Before it was trendy for designers to slap words like sustainable, eco-conscious, and ethical on their labels (without necessarily being able to back them up), Edun was churning out entire collections of responsible, made-in-Africa clothes. Each season, the brand—which launched in 2005 and is now led by an internal design team—seems to hit new milestones: For instance, for Pre-Fall, CEO Julien Labat confirmed that 50 percent of the fabrics were custom made by African artisans, while the remaining half still met the label’s high sustainability standards. Embellishments are a new focus for Edun, and those were made by the artisans, too, like hand-beaded knits from Madagascar and embroidered skirts from Rwanda.
On Edun’s sleek, vaguely ’70s silhouettes, those fabrics and add-ons are what draw you in. Next to a Lurex-flecked checkerboard fabric from an artisan collective in Burkina Faso was super-dry, raw Moroccan denim supported by the Better Cotton Initiative, which is dedicated to reducing cotton’s impact on the environment with fewer chemicals and an improved supply chain. There was also a lot of contrast between the plush felt pants, metallic leather jackets, and wavy pleated silk dresses in coral and raspberry—for every crafty texture or finish, there was a fluid, elevated one.
Some of the best looks mashed those fabrics together, like an ivory denim dress with straps of wooden beads, or a pair of frayed canvas overalls worn with a chrome Lurex T-shirt. There was also a tank made entirely of white hand-strung wooden beads, which you could wear over a camisole, a thin turtleneck, or even a shirtdress. That kind of layering piece has been popular for a few seasons now, but Edun’s will look different from the bustiers and crop tops hanging on racks nearby.
