO This New York-based boutique fragrance house has the feel of a laboratory or apothecary about it, which fits with the brand’s commitment to fine craftsmanship and doing everything by hand. Each Le Labo scent is freshly handblended to order, using natural, responsibly sourced ingredients, and is 100% vegan and cruelty-free. All packaging, including the bottle carton, box and bag, is made from recycled or recyclable materials, and if you bring your bottle back once it’s empty, Le Labo will refill it, giving you 20% off the price of your new fragrance. lelabofragrances.com
FLORAL STREET Beauty industry powerhouse Michelle Feeney – who made her name at brands including MAC and Crème de la Mer – took a career sabbatical before launching Floral Street, a sustainable fragrance brand that has already made a name for itself thanks to its groundbreaking approach to packaging. Each eclectic scent is packaged in a biodegradable pulp carton with an embossed lid made from recyclable paper packaging and fastened with a reusable brightly coloured brand. The minimalist container can then be repurposed as a sleek storage box. floralstreet.com
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Ta k e i t
Slow Sustainable fashion champion Venetia Falconer explains exactly why we need to be focusing on slow fashion this season
Slow fashion is the antithesis of fast fashion, the industry that encourages incessant consumption at a rate that the planet can’t sustain. There are currently seven billion people in the world, and we’re producing 100 billion pieces of clothing every single year. Much of this clothing is made using harmful dyes and fabrics made with plastic, which are really polluting for our planet, causing devastation. Valuing clothes that are already in existence is the first principle of slow fashion. It’s all about championing garments that have already been around for a long time and will hopefully be around for even longer. It’s the best way to create an ethical, sustainable approach to a pretty detrimental industry. Since I learnt about fast fashion, I don’t shop on the high street anymore. Instead, I look for vintage gems in charity and second-hand shops, as well as scouring eBay and Depop. One of my favourite vintage brands is Laura Ashley, so I’m always
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searching for floral-print dresses from the 1970s. I also run a Facebook group called Slow Fashion Exchange, where members discuss sustainable fashion hotspots. I try to take a meditative approach to buying now. I try on garments multiple times to let the outfit sit with me. I consider how often I’ll be able to wear it, how it will fit into my current wardrobe and how well it will stand the test of time - will I be able to hand it down myself one day? I turn everything I’m considering buying inside out. I look at how well it’s ageing and how the lining and stitching is holding. It’s one of the things I love most about vintage clothes – they’re usually made with more care and longevity in mind. If I have a spare five minutes, I’ll pop into a charity shop. Those spontaneous visits are often the best way to find special pieces. So much of vintage shopping is luck. The truth is, I’m a nightmare to go shopping with. I won’t buy anything unless it really makes my heart sing.
HOW TO START FOLLOWING SLOW FASHION Venetia’s top tips to instantly make your wardrobe more sustainable 1. ORGANISE YOUR WARDROBE Slow fashion starts with celebrating what is already in your wardrobe, so start by sorting through it. You’ll most likely discover things you haven’t seen in months, which is always exciting. Make things easier by separating your summer and winter wardrobes and putting away the clothes you won’t need for six months. It’ll feel like a new wardrobe when you get them out again. 2. START SWAPPING When you want something new, try getting that dopamine hit by raiding a friend or family member’s wardrobe instead. Borrowing something can give you the same rush as buying something new. Consider hosting a Swap Shop party in your home or try renting pieces online. I love a rental website called HURR Collective, which has an amazing selection of occasion wear. 3. PRIORITISE GOOD CARE PRACTICE It's really important to look after your clothes well if you want them to last. Day to day, hang pieces up properly and read washing instructions carefully to help maintain condition. It’s time we went back to a place where we were more mindful of how we treat our possessions, so get old clothes fixed and tailored to make them feel like new again.
22/09/2019 18:07
green up your life
FIX UP, LOOK SHARP
The Restory This London-based service will pick up worn shoes and bags, then drop them back good as new. There’s also an in-house service at Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge, with one launching at Selfridges soon. the-restory.com
Clothes Doctor Clothes Doctor will repair, restore and tailor your clothes to your liking so you can keep them in your wardrobe for longer. It also exclusively uses eco-friendly care products. clothes-doctor.com
Atelier & Repairs This Los Angeles studio rescues old clothes, textiles and trims that were once destined for landfill and gives them a second life. Buy one of its original pieces, or take in an old garment and get it transformed into something new in less than three weeks. atelierandrepairs.com
V e n e t i a’s
FAVOURITE VINTAGE BOUTIQUES IN LONDON
FOUN D AN D VISION
RELLIK
104 Golborne Road, Notting Hill, W10
8 Golborne Gardens, Notting Hill, W10
I’m always reluctant to talk about this boutique too much as it’s such a hidden gem. Last time I came here I tried on about 25 different outfits - this place has the most amazing vintage clothes. foundandvision.com
Rellik is something of an institution and is the best place for finding vintage Vivienne Westwood. It’s also just down the road from Found and Vision, so I like to spend the afternoon in Notting Hill visiting them both. relliklondon.co.uk
BEYO N D R ETR O 58-59 Great Marlborough Street, Soho, W1F
Beyond Retro has several stores across London, but the branch near Carnaby Street is my favourite. Unlike a lot of vintage stores, it stocks a good selection of sizes, which can be hard to find with garments from the 1960s and 1970s. beyondretro.com
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Working Wardrobes British fashion label Chinti & Parker is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Here, co-founder Anna Singh reflects on sustainability and success WORDS LUCIANA BELLINI
C
hinti & Parker – the Britishborn label best known for its playful take on the cashmere jumper – is turning the grand old age of ten this year. Since emerging on the scene a decade ago, it has become the go-to brand for elegant classics with a twist, branching out of knitwear and T-shirts to create a full range of ready-to-wear pieces. Founded by west London-based cousins Anna Singh and Rachael Wood in 2009, the pair started working together after they both found themselves at loose ends, with Anna having just sold her cosmetics brand, Pout, and Rachael fresh out of an e-commerce job at Browns. The pair had always talked about creating a business together, combining their complementary experience in the beauty and fashion worlds and Anna’s knowledge of running a successful brand, and the timing was finally right. Their initial idea was to create a European answer to American jersey brands like James Perse and Splendid, which were hugely popular at the time. But it was their cashmere sweaters, emblazoned with stars and colourful elbow patches, that took off and quickly became the brand’s signature item. We asked Anna what it’s like to launch a brand with a family member, the inspiration behind their latest collection and how sustainable practices have been baked into the brand from the beginning.
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allbright partnership How would you describe the ethos of Chinti & Parker? Playful, effortless and joyful - they’re clothes that should make you feel happy. Did you ever worry about mixing your work life and your family life? Yes, everyone in our family categorically told us not to do it, but we ignored them. We’ve always been very close - we’re more like sisters than cousins. We live around the corner from each other, so we travel in together. And we also mix socially, so it can be a challenge to make sure we’re not always in work mode when we’re together. What’s the best thing about working in a duo? It’s about sharing a vision and sharing the pain. As business partners, we’re quite complementary - we both used to do everything, but as Chinti grew and evolved we separated out more into our individual skills. I’m more about the brand, marketing and the wholesale side of things, and Rachael is more about web, retail and design. And the worst? If there is a difference of opinion, who gets the final say. That can be tricky for us, particularly when we’re so close – we are both women with an opinion. On the odd occasion where there is a conversation like that, we have an amazing MD who normally wades in with a third opinion. What advice would you give to other women looking to start their own business? Two things. One is always be generous to other women, in terms of time or advice or contacts. The other is follow your gut instinct. Early on, we got approached to do a project that didn’t feel right, but we did it anyway. It wasn’t a success and it cost us a relationship. Don’t be afraid to say no if the opportunity doesn’t feel right. While it might be a shortterm success in terms of your cash flow, it could have a longerterm effect on other parts of the business.
Has sustainability always played a key role at Chinti & Parker? Yes, definitely. Originally we wanted to make everything in the UK and we started as a carbon-neutral brand – we would hand tick every garment to say whether it was organic, where it was produced. As we grew that wasn’t possible to maintain, but we have a lot of initiatives that we still adhere to. Around 15 per cent of each collection is made in London and we use organic fabrics. Everything we sell comes in reusable cloth bags made by a women’s cooperative in India that Rachael worked at for a year, and the profits go to support a local school. And we’re very aware of how and where we source - our biggest cashmere supplier is vertical, so we can track back to the actual goat and see each step of the process.
TRUE COLOURS Make a statement with these bold and bright pieces
What’s the one lesson you would like to teach consumers about sustainability? For us, the thing is to teach people how to care for their clothes, to buy better and buy less. If you really look after your cashmere, it should still be in good condition ten years later. Why did you choose the Bloomsbury Group as the inspiration for the AW19 collection? Our design director came up with the concept and it just resonated with us. We’re a female-led business, with female founders and a female management team - the Bloomsbury Group was all about creative, empowered women. What are your favourite pieces from the collection? Probably the coloured, tailored trousers, which is a new area for us to be moving into. We’re trying to shake off the idea that we’re only a knitwear label. How will you be celebrating your ten-year anniversary? There’s a special collection coming out later in the year with ten pieces. It’s going to be a little bit more red carpet – I’m not talking ball gowns, but more of a going out-type product. It’s about as red carpet as Chinti would ever get! To find out more, follow @chintiandparker chintiandparker.com
LEFT TO RIGHT FROM TOP: Purple Sister Alpaca-Wool Sweater £295 Multicolour Eccentric Wool-Cashmere Sweater Dress £450 Multicolour Striped Cotton-Jersey Dress £275 Green Painted Spot Silk-Twill Skirt £395 Multicoloured Rib-Knit Cashmere Vanessa Sweater £375 Pink Pop Wool-Twill Trousers £350
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Medley
Green House
From furniture and furnishings to the type of paint we use, homewares can damage our health as well as the planet. Here’s how to make your home more green WO R D S H A R R I E T C O O P E R & R AC H E L WA R D
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e say no to plastic bags at the checkout, we buy organic food, and we fill our gardens with beefriendly plants - but have you ever stopped to consider the environmental impact of your interiors? For example, how your sofa is made (and the landfill site it goes to when it’s time for a new one?) Often manufactured using synthetic materials and chemicals, many sofas could be off-gassing potentially harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into your home. Here’s how to buy responsibly…
SOFA, SO ECO
It’s a sad truth, but many sofas are bad for the environment. Toxic flameretardants, petroleum-based PU foam, engineered hardwood frames that release formaldehyde, toxic glue, synthetic upholstery materials… the list of ingredients doesn’t make for happy reading. Despite this cocktail of chemicals, there are still surprisingly few furniture companies making 100% sustainable sofas. Challenging this status quo is US-based brand Medley
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(medleyhome.com), which produces bespoke pieces of handcrafted furniture without any nasties. Glues are zero VOC, and all frames are made with kiln-dried hardwood from certified, locally sourced forests. The fabrics it uses are all 100% natural, and the fillings are either CertiPUR-US® certified foam or certified organic natural latex made from the sap of rubber trees. In the UK, EcoSofa (ecosofa.co.uk) has collaborated with Nottingham Trent University to ensure its collections are all made using natural, sustainable and recycled materials (think horsehair, coir, wool) with no harmful chemicals. It also upholsters with organic materials and fillings and can recreate your favourite sofa style. Other labels that should be on your radar include contemporary craft furniture-maker Another Country (anothercountry.com), which uses wood and natural fibres and has an excellent carbon-offsetting scheme and recyclable, compostable packaging. There’s also Archer + Co (archerandcompany.co.uk): each piece in its diverse collection,
which ranges from slouchy to formal, can be ordered with an extra eco specification that ensures almost all products used are 100% natural. Sofa shoppers should also mark October in their diaries, as that’s when Marks & Spencer (marksandspencer.com) is set to unveil its Sustainable Sofa, which has been four years in the making. Featuring a classic silhouette, it swaps out PU foam padding in favour of a greener material made of natural latex and coconut husk fibres, and is upholstered in an eco fabric that’s 60% wool and 40% flax. M&S will also remove your old sofa when it delivers a new one, so that it’s recycled rather than sent to end up in landfill. Of course, the most eco-friendly way to shop is to avoid new altogether and opt for vintage or second-hand. Try reclamation specialists such as Retrouvius (retrouvius.com) or Lassco (lassco.co.uk), or vintage boutiques including Forest London (forestlondon.com), The Peanut Vendor (thepeanutvendor.co.uk) or The Old Cinema (theoldcinema.co.uk) for mid-century classics.
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MATTRESS MATTERS
On average, we each spend approximately 33 years in bed, so it makes sense to choose a matress that’s made from natural, organic materials that won’t give off any toxins while you sleep. When buying your mattress, look for the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and/or the Global Organic Latex Standard (GOLS) certification so you can be sure you’re buying the purest type of mattress on the market. Setting the benchmark since 1840 is Yorkshirebased Harrison Harrison Spinks Spinks (harrisonspinks. co.uk). It reduces CO2 production per mattress by controlling 90% of the bed-making processes, rearing its own sheep, growing its own hemp and flax crops, and felling its own woodland. Each naturally filled mattress is even hand finished with a chemical-free fabric that the company weaves itself. Naturalmat (naturalmat.co.uk) offers a huge range of natural luxury mattresses, the central ingredient of which is organic coir (the husk of the coconut), plus layers of organic lambswool, cashmere and mohair. Passionate about beds, Demko (demko.co.uk) makes organic mattresses from cotton, coir fibre, Tencel (a cellulose fibre made by dissolving wood pulp) and breathable latex, which has a natural resistance to mites, mould and bacteria. Abaca (abacaorganic.co.uk) has been making organic mattresses for more than 30 years, all from natural materials such as wool, horsehair and cotton, hand sewn and tufted. On the subject of horsehair, Greenfibres (greenfibres.com) does a latex-free mattress consisting of ten layers of natural and untreated horsehair. If looked after well it’s virtually indestructible and will last forever - so less pressure on landfill. If you’re vegan then look no further than the Devon-based Cottonsafe Natural Mattress company (cottonsafenaturalmattress.co.uk), the first to offer a chemical-free mattress entirely devoid of animal products.
THE LINEN LOWDOWN
The textile industry uses some of the most polluting practices on the planet, so it’s time to look for eco-friendly bedding options that guarantee soft, sustainable slumber. The Fine Bedding Company (finebedding.co.uk) is a good place to start. Its innovative Eco duvet uses plastic waste to produce a soft and light fibre filling, resulting in a hypoallergenic design made using 100% renewable energy. Based in Totnes, familyowned Greenfibres (greenfibres.com) stuffs its bedding with ecofriendly options such as organic wool, camel hair and buckwheat. As for sheets, opt for ethics that match the eco credentials. Rise & Fall (riseandfall.co) has finetuned every part of the supply chain, from maker to mattress, to reduce its impact on the environment, using green energy, recycled water and plastic-free packaging. It also contributes £3 from every sale to support the important work of homeless charity Centrepoint.
performance paints come in a wide range of finishes. And claiming to be as tough and durable as a synthetic paint, Edward Bulmer Natural Paints (edwardbulmerpaint.co.uk) are made from raw materials such as plant extracts, chalk, earth minerals and linseed that have full organic or equivalent certification where possible. The paint options at Little Greene (littlegreene.com) range from waterbased (which carry the industry’s lowest eco-rating) to oil-based (which have been reformulated using sustainable vegetable oils). Plus, its paint tins are made using over 50% recycled steel and can be recycled again. Or, for more surface finish options, check out Auro (auropaint. co.uk). Besides around 80 breathable and durable natural paint colours, it also makes a range of stains, oils, waxes, cleaning and care products using only raw materials.
TOP OF THE ECO SHOPS
Play your part by buying vintage when you can, but when only new will do, seek out the growing number of stores specialising in sustainable homewares that are designed to last. Like an eco department store, Wearth London (wearthlondon.com) partners with environmentally friendly and ethical UK brands, making it PLANET-FRIENDLY PAINT easy for you to shop and live more It’s an easy and inexpensive way consciously. Also covering each area to transform a space, but painting of the home, non-profit Aerende can have a big impact on your (aerende.co.uk) sells aspirational home’s health as many modern design pieces all made by petrochemical-based paints people in Britain facing produce toxic waste and, social challenges. once applied, release The Future Kept dangerous VOCs into (thefuturekept.com) the atmosphere. hopes to inspire Unfortunately, more people to the definition of think about the what constitutes items they have an ‘eco’ or ‘natural’ in their lives with paint is quite its collection of broad, so seek out consciously crafted brands that happily and ethically sourced provide a full list of Little Greene homewares - it will also ingredients. As a general donate 1% of all sales rule, plant-based, waterdirectly to environmental not-forborne paints, followed by plantprofit groups. Similarly, British based natural solvent-borne paints, manufacturing, craftsmanship and are best - and steer clear of titanium sustainable processes are at the dioxide, which is a big contributor heart of One Nine Eight Five to environmental problems. (onenineeightfive.co.uk), which offers Passing eco muster with flying seasonal collections of cushions, colours is Earthborn (earthbornpaints. throws, wall hangings, accessories co.uk). Free from acrylics, oils and and upcycled furniture. nasty smells, its breathable, high-
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A Breath of
FRESH AIR Author of The Healing Power of Plants, Fran Bailey looks at the best houseplants for reducing harmful toxins in your home or office
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he harmful effect of toxins from pollution in urban areas is well documented, but many of us don’t realise just how polluted the air in our homes and offices can be. Everything from soft furnishings to candles, paints to cleaning products can release toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and benzine into the air, which can lead to respiratory problems and allergies. Ventilation can help, but this is something we don’t always have control over, especially in the workplace. And if you work onboard a space station then, of course, this isn’t an option, which is why NASA undertook a high-profile study of indoor air pollution back in the 1980s, in which it looked at the most effective plants for cleaning toxic air. Top of the list were the Snake Plant, Bamboo Palm and the humble Common Ivy. On average, we spend more than 90 per cent of our time indoors, so it makes sense to reduce those harmful toxins by purifying the air in our homes and workplaces using plants. For maximum efficiency, NASA recommends having at least one air purifying plant per 100sq ft of home or office space. Here are my ten hero houseplants that are guaranteed to love you back.
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Snake Plant
Sansevieria Trifasciata Queen of the air cleaners, this robust plant was shown in NASA tests to remove benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene and xylene from the air. It also refreshes the indoor environment with life-giving oxygen. If you were to choose just one plant to aid respiratory problems, this is the one to pick. It grows slowly, thrives on neglect and will last for years providing you don’t overdo the watering.
Flamingo Flower
Anthurium Andraeanum This tropical plant is usually grown for its colourful, waxy spathes, but the dark green, arrow-shaped leaves are seriously good-looking, too. Easy to care for and suited to life as a houseplant, a flamingo flower likes warm and humid conditions in bright but indirect light. NASA lists this as a top plant for filtering toxins such as ammonia and xylene from the air.
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Peace Lily
Spathiphyllum An unassuming but rewarding plant, the peace lily will bloom reliably for many months, withstanding poor light levels as well as a degree of neglect. It will work hard to remove volatile organic compounds, such as solvents, from the air, and is also capable of removing airborne mould, which can alleviate allergy and asthma symptoms. As an added bonus, it may even help you get a good night’s sleep.
Aloe
Aloe Vera Many of us know about the medicinal uses of this beautiful architectural plant. The clear gel in the leaves is packed full of vitamins, enzymes, amino acids and other compounds that are effective for wound healing and burns. The aloe’s air-purifying abilities are less well-known; it is one of the best plants for removing formaldehyde from the air. It will sit happily on a sunny windowsill and is extremely tolerant of neglect.
Boston Fern
Nephrolepis Exaltata This elegant fern is a cool customer, preferring light shade and humid conditions, so it will feel most at home in your bathroom. In dry interiors, especially during winter months when the central heating is on, create the humidity it needs by setting it on a tray of damp pebbles. In turn, the fern will remove pollutants like formaldehyde and xylene and ease associated symptoms such as headaches and respiratory ailments.
ZZ Plant
Zamioculcas Zamiifolia A workplace hero on many levels, the ZZ is a really tough plant that will tolerate neglect, shady conditions or bright light, and low humidity. It is an excellent air cleaner helping to remove toxins such as xylene and benzene (found in solvents, inks and paint) that can cause nausea and headaches. The ZZ plant is also an effective oxygenator and can improve the quality of the indoor atmosphere.
Chinese Evergreen
Bamboo Palm
Rhapis Excelsa Large plants such as the dense bamboo palm will help to create a lush, green environment that will aid concentration - perfect for home and office workers. What’s more, this NASA-recommended plant effectively cleans the air of the most commonly found indoor toxins. One of the easiest palms to grow, it is tolerant of low light and dry air, and although slow growing it can potentially reach 2 metres.
Common or English Ivy
Hedera Helix Typically seen trailing over walls or scrambling up tree trunks, ivy isn’t usually thought of as a houseplant. However, this attractive vine has a very fast growth rate, making it an excellent candidate for purifying the air around us. As well as filtering out the toxins found in many cleaning products, it also traps airborne particulates such as mould, smoke and dust, which may affect allergy sufferers.
Aglaonema Perfect for a shady corner in a small flat, this evergreen is a slow-growing plant that reaches a maximum height of 50cm. A delicate little plant, it has spearshaped leaves that are usually patterned with cream, pink or silver. Although small, it has strong, air-purifying properties and removes common industrial toxins as well as increasing daytime oxygen.
Golden Pothos
Epipremnum Aureum This fast-growing vine is widely grown indoors for ornamental purposes and due to its low maintenance and tolerance to low light conditions. NASA’s research revealed it to be very adept at removing benzene, toluene, carbon monoxide and xylene, and it’s a good plant to keep in or near your garage, because it will absorb formaldehyde, a major component of car exhaust fumes.
London's Best Plant Delivery Ser vices Bloombox Club bloomboxclub.com; Flowerbx flowerbx.com; Forest forest.london; Orchidya orchidya.com The Little Botanical thelittlebotanical.com; Sprout sproutlondon.co.uk; Lazy Flora lazyflora.com Beards and Daisies beardsanddaisies.co.uk; Patch Plants patchplants.com; Floom floom.com Battersea Flower Station batterseaflowerstation.co.uk; London House Plants londonhouseplants.com
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The Greener Route AllBright ’s executive chef Sabrina Gidda uncovers London’s best sustainable food suppliers with the help of BMW’s all-electric i3 PHOTOGRAPHY ALEXIS KNIGHT
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f you asked me to describe my perfect morning, it would probably go something like this: a bacon bap and a strong cup of coffee for breakfast, a visit to some of my favourite London suppliers to sample their delicious wares, and a gang of brilliant, likeminded women to chat about food with. So, when I was offered a driving tour around London to check out some of the AllBright’s most innovative, sustainable suppliers, in a convoy of BMW’s all-electric i3 cars, I didn’t have to think twice. Fast-forward to a sunny morning in south London a couple of weeks later and I’m standing in a car park off Clapham High Street at 7am. With me are a group of eco-minded AllBright
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members and some fellow foodies, including Jess Latchford of Waste Knot, who provides the AllBright kitchens with delicious fruit and vegetables that just so happen to be surplus, and Jenny Costa, founder of award-winning condiments brand Rubies in the Rubble, which makes delicious ketchups, mayos and relishes from surplus fruit and veg. We’re here for iTour iCook, the AllBright day out we’ve created in partnership with BMW i as part of our AllGreen initiative. During the day, we visit some of our most sustainable suppliers from the comfort of our all-electric BMW i3’s – a fleet emblazoned with the AllGreen logo, the symbol celebrating AllBright going AllGreen in September.
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GOING UNDERGROUND
First direction? Downwards, as we descend 33 metres below the busy streets of Clapham, into a World War II air raid shelter to visit ground-breaking hydroponic farm Growing Underground, the world’s first underground farm. I’ve been wanting to visit Growing Underground ever since we started using their delicious micro greens in our salads, so I was thrilled to be getting a personal tour with one of the farm’s cofounders, Richard Ballard. ‘The three biggest contributors to carbon emissions in the world are buildings, agriculture and transport, so the idea here was to use redundant urban space and conscious consumption to ensure we don’t use any carbon,’ explains Richard. ‘We use 70% less water than conventional agriculture methods, we don’t use any pesticides on our products and, in terms of transport, we’re very close to the point of consumption – the leaves can be in your kitchen within four hours of being picked and packed – so we’re reducing food miles, distribution costs and pollution.’ Heading down into the tunnels is like entering another world, with row upon row of herbs and micro greens, from watercress and coriander to wasabi mustard and garlic chives, growing under a soft pink LED light (the perfect colour to ensure optimum growth). ‘We use more energy than traditional growing methods, but when you break that down it’s still more efficient,’ says Richard. ‘Take these pea shoots – if you were to grow them outside you’d get eight to ten harvests a year. In a greenhouse you would get between 25 and 30. Here we get 60 harvests a year.’ Richard cuts a few herbs for us to try, the tiny snippets of coriander and garlic chives bursting with intense flavour. ‘The leaves have more
GROWING UNDERGROUND, CLAPHAM
nutrients because they’re more concentrated, and that’s also why the flavour is so intense,’ explains Richard. It’s just one of the reasons why the legendary chef and Clapham local Michel Roux Jr. came on board as a shareholder. While Growing Underground is currently the only underground farm in the UK, Richard predicts it won’t stay that way for long. In the meantime, Growing Underground is expanding – next up are plans to expand into the rest of the tunnels around them, going from 500 square metres to 1,900 square metres, as well as looking at new sites around the country to grow a wider variety of crops. They’re also looking at deliveries via electric cars… Back in the AllGreen BMW i3's to head to our next stop, innovation continues to be the topic of discussion. The Leipzig Plant in Germany was purpose-built to create the BMW i range and it’s powered by 100% wind energy, using four wind turbines, which saves 21,000 tonnes of CO2 every year. Just as Growing Underground use 70% less water to grow their produce, BMW use 70% less water and 50% less energy to build the i3. BMW planted extensive flowering meadows, trees and shrubs around the site, including over 230 apple trees, which are harvested by the factory each September. The leftovers are turned into apple juice or used to make desserts or cakes in the workshop’s canteen. Genius. allbrightcollective.com
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THE GINGER PIG AT BOROUGH MARKET
THE MEAT OF THE MATTER
Our next stop, The Ginger Pig, is the one I’m most excited about. Located on the edge of London’s most iconic food market, this butcher is known for being the best in the city – which is why all the meat we use at the AllBright comes from here. Not only does it taste fantastic, it’s also got great sustainable credentials behind it. The Ginger Pig operates under a no-waste, nose-to-tail ethos, meaning they use the entire carcass and absolutely nothing is wasted, as their butcher George demonstrates when he breaks down a lamb at the butcher’s counter. The Ginger Pig was born when founder Tim Wilson started rearing rare breed pigs. He found it easy to sell the prime cuts of pork but had a lot of high quality meat left – and so he went to a local butcher and learnt how to make sausages with it. The Ginger Pig works with small-scale farmers with high welfare and animal husbandry standards, and they place huge importance on working with the best producers in the country, who share their principles – which is exactly how I
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feel about the produce that I bring into the AllBright. While eating meat may be getting a bad rap these days, the Ginger Pig is working hard to educate customers about the best ways to eat meat. ‘For us, it’s all about the cuts people choose and carcass balance,’ says Amelia Woolley, the Ginger Pig’s Brand and Communications Manager. ‘It’s also about encouraging customers to eat meat less often but, when they do, investing in the very best. We have such an ingrained culture of people thinking they need meat in every meal, eating it daily and relying on supermarket bargains. Why not eat meat once or twice a week and buy something really good?’ I’m a big advocate of continuing to eat what you love, but doing so in a conscious way. Being sustainable doesn’t have to mean forgoing luxury, as a trip to the Ginger Pig proves. It’s the same in the BMW i3 – this nippy, all-electric car still delivers the premium BMW experience, in spite of the fact that many of the finishes are eco-friendly. Kenaf, a natural fibre extracted from the mallow plant, is used instead of petroleum based plastics to make the interior surfaces of the BMW i3.
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The seats are covered in natural wool, giving them an ‘active-climate’ quality that traps cold air and keeps you cool in summer, while retaining warmth in the winter. To reduce the use of plastics in the cabin, the doors are made from a material that uses recycled plastic bottles – 27 bottles in every car. In fact, up to 85% of the BMW i3 is recyclable – rather like an automotive version of the Ginger Pig’s nose-to-tail concept.
GOOD KARMA
Getting back into the cars, we head off to our final stop, Paxton and Whitfield’s cheese shop on Jermyn Street. This is Britain’s oldest cheesemonger, founded in 1797 and serving from this charming shop since 1896. It supplies all the cheese we serve at the AllBright, hand delivered on foot directly from the shop – just like it does for Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. As well as their eco-friendly delivery methods, many of the cheeses they sell are made through sustainable practices – like the Brightwell Ash goats’ cheese Wholesale Manager Ruth Holbrook brings out for us to try. Created by PAXTON & WHITFIELD, Norton and Yarrow in south JERMYN STREET Oxfordshire, it’s made from their own herd of Anglo Nubian goats on a special Earth Trust farm, which ensures that land used is accessible and diverse, and promotes traditional industries in the area such as cheese making. We also sample a Winterdale Shaw from North Kent – a completely carbon neutral cheese. Made from their own herd of cows, there’s no transportation involved, and all machinery is powered by solar panels. What’s more, their storage facility is built into the cliffs in the North Kent Downs to cleverly maintain a constant temperature of 10 to 12 degrees all year round. While Paxton and Whitfield is a heritage brand with a rich history, they’re no strangers to innovation. Take their latest initiative, which has seen them team up with the surplus food app Karma. If any of their cheeses are coming close to their best before date and need to be sold, they’ll put them on Karma, where they’ll be reduced in price and available to pick up that day. ‘The cheese maker has put just as much effort into that cheese as the others that were sold, so it’s such a shame if it goes in the bin,’ says Ruth. ‘We do anything we can to avoid that. Besides, it tastes
even better when it’s ripe.’ Back at the club, Jess and I unload the boxes of Waste Knot vegetables she’s brought over for the next dinner service, piled high with leafy kale, carrots and potatoes. It’s beautiful, fresh produce and I struggle to understand how it could go to waste if Jess wasn't around. ‘We get that reaction a lot,’ says Jess. ‘People can’t believe the produce they’re receiving is surplus. It’s because of the most minimal reasons that you might not even notice – maybe there’s a little scar on this bean, or one of the kale leaves is too big. But it’s all delicious, nutritious food with absolutely nothing wrong with it.’ What Jess does at Waste Knot is a huge part of the narrative at AllBright, as well as being a key focus of the day – whether it’s a new way of growing crops, learning how to use every cut of meat or switching to driving an electric car, it’s about doing our part to make the world a little bit better. ‘It’s all part of the same circle,’ says Jess. ‘We’re all working together to make a better environment for future generations.’ For more information on the BMW i3, please visit bmw.co.uk
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CALL OF DUTY Whether you want to donate your money, time or skills, here are the best causes to support to help make the world a better place
E X E R C I S I N G E T H I C A L LY
GOOD GYM
One for the multitaskers out there. Good Gym is a UK-based running community which offers the chance to get fit and do good at the same time. Each run involves stop offs along the way to do useful activities such as visiting lonely pensioners, tending community gardens or sorting through cans for food banks.
goodgym.org
TAC K L I N G P E R I O D P OV E RT Y
BLOODY GOOD PERIOD
Periods cost each woman an average of £4,800 over her lifetime – too much for many. Bloody Good Period strives to end period poverty by giving menstrual products to refugees and those who can’t afford them. The best way to help is by organising local collections of donations, but you can attend fundraising events, such as comedy and club nights, too.
bloodygoodperiod.com I N T E R N AT I O N A L F E M I N I S M
W O M EN F OR W OM EN
Backed by AllBright, this international organisation helps women survivors of war, 1 in 3 of whom experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime. So far 500,000 women across eight countries have been helped to earn their own money and regain their confidence, as well as being taught about their rights and health to help them effect long-term change. There’s plenty of ways to support their work, from fundraising to ‘sponsoring a sister’(£22 a month).
HELPING THE HOMELESS
WHITECHAPEL MISSION
As it stands, around 8000 people sleep rough on the streets of London every day. Helping the homeless for 142 years, The Whitechapel Mission provides food, clothing and support 365 days a year in this welcoming day centre. It’s impact is huge – in 2018, almost 3000 people chose to use its advice and counselling services. Donate your money, your toiletries and clothes, or your time – volunteers serve breakfast, sort through clothing and work one-to-one with visitors.
womenforwomen.org.uk
whitechapel.org.uk
SUPPORTING THE SISTERHOOD
C O N S E R V AT I O N
S M A RT W OR K S
RAINFOREST ALLIANCE
Counting the Duchess of Sussex as royal patron, this charity was established to empower women into the workplace from positions of disadvantage. Each unemployed woman is given a two hour dressing and coaching service, in which they receive a free outfit and advice from a senior professional for their upcoming interview. Donate your unwanted high-quality workwear to support the cause.
Horrified by the Amazon burning? This NGO works to amplify the voices of farmers and forest communities, improve livelihoods, protect biodiversity, and help people mitigate and adapt to climate change, so that rainforest fires become a thing of the past. As well as donating, you can commit to #FollowTheFrog and buy Green Frog certified products – Rainforest Alliance’s symbol of environmental and ethical sustainability.
smartworks.org.uk
rainforest-alliance.org
CLEAN FUEL
W AT E R P O L L U T I O N
350’s focus is on solving the climate crisis by building 100 per cent renewable energy to create a fossil fuel-free world. Show your support by joining their protests or, better still, learn how to organise one yourself with the charity’s online training programme.
With a mission to reconnect people to nature and help them protect their local river, this charity organises cleanups along the Thames and its many tributaries. No time to clean? Don’t worry – you can support its wider campaigns, such as combatting sewage and plastic pollution, instead.
350.org
thames21.org.uk
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A LITTLE WEIGHT GOES WA W A LONGG WAY Stylist Strong, London’s best free-weights workout for women is right here at The Allbright. The biggest indicator of how we will age is lean muscle mass and new health guidelines recommend a minimum of two strength workouts a week. Come see us for weights or yoga on the Wellness Floor at The AllBright Mayfair. UK 18+ ONLY.
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Woman on a Mission Debbie Wosskow meets Dame Stephanie Shirley – refugee, entrepreneur, philanthropist and one of the original women in tech
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hrough AllBright, I meet a lot of successful, inspirational women. But Dame Stephanie Shirley is definitely one of the women at the top of that list. At a time when a woman couldn’t even open a bank account without her husband, she co-founded a multi-million-pound technology business. After fleeing Nazi Germany as a refugee, she went on to programme the black box flight recorder for the supersonic Concorde, together with her almost entirely female team. Having empowered a generation of women in technology, she eventually transferred ownership to her staff, creating 70 millionaires in the process. Today, her TED talk on women and ambition has been viewed more than two million times. This is what happened when we sat down together to discuss feminism, female entrepreneurship and filtering that survival instinct… Debbie Wosskow: How did you come up with the idea for your female-focused company? Stephanie Shirley: What drove me to my vision of a female-dominated company was sexism. I’d worked in the public sector and I had been horrified to find there were two salary scales - one for men and one much lower one for women. I really felt that that wasn’t fair and I’ve always been concerned with trying to make the world a fairer place. I’d been patronised as a Jew, I’d been patronised as a woman, and I’d had enough. So in 1962 I decided to set up the sort of company that I would like to work for - a company of women, a company for women. It was based around the really revolutionary, disruptive concept of software being something that could be sold. At the time it was being given away free with the hardware, in the same way that a car manual might be
thrown into the box for you. And so, Freelance Programmers was born. DW: Tell us about your pseudonym, Steve? SS: In my innocence, I was signing new business letters with this double feminine of Stephanie, which is my name, and Shirley, which is my marital name, and getting basically no reply whatsoever. This was in 1962, when women couldn’t take a mortgage, hire a car, hire a television, and certainly couldn’t start a business without a male signature alongside. So my husband suggested that I use the family nickname of Steve. I started writing the same letters with Steve Shirley, and - surprise, surprise - I began to get some meetings and the company began to take off. DW: You previously told The Jewish Chronicle that “young women today have got it dead easy”. What did you mean by that? SS: In my generation, we had legal barriers to what you wanted to do. You couldn’t work on the stock exchange, you couldn’t fly a plane or drive a bus you were just not allowed to. Today, these things are legally open to you. But there are more difficult problems because you’re left with the overhanging cultural implications. There’s enormous quiet pressure to keep women down. We have this gender gap in that the women are congregated at the bottom of organisations and are not promoted above a certain level to get the high salaries. That gives a culture of macho male values. DW: When you started Freelance Programmers, you had £6 and worked from your dining-room table. When we launched the AllBright 18 months ago, we conducted some research and the resulting statistic was that one in ten women in the UK say they want to start their own business but they don’t.
What would you say to an aspiring female founder in 2019? SS: I found running my own business was so exciting and it got me away from that sexism, because I was in command. If you want to get away from the corporate world into a world where you’re in control, where you can build a collegiate atmosphere, where you can have a lot of fun and laughter, then starting your own business is a pretty good formula. The competition today is enormous because it’s easier to start without capital - you’ve got crowdfunding if you can’t get an angel investor, so there’s really nothing holding you back. I would really encourage you to try; it’s been marvellous for me. DW: You pioneered a way of working that helped women come back into the workforce after marriage or children, by doing things like adopting job shares, profit share and eventually co-ownership. These are all quite modern concepts. At AllBright we are growing a business where 95 per cent of our workforce is female. That’s a fantastic privilege and also has a lot of its own challenges. How you did manage to combine a female-friendly environment with an environment that was building a profitable business? SS: Well, I hadn’t been to university so nobody had taught me what one wasn’t supposed to do in business. So I just went and did it. Some things had to be corrected over the years, but we started off with the basis of trusting each other. When you’ve got a business you’re concerned less with the technology and more with the people - have you got the right people in the right place? Are they happy? Can we look ahead? DW: When the workplace discrimination legislation was introduced in the 1970s, you had to welcome more men into your
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300-strong workforce. The role of men at AllBright has been a huge topic for us too. So how did that change things internally and how did you feel about it? SS: It meant that our women’s company had to let the men in, legally; we couldn’t have that pro-female employment policy. It was a learning curve, and the first few appointments were just terrible. DW: Bad choices or bad fits? SS: Probably both. They promoted themselves in a way that we women traditionally daren’t: “Yes, I can do that! I’ve had plenty of experience in that!” And we believed them. So the first few men we took on were just incompetent at what we employed them to do. Some of them joined just to be in the company of intelligent, bright women. DW: For dating purposes? SS: Yes, it was very useful for that. But we learnt how to do the recruitment properly. I worked on values instead of qualifications and experience - was this somebody that I could trust? Was this somebody that I’d like to work with? Was this somebody that had a similar sense of humour or the right work ethic to go on, even when things get tough? That’s called value recruitment. DW: I’ve been both a sole founder and a co-founder. It’s much more fun with a co-founder, I would reflect, having done it both ways. SS: I’ve always envied start-ups that had more than one founder. It is very demanding running a business; it’s never the same two days running. You’re always making mistakes and you have to learn from them, and perhaps even build on them. I never had a mentor; the term wasn’t used in our generation. My first boss influenced me enormously. He’s dead now so I’m happy to say he showed me the sort of boss I did not want to be. And that’s a useful lesson; you have to learn from that. There was a boss later
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on too, Tommy Flowers, who was an inventor of one of the very early computers. He epitomised, for me, the innovative people manager that I aspired to be. DW: Let’s talk about motivation. You’ve been quoted as saying “I feel I need to do something each day to justify my survival”. SS: It’s a Jewish thing. I’m very conscious that I escaped the Nazi holocaust and I was very, very lucky to be fostered by a Christian couple in this country. But when I was about six, people were saying to this small child, “Aren’t you lucky to be saved?” I was very lucky, but you don’t say that to a young child. Unfortunately that had a pretty bad impact on me. I felt guilty for having survived, and that I needed to justify my existence. Of course, that can have very good results – I don’t fritter my time away, I do meaningful things as much as I can. But the feeling is as strong today as it was all those years ago, and I’m not sure that’s healthy. DW: Within the AllBright Academy we share guidance and inspiration from successful female founders on everything from resilience to the art of negotiation. What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve ever received, and is that a piece of advice that you’d share with the women in the room today? SS: Somebody once said to me years ago, “Take more of a risk”. As entrepreneurs we do take quite a lot of a risk - that’s why we get high reward when the risk pays off. But take the bigger gamble - employ the younger person rather than the experienced person, for example. All that means you’ve got a vibrant, diverse organisation that can face the future. The future, certainly on the technical side, is going to be very, very different. You have to have that resilience to move and stay with it, otherwise you will be out of date. So my main advice is to take more risks.
“One thing my experience of life has taught me is that people who achieve on a grand scale are those who dream on a grand scale”
Life lessons from Dame Stephanie ON SUCCESS: “The older you get, the more you realise that the things that really matter in life are not the material things.”
ON EMPOWERMENT: “Empowerment is the key to business success: not the blind surrender of power and responsibility to whoever wants it, but targeted empowerment, to people who have been painstakingly selected and nurtured.”
ON AMBITION: “I wanted whatever talents I had to be fully used, and the only person who was going to make that happen was me. I also resolved that I would stop congratulating myself on the little I had achieved in my life so far. Resting on one’s laurels is the surest route to stagnation. Instead, I would keep aiming higher and higher, giving free rein to my instinct. If I failed, so be it; but I would never allow myself to get into a position where I would curse myself for not having tried.”
ON GIVING BACK: “Philanthropy is about putting your money to uses you believe in, and taking pleasure from the process. It is realising its potential: wealth as numbers on a bank statement transformed into wealth that enriches the world - and, as a result, enriches you.”
ON LETTING GO: “I have struggled all my life with an instinct to hang on to the things that matter most to me, to control and protect them myself. Yet the art of surrender is, I am convinced, a key to many kinds of success - and fulfilment. And many lives are limited by a failure to master it.”
ON HOPE: “Even in the blackest moments of despair there is hope, if one can find the courage to pursue it. Sometimes the worst is less overwhelmingly awful than we fear; sometimes the right attitude can create good, even from life’s most terrible situations.”
ON ADVERSITY: “When everything you possess is on the line, you tend to find reserves of drive and commitment that you didn’t know you had when you were less exposed.”
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The rise of the IT girl
Dame Stephanie Shirley on the pioneering concept and phenomenal success of her software company Freelance Programmers
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n 1962, I decided to start my own company, selling software. That’s an uncontroversial sentence, written nearly 50 years later. At the time, it sounded mad. Drawbacks included the following: I had no capital to speak of. I had no experience of running a company. I had no employees, no office, no customers, and no reason to believe there were any companies out there with any interest in buying my product. Nobody sold software in those days. In so far as it existed, it was given away for free. Only the most forward-thinking and well-resourced organisations invested at all in what would now be called information technology, and those that did so would generally have been outraged at the suggestion that, having forked out a hefty sum for a new computer, they should also be asked to pay for the code to make it do what it was supposed to do. They expected that to be thrown in for nothing, as the manual is for a new car. But I knew, as everyone now knows, that the capabilities of a computer are defined not by its solid parts but by the code that runs it - in those days, huge reels of punched tape. If a company wanted to improve its efficiency by using a computer, what mattered wasn’t the hardware it bought but the programme - the software - that told it what to do. I cannot pretend that I foresaw how huge the software industry would eventually become. (The combined global market for operating systems and applications is, as I write, estimated to be worth around $300bn.)
My motivation had more to do with the sheer pleasure of working with computers. But I also had a gut feeling that there was a programming industry of some kind waiting to be born, and I liked the idea of being there at its birth. I knew that I was good at programming, and that there was only a relatively small pool of people in the UK who were. At the very least, I thought, I ought to be able to get enough freelance assignments of my own so that I could earn a living, from home, without having to be an underling in a male-dominated company. As an added attraction, such a way of working might well be compatible with raising children. The great thing, from my point of view, was that writing a computer programme required neither resources nor infrastructure. It was a very timeintensive business, in which the code had first to be written out as a sequence of logical commands - the difficult bit - before being converted into digital code that could be expressed as punched holes in a strip of tape. But all you needed, for the most part, was pencil, paper and a brain good enough to imagine how complex tasks could be reduced to a series of logical steps. This meant that I could work from home - or, if necessary, on clients’ premises - without splashing out on
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equipment. It also meant that, if all went well, I could hire other programmers on a freelance basis for particular projects, and they could do the work from their homes. My new company’s name, Freelance Programmers, described exactly what I intended it to do. Several colleagues, when told of my plan, laughed openly; I presume that the rest laughed in private. Not only was the plan mad. There was also the awkward fact that I was a woman. Whoever heard of a woman running a company - unless it was a little tea shop, or a cottage enterprise selling hats? One or two added that, even aside from my gender, I was surely too brittle in temperament to survive in the unforgiving business jungle. Nonetheless, I was determined to give it a try. There seemed to be so much potential: not necessarily for making money, but for translating the various challenges that organisations faced into problems that could be solved by a computer. Logistics, planning, management, automation - anything and everything seemed capable of being made to run more smoothly with the help of a well-thought-out programme. Anything seemed possible.”
Dame Stephanie Shirley’s memoir, Let It Go, is out now (£9.99, Penguin)
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The Power of
TWO
After a chance encounter, actress Gala Gordon and producer Isabella Macpherson set up Platform Presents, a production company championing emerging talent within theatre, film and television. They explain why two founders really are better than one‌
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GALA GORDON Platform Presents is an initiative that celebrates young talent, with a particular interest in female voices. Inspirational, female-led production companies in the industry like Margot Robbie’s and Reese Witherspoon’s, are championing female-lead stories, so it’s an incredibly exciting time to be taking control and making a difference. Isabella and I met after a screening of Oliver Stone’s film Snowden. We immediately clicked over how passionate we both are about theatre, film and television, and straight away swapped numbers. A month and a half later, I could have called anyone in my phone book, but I called her. I had the idea for a long time about wanting to start a company that champions rising stars. I felt like there was a gap in the market for a venture with that ethos and, after that initial meeting, Platform Presents was born. Coming from different backgrounds - me as an actress, Isabella as a producer - has only strengthened and increased our opportunities. The combination works well as we approach things differently and constantly learn from one another. It also means we have lots of different contacts within the industry, which now becomes one big mutual pool that we draw from. There have been so many benefits to being in a partnership. You’re bouncing off each other’s energy all the time, constantly learning from each other and laughing; but the real joy is that you go into everything together. You experience the journey together and you always know that somebody else has your back. There’s nothing like a woman understanding a woman. You just get each other. My favourite memory from working together was when we produced Blueberry Toast by Mary Laws at Soho Theatre. I was playing the role of Barb, who had to murder her husband on stage every night. Isabella set up her office in my dressing room to support me and make sure she was across any changes. I don’t know any other producers that would give that incredible level of support. Being an actress definitely teaches you resilience - there’s constant rejection to contend with. Isabella says
interchangeable. We don’t take on something wonderful which is that anything completely alone. Instead, “the worst anyone can say is no”. She’s we divide and conquer on all definitely taught me over the past two responsibilities across projects, which years that things don’t have to be means we can go into those difficult done as they were before. My advice conversations together. for entrepreneurs would be to I know some cobe persistent and founders struggle enthusiastic. Find as when they disagree many opportunities on a topic, but as you can to meet Gala and I are people who are Gala and Isabella’s top very discursive – we creating - it will pay off. tips for future co-founders always come to an considering working agreement. We’re ISABELLA together also very lucky in that MACPHERSON we have exactly the I have set up a few BRANCH OUT same taste in writing, companies and there’s “Break away from the fear of the and both want to g no golden rule to unknown, and approach people ive a platform to finding the perfect coyou haven’t worked with before female voices. founder. What is key is but would like to. I didn’t know We also share to seek out someone Gala before we set up Platform a love of dark comedy with your work ethic, Presents, but it works. that has a serious values, and if, like us, After all, nothing ventured, message. so there’s you’re working on nothing gained.” never been any creative projects, the Isabella divergence over what same creative vision. to produce. When you work with ESTABLISH WORK ETHIC My advice to someone one-on-one “Running a business is hard anyone thinking of you very quickly learn work. Good communication and setting up a new what they are like. The the desire to share the workload venture is to embrace key is to see how equally is key, so establish this what you don’t they respond under before you take the plunge.” already know - face it pressure, as there will Gala head on and ask be many stressful questions. If you moments. Gala is MUTUAL PASSION then want to do extraordinary - she’s “Gala and I have a mutual things differently, do. driven, enthusiastic, passion and vision for this A friend, entrepreneur proactive and has a venture. If you both know what and author Sahar great sense of humour, you want to achieve and are on Hashemi, coined the no matter what. the same creative road, you’re phrase “the power As a single founder, more likely to succeed.” of cluelessness” – one of the hardest Isabella you’re perfectly things you have to capable of learning deal with is facing TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS on the journey. I’ve challenges on your “Follow your gut and trust your been in boardrooms own. A lot of female instinct - you know when you full of men in suits founders I know find this isolating. Having a click with someone. Co-founding where no one dares a business is like a marriage: asks questions. But partner in crime works when it’s a real success, you the ability to pose well; there’s always a will have it forever.” frank questions is sounding board on Gala vital to learning and hand to discuss issues, testing new ways of explore different points working. If you and your co-founder of view and find the best solution. Two can’t have those uncomfortable heads really are better than one. conversations now, you won’t be able to What’s more, working together in the future. makes the job so much more dynamic and interesting. Ours is a shared platformpresents.com entrepreneurialism, and our roles are
FIND YOUR MATCH
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T h i s Wo r k i n g L i f e
Multiple
Talents Bestselling author and former editor of Teen Vogue Elaine Welteroth talks gratitude, growing and how she balances work with buckets of joy WORDS GEORGIE LANE-GODFREY
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f there’s one person who perfectly embodies the multi-hyphenate career trend, it’s Elaine Welteroth. The 32-year-old journalist-cumProject Runway judge-cum-bestselling author used her platform as former editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue to skyrocket her profile into a onewoman media brand. That brand is clearly a premium one. When you hear Elaine Welteroth’s name, it’s usually in conjunction with adjectives such as ‘trailblazing’ or ‘revolutionary’ or ‘groundbreaking’ - three descriptions that are clearly justified. At 29, Welteroth broke records to become the youngest ever Condé Nast editor-in-chief, and only the second African-American to hold such a position. But she also transformed the magazine, intellectualising Teen Vogue with politically engaging content targeting America’s youth. Now, she’s balancing talk show appearances and public speaking with a new role as author of the bestselling More Than Enough. Half-manifesto, halfmemoir, the book offers life lessons on race, identity and success in an effort to remind women that they are more than enough. Here, she tells us all about the life lessons she has learnt along her road to multiplatform success… Routine is important when you’re constantly travelling. No two days are ever the same for me I’m always in the air or in a hotel. It’s important to rise with the sun whatever time zone you’re in, so I’m always up early. When I wake up I force myself to smile. It sends positive signals to the rest of your body so you get up thinking, “Let’s do this!”
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Yoga is my answer to so much plane travel. Since turning 30, I’ve started feeling the limitations of my body. All those planes are harder on me now. I find yoga is the best way to realign in more ways than one. Even just a few poses in my hotel room in the morning makes a real difference to my energy - both physically and mentally - for the rest of the day. I aim to keep gratitude at the forefront of everything I do. It’s easy to get swept up in the fast lane, with its crazy schedules, and become unconscious of the reality of the extraordinary things you’re doing. Reminding myself that I’ve created this life and that I’m living my dream is important. When you’re in a better headspace, you can give more to your work. My bio on Instagram is “Don’t be eye candy. Be soul food”. Social media can be bright, shiny and attractive, but it can also make you feel sick, so be conscious of what you’re serving. Let it be a natural, authentic extension of who you are. Remember that any interaction is an opportunity to empower, uplift and redirect attention to what is truly important. I consider every female boss I’ve ever had to be a mentor. At the top of that list is Harriette Cole, my first boss from Ebony magazine and the reason I moved from a small town to New York. She was a role model for me and gave me the vision for my multi-faceted career. Being able to see another woman of colour succeed like this was key the saying “if you can’t see it, you can’t be it” is definitely true. Sometimes you have to turn your phone off to stay connected. Spending quality time with the people and places that matter to you only benefits your work, because when you’re happier, you work more effectively. So make sure you schedule quality time, because if you wait for openings in your schedule, they will never come.
The best career advice I’ve been given is to make friends with fear. Ava DuVernay told me that at a pivotal time in my career, when I was transitioning away from magazines. Fear leads to self-doubt and stagnation; it keeps people from doing things that could be the most transformative moments in their life. You need to reframe fear as a motivator and indicator that something is worth doing.
The author and editor's new season capsule wardrobe
Sisterhood is the reason I’m able to do the work that I do. The best part of becoming a leader as a woman of colour was being inducted into what I call the POC C-suite of women who go out of their way to empower and uplift each other. I live by that old adage that a rising tide lifts all boats, so I’m excited that we’re finally in a moment that celebrates the notion that there’s room and space for all of us. I literally diarise joy. On my schedule, I will block out buckets of time for joy, and then I do whatever I feel will make me happy at that time. Building in those moments of recreational playtime is energising. It might feel impossible, when you’ve got a deadline, to drop everything and relax, but force yourself to do it. It recalibrates your brain so that you come back with new perspective and new energy - it’s the best creativity hack I’ve ever been given. You don’t have to be defined by one dream or one job title for your entire life. Get out of any job or relationship that makes you feel small. Instead, position yourself for growth by surrounding yourself with the people and the spaces that encourage it. Identify what your passion is, then figure out what your mission is, and do it. More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) is out now
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ELAINE’S EDIT
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: MONSE Wool-blend blazer, £2,745, net-a-porter.com ROLEX Lady-Datejust watch, £6,950, rolex.com THEORY Cotton trousers, £495, uk.theory.com COURREGES Wool jacket, £1,290, net-a-porter.com CHANEL Les Beiges Healthy Glow Powder, £44, chanel.com BALENCIAGA Leather boots, £975, net-a-porter.com BITE STUDIOS Organic silk shirt, £400, bitestudios.com TOM FORD Ombré Leather fragrance, £117, tomford.com TOM FORD Tara mini bag £1,220, harveynichols.com
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Member Spotlight:
ELIZABETH UVIEBINENÉ AllBright member Elizabeth Uviebinené is an award-winning marketing manager, columnist for the FT and co-author of the bestselling Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible. Here, she tells us why we need to rethink how we approach race in the workplace PHOTOGRAPHY ALISE KATRINA JANE
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here are always places where you may feel like you don’t belong. I went to Warwick University, which is a very white, middle-class university, and after growing up in south London, it came as a real culture shock. But when I was applying, I hadn’t thought about the culture; I’d just thought about attending an excellent university that was good for my course. The same thing happened when I graduated and ended up in my first job in banking. My boss was white, his boss was white, even the boss’s boss was white – and so I began to question if I could thrive and be my authentic self within this culture. It can be so competitive to get a job when your graduate that you often feel you have to compromise on culture simply to get your foot in the door of these major companies. However, I realised very quickly that it’s not always easy to hit the ground running when there are unspoken and unwritten rules about how to get ahead as a black woman in a predominantly white and male workplace. Things such as a lack of mentorship, not having role models from similar backgrounds in senior positions, and daily mircoagressions all reinforce the exclusionary set-up of such work environments. One of the first jobs I applied for at the age of 20 was with a hedge fund in Mayfair. On my CV was Google’s Top Black Talent - a mentoring programme at Google I’d completed, which was aimed at giving high-achieving black students career guidance. However, just before submitting my CV, I looked at the website and saw a team made up of old, white men. I wanted my CV to fit in as much as possible, which I sadly interpreted as reducing my ‘blackness’, so I took the Google programme off. It was such a negative way of looking at my identity, but not without reason. In 2012, an All-Party Parliamentary Group report warned that ethnic minority women are discriminated against at every stage of the recruitment process, with some finding “markedly better results when they changed their names to disguise their ethnicity”. Years later, I’d co-write a book and proudly include ‘the black girl bible’ as its subtitle. We should never have to compromise and suppress who we are in order to fit into a monotone culture and be successful.
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The Influencers Elizabeth picks the black
business women who have inspired her most during her career
KIKE ONIWINDE Kike started the Black Young Professionals Network after struggling to meet other black graduates and professionals due to the lack of diversity in many organisations. It offers both a network of talent for corporates and a community through which people can connect and support each other. So far she’s received funding from Sky and raised £150,000 in pre-seeding funding - Kike dreams big and delivers. DR ANNE-MARIE IMAFIDON MBE Anne-Marie has been someone I’ve admired for years. I was interning at Deutsche Bank, where we both worked at the time, and I remember seeing her featured on the company intranet. Having her as a visible role model meant a great deal to me. She was doing something I admired in the form of Stemettes - an award-winning social enterprise to get more girls into tech - a project that she started as a side hustle. KAREN BLACKETT OBE Karen has been a mentor to me. As well as being the UK head of advertising giant WPP, she has so many other different strings to her bow - she was recently made a trustee of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s charitable foundation, for example. She’s a trailblazer who wears so many different hats, but still manages to be formidable, whatever she does. SHARMADEAN REID Sharmadean is a visionary. Her latest venture, Beautystack, is an app that puts the power in the hands of beauty professionals. She also has a track record of inspiring and empowering women through WAH Nails and Future Girl Corp, a platform for female entrepreneurs. She’s always one step ahead and puts women and their financial independence at the heart of whatever she does. ADE HASSAN MBE Ade founded Nubian Skin, an underwear brand redefining ‘nude’ underwear to cater for women of colour of all shapes and sizes. She’s had a huge influence on other areas of the industry too, forcing bigger lingerie names to work towards becoming more inclusive. Coming from a corporate background, as I do, Ade realised there was a market that was being underserved and decided to do something about it.
I believe we shouldn’t have to play the game in order to get by. Instead, we should be able to change it for the better. After a few years in work and co-writing Slay in Your Lane, I’ve come to realise the value that different perspectives brings to the table, rather than trying to fit in. My identity as a black woman is of value, but unfortunately not all workplaces have caught up. Many fail to recognise the challenges that black women face in the workplace - our hair being deemed ‘unprofessional’, our struggle to assert ourselves without being labelled with the ‘angry black woman’ stereotype, and our daily encounters with microaggressions that challenge and undermine us in the office. These microaggressions are small, subtle incidences of prejudice and discrimination, such as asking a British person of colour where they are ‘actually’ from. While they might be unintentional, they can make you feel marginalised. I remember being in a meeting after being promoted to a manager and putting forward an idea, only for a white male colleague to call me a ‘junior’ in front of everyone. It was a way for him to undermine my point, to make sure that I knew my place. Afterwards, I pulled him aside to address this, and although we were able to move forward, I shouldn’t have had to be in that position. The reality is that black women have to work twice as hard to get to where they are. In a study called Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science, published by WorkLife Law, 60 female scientists of colour were surveyed, and it was found that black women have to “provide more evidence of competence than others to prove themselves to colleagues”. After all that effort, many black women don’t want to speak out about racerelated issues because there’s a penalty for doing so. You can easily get a reputation for being ‘arrogant’ or ‘sassy’ or ‘angry.’ No one wants to jeopardise that hard work by being penalised professionally. But the end result is that many black women feel that they can’t bring their authentic selves to work. If you do feel the need to call someone out for their behaviour, my advice is to make a record of everything you’ve experienced. Understand the HR process, then go to your manager - they have a duty of care to you. If the manager is the issue or the situation continues then it may be time to move on. Things are slowly changing and there will be other companies you can work for that will value your contribution and will help you to thrive. Conversations on race and inclusivity are a hot topic right now, but companies need to do more than just pay lip service to these topics. Celebrating Diversity Week, International Women’s Day or Pride once a year is not a free pass to mask toxic work cultures and practices. So I urge you to think about your own place of work - does it cater for all women? Is there anything you can do to make it a thriving environment for a diverse workforce? We all have a responsibility to implement change. There are so many ambitious black women out there - it’s time to tap into the wealth of talent.
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AllBright Academy
Take the plunge With more and more women going it alone, The AllBright’s latest course arms you with the skills and knowledge to make freelance life work for you WORDS LUCIANA BELLINI ILLUSTRATION MARIANO PECCINETTI
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he way we work is changing. Conventional 9-to-5 jobs are on the decline, while the number of freelancers and consultants has been steadily rising over the past decade. According to a report conducted last year by the Office for National Statistics and the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed, the UK is now home to an estimated five million self-employed people, with freelancers comprising 42 per cent of that population and six per cent of the UK workforce as a whole. What’s more, the sector is currently dominated by women - the number of female freelancers has grown by 55 per cent since 2008, with new mothers making up a large portion of this demographic, having shot up by 79 per cent in the same period. Comparatively, the number of men freelancing has grown by just 36 per cent over the same timeframe. Which is why, a year on from launching its hugely successful first two courses, aimed at female founders and women looking to smash the glass ceiling, the AllBright Academy has decided to dedicate its latest course to freelancers and consultants. Spread over five modules, the course is designed to equip early-stage or aspiring female freelancers and consultants with the tools they need to thrive in this self-created structure. Featuring expert advice from freelancers including Annie Ridout, author of The Freelance Mum, writer and success coach Jody Shield and BBC Radio 1 host and sex educator Alix Fox, it covers everything from pitching to clients and building marketing strategies to managing your time and your professional reputation.
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“You have the opportunity to be in control of your own scope and how you want to contribute to various projects. Similarly, you have the ability to be in charge of your schedule - how much time you dedicate to your work and how much time you dedicate to personal life, travel, hobbies or family.” Taking the plunge can be a daunting prospect, which is why the course focuses on arming graduates with the knowledge and confidence required to go it alone. “It can be a big risk,” admits AllBright member and consultant Tracy Savage, who advises businesses on mentoring schemes. “Nothing is guaranteed and so the ever-present knowledge that one should always be seeking new business can cause anxiety.” AllBright faculty member Bridget Arsenault, a freelance journalist and presenter who has written for Vanity Fair, Forbes and British Vogue, agrees it takes a certain character to make it work. “I am someone who genuinely loves what I do, so I never mind having to stay in on a Friday or Saturday night because I have a last-minute commission - but that lifestyle doesn’t work for everyone. You have to be honest about your personality and what works for you.” That being said, for the majority of women who go down this path, the pros far outweigh the cons. “The best thing is the freedom and flexibility it gives you,” says AllBright member Rebecca Lewis, who has been a freelance PR and communications consultant for the past two-and-a-half years. “You have the opportunity to be in control of your own scope and how you want to contribute to various projects. And you can be in charge of your schedule - how much time you dedicate to your work and how much time you dedicate to personal life, travel, hobbies or family.” For Bridget, the main benefit is being able to carve out a better work-life balance. “The flexibility lends itself really well to travel and fitness, which is a real bonus when trying to achieve some semblance of a balanced life,” she says. “Also, I like being removed
from office politics and having the autonomy to decide what to take on and what to turn down. It’s incredibly exciting and empowering.” The one downside? The loneliness freelance life can bring - which is why building a strong community to combat this is key. “Freelancing can be lonely,” admits Alix Fox. “It made me so low but over time I learnt the importance of resources such as AllBright. It helped me to recognise that other freelancers weren’t my enemies, they were my allies. Now I have a network of like-minded women who bounce ideas off one another and support each other wholeheartedly. It has enhanced my life immeasurably.” “Try to find a few trusted people in similar lines of work whom you can confide in,” advises Bridget. “It is incredibly important to have a support network and a mentor - be that a formal or informal one. You need someone to bat ideas around with and someone to look over your work.” Building a strong community is an integral part of the course, where everyone who participates will gain access to AllBright Connect, the digital platform that connects likeminded women around the world to create a global sisterhood. “Having a network like AllBright is a game-changer for anyone wanting to start freelancing, or as a learning resource for those already working as a freelancer,” says Tracy. “The beauty for me is the reciprocal exchange of ideas and support. Women have always supported each other in some way - but now we can access that on a global level.” Applications are now open for The AllBright's latest Academy course, ‘For Freelancers and Consultants’ – to apply, visit allbrightcollective.com/ academy/for-freelancers/
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ALLBRIGHT CONNECT Download our app to network with likeminded women all over the world Whether you’re looking to go freelance, figuring out how to advance your career or just in the market for some new friends, connection is key. It’s how we move forward in the world, how we grow and evolve. But it’s not always easy to get out there and network face-to-face, to make it to those post-work drinks or the early-morning power breakfasts. Which is why digital platforms like AllBright Connect are so important. This global, online sisterhood of like-minded women is open to every woman, everywhere, offering advice and support at the touch of a button. Think of it as a cross between LinkedIn and Instagram - this is a hub where Academy alumni and club members come together to search for other members with similar interests or experience, ask questions, post updates and share opportunities. It’s where they organise mothers’ meet-ups and coffee mornings, swap podcast recommendations or seek advice on thorny issues in the workplace. It’s also a place where AllBright members can review exclusive benefits, receive updates from the AllBright team and RSVP to our ever-growing roster of events. The aim of the app is to bring women together to make valuable, lasting connections - because, as we all know, amazing things happen when women get together.
The AllBright app can be downloaded from the Play and App Stores and is also accessible at allbrightconnect.com
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It pays to be green money talks
Personal finance expert Lisa Conway-Hughes on why the green economy is one to watch and how to start investing ethically ILLUSTRATION MARIANO PECCINETTI
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L
ast week, on my commute to work, I did the following things: I used my KeepCup when I got a coffee, I ordered a dress online from sustainable fashion brand Reformation, and I read a feature on food waste recipes. What is most significant about this is that I did it all unconsciously. This really highlights to me the positive changes that we have all made in the past few years, especially when it comes to single-use plastics and fast fashion. But these positive changes are also being felt further afield, including in the world of finance. Personally, I’ve seen an increase in the number of clients who are insisting that they take an equally mindful approach to their investments. No longer are they happy to just tick the default investment option. Instead, they want to understand exactly what they are investing in and whether there are more ethical alternatives - ones that are better aligned with their beliefs and principles. Millennials are leading the charge, with the 2017 Global Investor Study by Schroders reporting that 86% of millennials feel that sustainable investing has become more important for them over the past five years, followed by 79% of Gen Xers and 67% of Baby Boomers. So how is this desire for ethical investing impacting the wider economy? There is no doubt that we’re still in the early stages the term ‘socially responsible investment’ (SRI) was only coined in 2007. However, the concept of ethical investments is clearly a hot topic - and now the financial industry is starting to respond. Damien Lardoux from EQ Investors explains that “the financial sector can be a real catalyst in transitioning to a green economy. Through shareholder engagement and active stewardship we can hold companies responsible for meeting climate change targets. Impact investing is growing rapidly as investors look for ways to help the planet survive and make financial returns”. While the economy’s success is measured by an increasing gross domestic product (GDP), regardless of its toll on other factors, the green economy is different. According to a definition by the European Environment Agency, a green economy is one that “results in improved human wellbeing and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities”. As such, green economies champion both environmental and ecological advancements, as well as profit. So, what can we, as consumers and entrepreneurs, do to promote a green
economy? James Purcell, head of Sustainable and Impact Investing at UBS Global Wealth Management, feels that there is a lot more to gain from investing sustainably than a good night’s sleep. “The ‘green economy’ has huge growth potential,” he says. “Demographic drivers and the resultant strain this will put on global resources ensures the development of a greener economy is near inevitable. Take food demand, which by 2050 is estimated to increase by 60% from current levels. To fulfil this demand we need solutions ranging from plant-based protein and algae aquaculture to bioplastic packaging and big data-driven agriculture. Add in evolving consumer demand patterns and a growing awareness of climate change and it’s very likely that ‘green’ technologies and solutions will increase as a share of GDP, even without regulatory or subsidy support.” With the evidence suggesting that we should be investing ethically not just for our planet but also for our own financial gain, it’s no surprise the area is growing. In fact, according to a study by Triodos Bank, the UK market for socially responsible investing is expected to grow by 173% to reach £48 billion by 2027. This is despite the fact that ethical investments might not always be as profitable. Research by Wealthify found that 54% of investors prioritised “ethical credentials” in investment products, of which two-thirds were prepared to pay a so-called “ethical premium” in the form of higher fees. This altruistic approach to investment is set to have a massive impact, says Phoebe Stone of LGT Vestra. “Increasingly, clients are looking to achieve more with their money than simply a financial return,” she explains. “The allocation of capital through investment markets can be viewed as a vote for companies that are operating in a more responsible manner and creating a sustainable future for generations to come. From awareness around the destruction of the Amazon to the production and consumption of plastic, the challenges we face as a globe are widespread. Engagement from the investment community is an essential part of delivering the solutions and changing behaviours of businesses and consumers.” So as the financial industry continues to create investment options that consider more than just return, perhaps it is time for us all to take a deeper look at what we are actually investing in… For more advice from Lisa Conway-Hughes, visit misslolly.com
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HOW TO INVEST ETHICALLY Lisa Conway-Hughes on how to get involved in the growing green economy EXAMINE YOUR ETHICS Start by assessing what is important to you. What are you comfortable with and what is non-negotiable? Next, consider whether there is a particular cause you’d like to support. To help you align, some funds, such as climate funds, water funds or Sharia funds, take a thematic approach. CHECK FOR ESG Environmental, social and governance (ESG) are the three central factors in measuring the ethical impact and sustainability of an investment. Worryingly, we are also seeing the ethical investment arena being exploited by scammers, so make sure you are dealing with reputable companies by checking their ESG rating. CHECK FOR SCREENING Most investment funds will screen out sin stocks, such as defense, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment and weapons. Others will go further and exclude animal testing, genetic engineering, deforestation, etc. This is known as negatively screening. Some will also positively screen. This is where an investment must meet certain criteria in order to be included, such as promoting good working conditions or having a robust energy efficiency policy. Both positive and negative screening is open to interpretation, so be clear on what is covered. DELVE DEEPER Most platforms and pension providers today can offer ethical funds that are available to you to invest in, but you still need to assess them. Use tools such as FE TrustNet to look deeper into these investments and check whether they truly align with your ethics. KNOW THE RISKS As with any investment, there are risks involved and your investment may go down. So, as always, you must choose investments that suit your appetite for risk.
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Blazer, £199, and Trousers, £120, jigsaw-online.com
G et s m a rt HRH The Duchess of Sussex has teamed up with Smart Works, the charity that provides interview training and outfits to unemployed women in need. Together, they’ve created The Smart Set, a five-piece workwear collection that’ll be sold through John Lewis, M&S, Jigsaw and Misha Nonoo. For every item bought, one will be donated to the charity. The collection sold out as soon as it launched but fresh drops are expected throughout the season.
Shirt, £125, mishanonoo.com
smartworks.org
Dress, £19.50, marksandspencer.com Bag, £109, johnlewis.com
The FASHION Fix Style notes for the sartorial season ahead COMPILED BY CHARLOTTE ADSETT
PIPPA SMALL 18 karat gold diamond ring, £1,500 pippasmall.com
TIFFANY Tiffany T True Wide ring, £1,225, tiffany.co.uk
GREEN IS THE NEW GOLD
SWAROVSKI
It’s not just the fashion industry that’s raising its ethical standards - jewellery brands are also adopting eco-conscious initiatives. Take Tiffany, for example, which has started laser-etching its diamonds with its provenance to ensure they are conflictfree. Or London-based Pippa Small, one of the first jewellers to work with ‘clean gold’ - mined with low environmental impact and a respect for workers’ rights. Chopard has also turned its focus towards eco-friendly luxury, making red carpet-worthy collections using only responsibly sourced precious metals and stones, while Swarovski is championing man-made diamonds as an ethical answer to problematic mining - a sign of a fairer future ahead.
CHOPARD Green Carpet Collection diamond earrings, POA, chopard.com
ATELIER SWAROVSKI Stephen Webster Double Diamond cocktail ring, £3,990, atelierswarovski.com
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GREY M AT TERS Move over beige, grey is the new neutral CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ADEAM AW19; HARRIS WHARF Wool coat, £535, harriswharflondon.com; CHLOE Carlina sunglasess, £265, matchesfashion.com Main model image: TOMMY X ZENDAYA AW19, tommy.com; GANT Lambswool sweater, £95, gant.com KEDS Kickstart pumps, £59.99, zalando.co.uk; WANDLER Luna bag, £510, matchesfashion.com Model image: CHINTI & PARKER AW19, chintiandparker.com; GIANVITO ROSSI 105 suede pumps, £510, net-a-porter.com; CHLOE Carlina sunglasess, £265, selfridges.com BALENCIAGA Knife-point patent flats £595, brownsfashion.com HOUSE OF LAFAYETTE Loulou headband, £105, matchesfashion.com
REBEL RISING
Stella McCartney continues the fight for sustainable fashion with her Autumn/Winter 2019 campaign, which stars members of activist group Extinction Rebellion alongside Amber Valletta and eco-warrior models. Shot in locations under threat from climate change, the images are a powerful call to arms for fashionistas around the world.Small Stella Logo Tote, £590,.stellamccartney.com
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Fashioning a
future
Meet Amy Powney, Creative Director of ethical luxury fashion brand Mother of Pearl, who is on a mission to protect the planet by promoting sustainable fashion WORDS HARRIET COOPER
L
iving off-grid from the age of ten will have an effect on you. For Amy Powney, it created a focus on putting sustainability at the core of her work. Having moved from a cosy Lancashire home into a caravan while her parents renovated a barn and installed a well and wind turbine to become entirely self-sufficient, Amy soon saw the value in a life lived more conscientiously. Fast-forward two decades and Amy now is creative director of sustainable and ethical luxury fashion label Mother of Pearl, which boasts the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Phoebe WallerBridge as fans. Having worked her way up the ranks after joining Maia Norman’s fledgling brand in 2006 as studio assistant, Amy is the person responsible for turning the brand into a cult favourite with the fashion set. Playfully feminine, with signature pearl-embellished ruching and oversize satin bows, Mother of Pearl’s pieces are ethical to their core - an identity that can be attributed to Amy. Using the brand as a platform to encourage more consumers into ethical fashion, in 2018 Amy launched No Frills, a core collection of Mother of Pearl wardrobe staples that is sustainable, organic and socially responsible. Now, those principles are influencing the wider collections too, including the new AW19 line - an eye-popping combination of animal prints, tailored tartans and gothic florals. As a result, Amy has become a go-to name for sustainable fashion within the industry. Earlier this year, she collaborated with BBC Earth at London Fashion Week to host a series of talks and put together a short film to further raise awareness. Next, she created a capsule collection of eveningwear exclusively with Net-a-Porter to showcase cutting-edge sustainable production methods. Now, she’s on a mission to demonstrate to a wider audience how innovation and new technology can help reduce the impact of fashion on the planet.
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‘I soon realised you can't use the word sustainability for one thing, it has to be an approach, a culture’ Where do you think your appreciation of fashion came from? I started reading fashion magazines in my teens, but I didn’t have a fashion background. Style in the North of England wasn’t like London - I grew up at a time where a full adidas tracksuit or a pair of Kickers shoes meant you were insanely cool. I became interested
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in how brands represented being ‘cool’ or ‘not cool’ and how this expressed which crew you belonged to. I combined this fascination with my love of art and design - which is all I ever wanted to do - and so I pursued a career as a designer, joining Mother of Pearl as a studio assistant immediately after graduating from Kingston University. What sparked your environmental and ethical concerns within the fashion industry? I think growing up off-grid and being close to nature made me more connected to the bigger picture of the planet and my surrounding environment. It was built into me to question where everything came from. At university I read Naomi Klein’s anti-consumerist book No Logo and I was deeply disturbed by the social issues within the industry I was about to enter. This inspired me to make my graduate collection out of sustainable fabrics.
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How can you bring about change through Mother of Pearl? I soon realised you can’t just use the word sustainability, for one thing; it has to be an approach, a culture. Mother of Pearl embraces sustainability from a holistic point of view: from restructuring the supply chain in accordance with fully ethical practices to creating a plastic-free and low-waste working environment in the London HQ, our aim has always been to not only offer a product but to start a movement We want to make life easy and, most importantly, transparent for our customers. Rather than trust a sweeping sustainability statement, you can see detailed information on every product on our website and even filter by sustainable attributes, so you can buy pieces that support the issue you care most about. We also provide detailed information about what each sustainable attribute means, so
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new, start by looking at the price tag. If it’s ridiculously cheap, there’s a reason for that - such as somebody not getting paid properly for their work, or cheap, toxic chemicals being used in the process. Only buy something that you absolutely love – that really is the mindset I think the whole world can get behind. Next, check the fabric. Always opt for organic cotton if you can as conventional cotton is grown with pesticides. If it’s polyester, I would avoid it unless you know you’re going to wear it a lot – it’s a really problematic material if you’re trying to be green, as essentially it's plastic. you can also learn about different environmental and social issues - it can be a minefield otherwise. Sustainable fashion is often still expensive. How have you addressed this? We created No Frills, our fully sustainable line of core classics for everyday wear. It was designed around the idea of a simple product that could provide basic necessities with no unnecessary additions (at a more accessible price point). Instead of putting all our energy into the final stage, we put the same amount of time and thought into ensuring that the supply chains that make the pieces are environmentally and socially sound. Everything we have learnt with No Frills, we have introduced into our mainline ready-to-wear collections, incorporating more sustainable fabrics each season. What advice would you give to someone wanting to shop sustainably? First of all, the best thing to do is to buy less, but if you are buying something
Which other forwardthinking fashion brands do you admire for their environmental initiatives? I’m a huge fan of Allbirds (allbirds.co.uk), which makes shoes using natural materials such as eucalyptus tree fibre, merino wool and sugar cane. I think any brand than can focus on one thing and do it well is impressive, especially when that’s combined with powerful scalability and neat storytelling. Are you an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to the future of sustainability in fashion? I oscillate between the two. Some days, I’m filled with inspiration for the future and on others I’m faced with brutal realities. I have faith in the younger generation’s passion towards addressing climate change, but there are some terrifying statistics out there. My overriding feeling is one of frustration. We have all the information we need on how to save ourselves and our planet, and there is so much potential to do this. It’s an issue we all have in common and will affect all of us, so I wish we could band together to make sustainability a way of life. My biggest hope is that we all become more conscious of the impact we’re having and work to reduce it significantly. But, in ten years time, when we’ve halted climate change, I hope I’ll be nothing but an optimist.
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AMY’S
FIVE WAYS TO BECOME MORE SUSTAINABLE
Checked organic wool blazer £595
Emma satin midi skirt £350
Georgina satin trousers £395
SWITCH IT UP The easiest change any company or individual can make is to switch energy suppliers to a green provider. Although it might cost a bit more every month, if you can afford it, it’s a great way to make an easy change.
DITCH THE PLASTIC Day to day, I try to avoid single-use plastics where I can. We installed a water filter in the office so the team don’t need to buy bottled water and also introduced a group vegetarian lunch scheme at the office, which comes almost free of plastic packaging. Small changes can really make a difference!
BUY VINTAGE I love finding special and unique pieces. Adopting the old make-do-and-mend philosophy can be fun - when my husband Nick and I renovated our house, we bought a set of vintage chairs from eBay for £50 and we re-upholstered them with velvet House of Hackney fabric.
GET A REFILL There’s a great organic shop near our home in Walthamstow that offers refills of eco-friendly cleaning products. Since you only buy one bottle, it’s a great way to cut down on plastic waste. Some beauty brands are starting to do this too, so check online to see where you can get refills locally.
THE ALLBRIGHT EDIT:
MOTHER OF PEARL Velda Lyocell wrap dress £495
AW19 COLLECTION all available at motherofpearl.co.uk
Annabelle organic silk skirt £595
GO FLEXITARIAN I’m vegetarian most of the time and support local farmto-home businesses to get fresh produce and reduce my food’s carbon footprint. When I do eat meat, I only ever have free-range so that I know its provenance, and I try to avoid beef as it’s a big contributor to climate change.
Wool coat £795
Velda silk-satin wrap dress £695 Mable wool coat £595
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Fashion with a Conscience In an industry that has been slow to adopt sustainable practices, these brands are leading the way with eco-friendly collections that don’t compromise on style WORDS CHARLOTTE ADSETT
MAGGIE MARILYN
24-year-old designer Maggie Marilyn is on a mission to make a difference in the fashion industry. Her fully sustainable brand has an emphasis on transparency, empowering and ensuring fair working conditions for everyone in the supply chain. Always looking for new ways to make a difference, this season she’s adopting an innovative process to use rose petals as a plant-based alternative to traditional silk (made from silkworms). Marilyn keeps the carbon footprint of her pieces low by weaving, milling and dyeing her wool in the same factory in her native New Zealand, and is also an advocate of circularity - taking used fabrics from unsold or older styles and turns them into new garments. maggiemarilyn.com
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BEULAH
After witnessing the exploitation of vulnerable women during a volunteering mission in the slums of Delhi in 2010, friends Lady Natasha Rufus Isaacs and Lavinia Brennan launched ethical fashion label Beulah London. Proving that fashion can be a force for good, the brand donates ten per cent of profits to organisations that help empower women in India through education and employment, and fight to eradicate modern-day slavery. The socially conscious duo, whose signature printed silk dresses and blouses are worn by the Duchess of Cambridge, have also founded The Beulah Trust to put their humanitarian mission into action. beulahlondon.com
MARA HOFFMAN
Fifteen years after she founded her eponymous label, New York beachwear designer Mara Hoffman relaunched in 2015 with a new focus on transparency. The majority of her swimwear pieces are now made from ECONYL® - a regenerated nylon created from recycled waste material such as fishing nets and old carpets, and Hoffman only works with manufacturers that adhere to international labour standards. She spreads the “wear more, wash less” message on her website to encourage consumers to take better care of their garments in order to help them last longer, while conserving natural resources and keeping textile waste out of landfill. marahoffman.com
GABRIELA HEARST
Womenswear designer Gabriela Hearst applies her ecological values to the entire manufacturing process, exploring ‘luxury with a conscience or, in other words, honest luxury’. The supply chain for her elegant, timeless pieces is carefully monitored, and all materials can be traced back to their source. The wool, for example, is supplied by sheep from Gabriela’s own family ranch in Uruguay, where she grew up. Beyond the garments themselves, Gabriela Hearst is set to become the first brand to have all of its plastic packaging and hangers replaced with TIPA – a biodegradable alternative that composts within just 180 days. gabrielahearst.com allbrightcollective.com
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BITE STUDIOS
A collective of creatives based in Stockholm and London, BITE (By Independent Thinkers for Environmental progress) is a sustainability-focused womenswear label that uses the finest natural, organic and recycled fabrics for its Scandistyle, contemporary tailored pieces. Aiming for the lightest possible environmental footprint, the brand uses a carefully controlled supply chain, and its carefully selected materials include cruelty-free ‘peace’ silk made in Hertfordshire, using silk worms that are able to finish their natural life cycle, and naturally dyed organic wools from Italy. Coming soon is a buy-back scheme, allowing customers to return previously worn garments in exchange for cash. The secondhand pieces will then be repaired and modified for resale in archive sales. bitestudios.com
NINETY PERCENT
Putting planet and people before profit, London-based womenswear label Ninety Percent has a commendable mission: to change the landscape of fashion by distributing 90 per cent of its profits. The money is divided between the garmentmakers and four humanitarian and conservation charities, with customers getting a say on where the money goes. For its luxe capsule basics, such as T-shirts and bodysuits, the brand uses a material called Tencel, made from renewable wood pulp. Ninety Percent hopes that by inviting them to take part in this collective initiative, consumers will become more aware of what they buy and the positive impact of their purchases. ninetypercent.com
PEOPLE TREE
A pioneer in sustainable fashion since it launched in 1991, People Tree is dedicated to the principles of Fairtrade, which ensure fair wages, good working conditions, gender equality and environmental best practice. It employs traditional artisan skills such as hand-weaving and hand embroidery, using eco-friendly materials like organic cotton and Tencel Lyocell, made from sustainably sourced wood. Now, almost three decades on, it’s still taking the lead on new initiatives, this year releasing a collection called Our Blue Planet with BBC Earth to highlight the importance of ocean conservation. peopletree.co.uk
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VEJA
There’s a reason French brand Veja is the only trainer brand to be seen in right now. With fans including Emma Watson and the Duchess of Sussex, these sought-after trainers are made in Brazil using recycled plastic bottles, organic cotton and Fairtrade wild rubber. The brand has a strong focus on social and environmental responsibility, working closely with small producers and cooperatives to ensure fair working practices and wages. Following on from the success of its vegan collection, Veja has recently launched the Campo range, made from fully biodegradable waxed canvas and corn waste. veja-store.com
REFORMATION
Cult LA brand Reformation, which has just opened its first European store on Westbourne Grove in West London, is the brainchild of former model Yael Aflalo. The revolutionary brand, which is carbon, water and waste neutral, prioritises plantbased fibres for its vintage-inspired, ditsy-print pieces, and is a fan of upcycling deadstock fabrics, such as Recover® yarns made from old clothes and fabric waste. Designed, manufactured and shipped from the Los Angeles-based headquarters, Reformation’s packaging is plasticfree and made from 100% recycled paper products and compostable biobased films. thereformation.com
RENTRAYAGE
Meaning ‘mended’ or ‘made whole’ in French, Rentrayage is the New York-based sustainable clothing line from designer Erin Beatty (co-founder of the nowclosed womenswear label Suno). Today, Beatty is on a mission to effect change in the notoriously wasteful fashion industry, and is dedicated to upcycling, taking the name of her brand quite literally. She works with only secondhand and vintage garments, repurposing them into new, one-of-akind pieces - think handcrafted floral midi dresses made using multiple vintage fabrics or bold patchwork T-shirts made from two or more vintage tees spliced together. rentrayage.com
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THE EYES H AV E I T
Victoria Beckham’s muchtalked-about beauty brand has finally landed, launching with Victoria’s Smoky Eye Wardrobe, a covetable collection of three products: Smoky Eye Brick eyeshadow compact, (£48); Lid Lustre crystal-infused eyeshadow, (£28); and Satin Kajal eyeliner, (£20). The cruelty-free range, which will also include skincare and wellness products in the coming months, is focused on inclusivity (available in 30 shades to suit a wide range of skin tones) and clean beauty – it is committed to sustainability, using minimal plastic and 100% post-consumer waste outer packaging. victoriabeckhambeauty.com
The BEAUTY Fix The latest launches, trends and hero buys COMPILED BY CHARLOTTE ADSETT
SPOT ON US beauty brand Glossier has finally bought its bestselling Zit Stick (£12) to the UK. Use at the first sign of a blemish, and apply up to three times daily until your spot has disappeared. Formulated with a potent but gentle mix of antibacterial tea tree oil and salicylic acid, the rollerball pen delivers the exact amount of product needed with three clicks. In clinical trials, testers said Zit Stick made their blemish smaller in 24 hours. glossier.com
W H AT ’ S N E W AT 5 8 W E L L B E I N G THIS AUTUMN WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS Make Wednesday your self-care session with 58 Wellbeing’s workshops. Taking place each month, these events see expert therapists and practitioners offer advice on health, beauty and wellbeing. ABOUT FACE Put those 57 facial muscles to work with Facercise, the exercise routine designed to improve, tone and lift muscles. Expert practitioner Gloria Budd is hosting group workshops and also offering one-to-one sessions. GET LIT Try a cutting-edge Dermalux LED light treatment, which uses low-level light energy via pure ‘bioactive’ wavelengths to treat issues such as ageing, acne, pigmentation and sensitivity. Add on a light treatment to any facial on the menu.
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beauty & wellness
Good Hydrations Treat your face to some seasonal TLC
As the temperature drops, it’s time to switch up your skincare wardrobe. Use these moisture-boosting, nurturing products to protect your skin from the elements
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: La Mer The Renewal Oil, £95, cremedelamer.com Dr Sebagh Rose de Vie Serum, £129, net-a-porter.com Summer Fridays Face masks, from £22.50, cultbeauty.co.uk Herbivore Facial Roller in Jade and Rose Quartz, from £26-£36, cultbeauty.co.uk Origins GinZing Oil-Free Energy Boosting Gel Moisturiser, £25, johnlewis.com Philosophy Purity Made Simple eye gel, £17.50, philosophyskincare.co.uk Chanel Le Lift Sérum, £140, chanel.com Caudalie Vinosource Moisturising Sorbet, £23, spacenk.com
SLEEPING BEAUTY
Treat your skin to a good night’s sleep with Aime’s new Sleep & Glow supplement (£39), designed to aid sleep and let your skin recover from the day’s excesses. The tincture contains ashwagandha, an ayurvedic medicinal plant known for its regenerative properties, as well as melatonin - the sleep hormone that we produce naturally, but the production of which can be affected by stress and blue light from screens. Out 1st October. aime.co
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Press Reset With autumn comes a sense of renewal, making it the perfect season for resolutions. This year, we’re resolving to prioritise our mental wellbeing – here’s where to start WORDS TABITHA LASLEY I L LU S T R AT ION Q -TA
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t’s a truth universally acknowledged that no one sticks to New Year’s Resolutions. The cold, dark days of early January are just about the worst time to embark on a punitive new regime, and it’s hardly surprising most of us crack by Easter. Better to make resolutions in the autumn, which feels like a natural turning point in the calendar. Ancient cultures understood the importance of the autumn equinox, recognising it as a time of vital transition. The earth goes through a fallow period after harvest, and so should we, embracing the season’s slower rhythms, and using it as an opportunity to reflect, regroup and meditate on what changes we might need to make. “It’s called the Fresh Start Effect,” says Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale, who runs the university’s renowned happiness class, Psychology and the Good Life. “People are more successful in making progress towards a new goal at temporal moments that seem like new beginnings.” Santos was inspired to create the course because so many students reported feeling miserable and anxious. Data from the World Happiness Report and the General Social Survey suggests this trend cuts across all age groups; as a society, we’re less happy now than we were in the early 1990s, despite all the advances in the last 20 years that have – notionally – made our lives easier. But studies also show we have more control over our state of mind than we think, so perhaps the best way to reset this season is to focus on our mental wellbeing. These are steps we can take to feel happier.
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GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER While it’s a given that no one likes clutter, our surroundings have a huge effect on our mood – one Princeton University study found clutter restricts our ability to focus and process information. However, women appear to be made particularly miserable by mess. A 2010 study in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found women who perceived their homes to be cluttered had raised levels of cortisol all through the day, were more fatigued by the time they got home, and had difficulty decompressing after work. Although the reason for this isn’t known, researchers have suggested it’s because housework is still perceived to be the ‘woman’s responsibility’. To avoid this misery, Lizzie Grant of decluttering service Simplify Stuff (simplifystuff.co.uk) recommends a thorough autumn clean: “Declutter kitchen surfaces of appliances you don’t use, let go of any items past their use-by date, and bring items near expiry to the front of your cupboards so you use them up. Reorganise your wardrobe, packing your summer clothes away in vacuum-pack bags to protect them from moths. Donate items you no longer need to charity and recycle worn out textiles. Dedicate a space on your shelves to books you haven’t yet read so it’s easy to work your way through them. Then donate books you no longer want to charity or gift them to friends. It can feel really overwhelming, but you need to remember that decluttering is achievable. Once you’ve done it, your mood will improve, you’ll feel more confident, and you’ll have a feeling of accomplishment because you’ve taken back control.”
GO BACK TO SCHOOL In a nutshell, learning makes us happy. When we’re completely absorbed by a task – especially one that calls on our creative abilities – we feel exhilarated, even if we’re tired. Psychologist and
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pioneering happiness researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined a name for this state of deep concentration: ‘flow’. But learning a new skill not only boosts our mood, it helps brain function and can guard against illness in the future. The British Medical Journal recently published a review that continuing education increases cognitive reserves, and could even help prevent dementia. “Learning builds our semantic network; the spider web of knowledge in our brains,” explains David Epstein, author of Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World. “A richer semantic network facilitates connection-making, as it enables us come up with wideranging analogies, which helps solve problems. As we get older, one of our major personality traits, ‘openness to experience’, declines. Fortunately, research shows that learning a new skill can stem that decline, and make us more open to experience.” Joining a course where you have classmates will bring even more benefits. Lots of universities and learning centres start running courses in autumn, so it’s the ideal time to sign up. “It means you’ll be connecting,” says Sarah Vero of charity Action for Happiness. “It gives you a chance to share ideas, and build relationships, plus other people can give you the help and support to keep going.” Meanwhile, Epstein suggests keeping a ‘book of experiments’. Every other month, explore a new interest, such as fiction writing, and record your progress in the book to keep you motivated and recognising the benefits.
JUST BREATHE Breathing is the most basic reflex of all, yet most of us do it badly. Now, conscious-breathing classes are popping up everywhere, and breath work is being touted as the new mindfulness. In fact, studies have shown links between our breathing,
and our emotional state: just as short, shallow breaths can make us feel anxious, deep, relaxed breathing can make us feel happy. Take Transformational Breath® – a meditative technique where participants take deep breaths in, then exhale gently – which is believed to kick the whole respiratory system into gear, boost energy levels, stimulate circulation and help process trauma. Devotees describe it as ‘life changing’. “We all have a very distinctive breathing pattern, as particular to us as our fingerprints,” says Ella Oliver, vice-chair of Transformational Breath Foundation UK. “The way we breathe has a direct effect on our nervous system. With shorter, shallow breaths we will experience a heightened state, activating the sympathetic nervous system. Over a long period of time, prolonged exposure increases anxiety, worry and panic. Slower, deeper breathing, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping induce feelings of calm.” Oliver says it is essential to take a few Transformational Breath® classes before trying it at home (Rebecca Dennis’s classes come highly recommended; breathingtree.co.uk) but that everyone can develop an awareness of their breathing, with a few simple steps. “Notice what is happening with your breath. Are you getting deeper breaths, or holding it? Perhaps your breath feels tighter and more restricted? Then take three slower, deeper breaths. This can help shift how you are feeling.”
TRUST YOUR GUT The Platonic ideal still holds good: the mind and body are intricately connected, and when one is knocked out of kilter, the other takes a hit. If you want to improve your mental health, you need to get the fundamentals of self-care right: sleep, exercise and diet. Recent research has suggested
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‘Take Transformational Breathing® – a meditative technique where participants take deep breaths in, then exhale gently – which is believed to kick the whole respiratory system into gear, boost energy levels, stimulate circulation and help process trauma’ that gut flora – the trillions of microorganisms in the gut that break down food, process toxins, provide essential nutrients and vitamins, and strengthen the immune system – has a role in regulating brain function and stabilising mood. So much so, the gut is often referred to as the ‘second brain’. The message is clear – keeping our gut happy keeps us happy in return. However, it turns out simply taking probiotics isn’t enough. A UCL study on eight leading varieties found that only one arrives at the gut alive and thriving – Symprove (£79 for four weeks; symprove.com). A water-like drink in which four bacteria are suspended, Symprove has been proven in clinical trials to aid IBS, IBD and recurring infections like E.coli. However, it’s also been recommended for other conditions such as eczema and ulcerative colitis. “When you have an effective probiotic,” explains UCL’s Professor Simon Gaisford, “the new bacteria that reaches the gut can lower the resting pH of the gut to a point where pathogens – such as E.coli or MRSA – cannot survive.” However, recent research published by Gaisford found that probiotics can increase butyrate levels – a fatty acid critical in reducing inflammation: “This basically means taking an effective probiotic can make a healthy person healthier.” However, we shouldn’t rely on probiotics alone. For optimum gut health, make sure you get plenty of fibre-rich foods and fermented products like kimchi and keffir. You
should also up your intake of omega-3, which is essential for healthy brain function. Dr Steve Ilardi, a clinical psychologist and author of The Depression Cure, says we get far too little omega-3, and far too much omega-6, and blames this imbalance for our soaring rates of depression. Fatty fish like tuna, salmon, mackerel and sardines are full of omega-3, and grass-fed beef and wild game are also good sources (vegans should go for chia seeds, seaweed and algae), but Ilardi says we’d have to eat fish for every meal if we wanted to get the required levels from food alone. Instead, he recommends taking a good quality omega-3 supplement. His studies have shown it to be as effective as pills, in treating the symptoms of depression, with none of the nasty side-effects.
TAKE IT OUTSIDE Studies have shown aerobic exercise to be as effective as antidepressants at treating symptoms of depression and anxiety, and, according to Dr Ilardi, you only need to do 90 minutes a week. To double down on its benefits, get outside. Mental health charity Mind found 71 per cent of people with depression felt better after getting out into nature, and that it was more effective than either pills or talking cures in easing symptoms. “A walk outside, while taking a few deep breaths is magical for your mood,” says James Duigan,
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owner of the Bodysim gym in London, and personal trainer to Elle MacPherson and Hugh Grant. “Don’t complicate it: just start with walking and build from there.” It might sound basic, but don’t underestimate its potency. Walking or running outside forces your legs to work harder as you’re adjusting to different surfaces, while fresh air and natural sunlight will boost your energy. That sunlight is important. Most people in the UK don’t get enough vitamin D, which protects against inflammation and is essential for bone and muscle health, so between October and March, you’ll need to get out in the weak winter sunshine as often as possible. Failing that, augment your exposure with Vitamin D-rich foods like tuna, mackerel, liver, eggs and cheese or take a good quality supplement – Ilardi recommends taking 2,000 IU of vitamin D every day for 12 weeks, if your mood is low. Alfresco exercise also boasts one last benefit. A Stanford study found that walking outside boosts creativity – a person’s creative output could go up by as much as 60 per cent – and autumn is the ideal time to start. The equinox is the hinge of the year, when many of us fall into a more contemplative mood. What’s more, the cooling temperatures make aerobic exercise more comfortable, and the scenery, as October’s rich golds and reds ceding to winter’s chilly clarity, is a lesson in colour therapy.
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Hollywood Heights For its first international opening, the AllBright has brought its empowering concept to LA, with eclectic interiors, striking artworks and stunning views WORDS LUCIANA BELLINI
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hen asked to conjure up the most famous street in Los Angeles you might think of Rodeo Drive, with its upmarket designer boutiques and Pretty Woman fame, or Sunset Boulevard, with its hedonistic, rock’n’roll mythology. But ask those in the know and they’ll tell you that the smartest, chicest street in LA is actually Melrose Place, in the heart of West Hollywood. It is here, on this tiny, tree-lined boulevard tucked away off bustling Melrose Avenue, that you’ll find the most exclusive stores, from Balmain and Isabel Marant to Oscar de la Renta and Marni. So it’s only fitting that this is where the AllBright should decide to open its first international club, which opened its doors in mid-September. After all, this is a city where the #MeToo movement continues to grow apace, and where the concept of sisterhood is having a moment in a big way. The club’s founder members include an eclectic mix of diverse women across multiple industries, from fashion and beauty to tech, business, film and television. Names of note include the actress Olivia Wilde, New York Times bestselling author Elaine Welteroth, Paige Denim founder Paige Adams-Geller and Debra L Lee, the inspirational businesswoman and former CEO of BET, the parent company for Black Entertainment Television.
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From the outside, the club looks like an unassuming, modern, glassfronted building - all clean lines and strong angles, with nothing except a mosaic-tiled ‘A’ on the floor to give a hint at what lies behind the front door. But step inside and you’ll find a riot of colour, with a hallway lined with dark green mirrored panels, giving off an otherworldly glow, and a reception desk lit by a blue neon ‘Sisterhood Works’ sign. The interiors were spearheaded by top LA-based interior designer Brigette Romanek, who has worked on projects for the likes of Beyoncé and Jay Z, Gwyneth Paltrow and Demi Moore. Her brief was to turn the industrial space into a warm, welcoming environment for working women, a place they could come and make meaningful connections. She’s done just that by adding a mix of playful, eclectic touches throughout the club, such as the whimsical powder-blue Gucci wallpaper in the club’s salon, covered in white herons, or the eye-catching green marble bar in the first-floor restaurant. The furnishings feature sumptuous jewel-toned velvets and monochrome accents, such as the houndstooth-print chairs in the main restaurant. Then there’s the roof terrace, with its enormous black-andwhite-striped sofas on which you can lounge under a smart white parasol edged in black piping, as you gaze out over the Hollywood Hills - bathed in that golden LA light. This has to be one of the best views in Los Angeles. Alongside the breathtaking interiors, the club’s other main talking point is the art, each piece painstakingly hand-picked by the AllBright’s resident art curator Beth
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Greenacre. The artworks bring the space to life, and range from enormous, colour-filled canvases on the stairwell to collaged prints and Cubist sculptures in the restaurant. The pieces chosen all reflect the club’s Southern Californian location in some way, whether through LA-based artists, cinematic references or the area’s glorious landscape, with Whitney Bedford’s vast reflective gold cacti - painted on dramatic red and blue backgrounds - a key focus on the light-filled stairway. The club will play host to an inspirational roster of programming, held in its dedicated events space on the ground floor - a cool, airy space with loftily high ceilings and a wall made entirely from glass, screened from the street beyond by thick striped curtains. Events range from fascinating talks and
panel discussions to film screenings, interactive workshops, and yoga and meditation classes, to name just a few. In the first few weeks of opening alone there was an intimate fitness class held with top personal trainer Simone De La Rue (the woman behind the chiselled bodies of Chrissy Teigen, Reese Witherspoon and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), a special screening of Jennifer Lopez’s new movie Hustlers, including a Q&A with the film’s writer/director and producer, and a talk by the Hollywood actress Patricia Arquette about her charity GiveLove, which is dedicated to teaching the skills needed for ecological sanitation around the world. As for dining, the club’s restaurant is run by yet another formidable female, head chef Tiffani Ortiz, who is immediately recognisable thanks to her bubble-gum-pink hair. The former New York resident brings her unique approach to cooking to the AllBright
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menu, championing local farming communities with her dishes, as well as using innovative techniques for food preservation and sustainability. Ortiz trained under the FrenchAmerican chef and television personality Jacques Pépin and mastered the art of fine cuisine, but today she eschews more high-end ingredients in favour of flavourpacked local produce. “Much of the work that I do starts long before any food hits the plate,” she says. “I’ve put a distance between my classical French training and instead appreciate vegetables for their natural shape, fruits even when slightly bruised, and proteins that haven’t been trained to conform to a rudimentary shape.” Alongside her work at the AllBright she runs her own company, Uprooted Cooking, which she describes as a ‘farm-to-table experiment’. Standout dishes on the AllBright West Hollywood menu include the raw bowl with So-Cal
vegetables, citrus and golden raisins, and the heritage squash with crispy capers, seaweed vinaigrette and blistered tomato. The one area of the club that’s open to the public is the Instagramworthy beauty salon, which will have people lining up to take a selfie with that Gucci wallpaper and nab an appointment with facialist to the stars Georgia Louise, who has worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett; Emma Stone once referred to her as a “miracle worker”. Her 60-minute bespoke facial, which has garnered near-mythical status in New York and Los Angeles, is set to be the most popular: beginning with her signature Lift + Sculpt triple cleanse, followed by thorough exfoliation and extractions, a customised solution is then pulsed into the dermal layers using galvanic currents and sound waves to hydrate, soften, firm and
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detoxify the skin. Followed up with a butterfly Gua sha stone facial massage and a custom mask with LED light therapy, the facial is finished off with a blast of oxygen to leave skin dewy, cleansed and energised for the day ahead. In addition to this, Louise will be offering wellness massages and body toning sessions using radio frequency energy. The salon will also be home to Powder & Bloom beauty services, offering express and luxury treatments including mani-pedis, blow-dries and hair dusting - a micro-trim that refreshes your hair and removes any split ends while retaining length. The Allbright is a space where you can listen to an inspiring talk, get an amazing facial, indulge in a delicious dinner or sun yourself on the roof terrace - all in the company of brilliant, like-minded women. If Melrose Place wasn’t on your radar before, it will be now.
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Tech founder Joy Foster and entrepreneur Danusia Malina-Derben bonded over a working lunch at the AllBright Rathbone last summer WORDS LUCIANA BELLINI
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t all started with a laptop case – for entrepreneurs Joy Foster and Danusia Malina-Derben, it was all they needed to break the ice. They were having lunch (at separate tables) at the AllBright Rathbone when Danusia spotted a sprinkle of stars out of the corner of her eye - it was the cover of Joy’s laptop, covered in golden stars. “I noticed it immediately and commented on it, as it just fitted so well with the AllBright,” says Danusia. As two founders of their own businesses, they quickly realised they had a lot more in common than just a love of star prints. “We have a lot of synergies, so we started talking about things we were both really interested in straight away and quickly formed a friendship,” says Joy. Each of their businesses focus on women and motherhood, in particular making the two work together. Joy’s company, TechPixies, is an award-winning social enterprise that helps women upskill in digital technology. “I started TechPixies because I had experienced two career breaks myself: one to train with the USA’s Olympic archery team and one to raise my children,” says Joy. “I wanted to create an opportunity for women to learn new skills that are critical for going back to work, changing careers or starting a business - but without the pain that I had to go through to learn them myself.” Danusia is a powerhouse consultant who focuses on developing C-suite teams and founded School for Mothers, aimed at women looking to find personal fulfilment while raising their families. As a mother of ten, Danusia knows a thing or two about that. “Joy’s mission is about digital skills, and in School for Mothers we’re about making sure that women who happen to have children don’t forget themselves,” explains Danusia. ‘So we’re both very interested in women thriving and the empowerment of women.’ Their friendship has meant there’s always someone on the other end of the phone when they have a pressing business question, or just want someone to chat to. “We call each other when we need an emergency answer to something that we know the other one can answer - with lots of honesty,” says Danusia. “And we support each other on everything from how to get investment to who to hire. We talk money, we talk analytics - the nitty gritty of business.” Joy agrees that Danusia is the first person she’ll turn to when she encounters something she can’t solve herself. “If I have a question about something in business, Danusia’s probably experienced it herself and will have the answer to it,” she says. “She’s someone that I’m going to know on a deeper level; I felt that from the moment I met her. And I don’t know if we ever would have crossed paths anywhere else.”
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BMW i Panel Talk For its ‘InnovateHER’ series, the AllBright partnered with BMW i to champion the UK’s female future thinkers. The first event welcomed host Tabitha Goldstaub, co-founder of CognitionX, with panellists Zoe Webster, director of AI and data economy at Innovate UK, model and car aficionado Jodie Kidd, and Lucy Seal, researcher and curator at Ai-Da, for a fascinating discussion around tech, trust and AI, asking ‘Is the future female?’
AllBright Events Highlights from behind the scenes at our exclusive members’ events
Beats by Dr.Dre Dinner A selection of London’s most influential musical tastemakers joined us at the AllBright Mayfair for an intimate, immersive dining experience in partnership with Beats by Dr.Dre, pairing a delicious four-course meal created by AllBright executive chef Sabrina Gidda with a specially curated playlist designed by Sandy Cheema, head of label at Disturbing London. After dinner the entire table erupted in a group singalong.
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Tea with Tiffany & Co It was a quintessentially British affair when Tiffany & Co joined us for tea at the AllBright Mayfair, bringing together a panel of phenomenal women, including double Olympic gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes and Nails Inc founder Thea Green MBE, to discuss the theme of female competitiveness. Members had the chance to try out the Tiffany T collection before getting competitive themselves on Tiffany’s ‘pitch and putt’ game.
In the club
More exclusive members’ events at the AllBright Keds Afternoon Tea The tables were laden down with scones, flowers and the prettiest crockery for our afternoon tea with Keds at the AllBright Mayfair, where members came to preview the Keds SS20 collection. Afterwards, it was time for Keds ‘Sisterhood on Screen’ event, bringing together founder of the Bechdel Test Fest Corrina Antrobus and entrepreneur Sarah Shipley in a conversation about the importance of sisterhood in the film industry.
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Olivia Wilde Backyard Series Women supporting other women was the order of the day at the first Backyard Series in Los Angeles, where we brought together founder member Olivia Wilde, screenwriter Katie Silberman and casting director Carmen Cuba for a discussion on the power of female partnerships, in celebration of their film, Booksmart. Afterwards, AllBright members caught up over Johnnie Walker cocktails, glasses of rosé from Obvious Wines and a glorious spread by This Messy Table LA.
Elaine Welteroth
Creators in Conversation
In the first instalment of our Creators in Conversation series at the AllBright West Hollywood, we held a talk with Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, the incredible stars and producers of the Emmy-nominated show Pen15. The conversation centred around the discomfort of growing up, with Erskine stating: “There are so many different stories you can tell, and creating the space for that is huge”. We couldn’t agree more.
In a celebration of sisterhood and the power of female friendships, New York Times bestselling author Elaine Welteroth and long-time friend Nadia Rawlinson, CHRO of Live Nation, joined us in the backyard of one of our member’s own home in Beverly Hills to discuss Elaine’s new book, More Than Enough. The guests then sat down to a sumptuous dinner, filled with laughter, singing and the toasting of glasses.
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T h e Tr a i l - B l a z i n g E n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t
Mother Nature Meet Rachel Carson, the marine biologist and nature writer who helped kick start the global environmental movement WORDS GEORGIE LANE-GODFREY
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achel Carson inherited her love of nature from her mother. Born in 1907 on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania, Carson spent her early years surrounded by the natural beauty of her home’s flora and fauna. The great outdoors would soon inspire her to start writing, which led to Carson becoming a published author at just 11 years old. It also inspired her to pursue an academic career in natural sciences. After majoring in biology at Pennsylvania College for Women in Pittsburgh, Carson graduated magna cum laude – one of only three students in her year to do so. She went on to receive an MA in zoology from John Hopkins University in 1932, but had to forgo her dream of achieving a PhD due to family financial difficulties. However, economics wouldn’t hold Carson back, as she became only the second woman to be hired by the US Bureau of Fisheries, working as a junior aquatic biologist. As well as studying fish populations, she wrote magazine articles, specialising in the ocean. From there, she became a successful author, writing several books about the natural world, including The Sea Around Us in 1951. Holding the top spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list for 86 weeks and selling over 250,000 copies in six months, it was a runaway success. It was a letter from a friend in Duxbury, Massachusetts, about the loss of local
pesticides have on both our ecosystems and our health, namely their carcinogenic effects. She also accused the chemical industry of spreading misinformation, and government officials of not regulating it sufficiently. Of course, these accusations made waves within the industry. Chemical giants retaliated by accusing her of being ‘hysterical’ and ‘a communist’ in an attempt to discredit her. When CBS ran a special report called The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, many of them pulled their adverts in a bid to pressure the network. Despite their efforts, some 15 million viewers still tuned in, and the dangers of pesticides were brough to their attention. Soon, Carson’s research was further validated by a report by the president John F Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee, leading to Carson receiving medals from the American Geographical Society and the National Audubon Society, as well as membership to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. After battling breast cancer, Carson died just two years after the book’s publication, however her contribution wasn’t forgotten. Carson was later recognised when she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. But her greatest achievement? Opening up our eyes to catalyse a global environmental movement and proving that one woman can create ripples across the world.
“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction”
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Rachel C ars on, 1907 – 1964 bird life following the use of a potent pesticide, which inspired Carson to write her most famous work, Silent Spring. It sold over 2 million copies, converting swathes of people to environmentalism. The book looked at the effect these
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