Now that everyone’s talking sustainability, it comes into stark relief that Australian designer Kit Willow—who extrapolated her name into a manifesto (Kindness, Integrity, Transparency, plus X for the future)—was ahead of the curve when she launched her design-led sustainable brand in 2015.
“I’ve always led a conscious life,” the designer said by phone from Australia last week. “There’s so much product in the world, but the passion for creating is real. So I had to really ask myself whether I need to be producing more.”
As against the grain as it might have felt, she decided to go ahead but keep things concise and sustainable, even down to the labels. Friends in high places in the fashion industry told Willow that the greatest cost to fashion, 70% of the time, is materials, so she decided to opt for planet-profitable sourcing, eventually landing on carbon-capturing Belgian hemp (which requires minimal water and pesticides to produce and is also much softer than its name suggests) and upcycled materials like jersey made from plastic fished from the sea. “There are so many innovative materials in the market now; we want to design with those,” she said.
For pre-fall, the Kitx “Regeneration” collection features floral prints extrapolated from 18th-century botanical illustrations, as well as chambray-like hemp dresses with water-bottle-shaped pockets. For the brand’s integrity-minded base, there’s much to like, including a handwoven ikat print on a sundress, or a forest green dress with integrated scarf. Some of the prints are strictly for the bold. But when the end game is win-win, Kitx deserves every bit of momentum it gets.
