“Sustainability Is the New Black” read the slogan on the organic (black) cotton T-shirts left on every bench. The S-word is a subject au courant—literally vital—but Redemption founder and designer Gabriele “Bebe” Moratti is no bandwagon jumper: He’s been talking about sustainable practices and pivoting to a fair and socially responsible manufacturing chain for years.
Today’s collection was entitled “The Summer of Love,” and it riffed (very loosely) on the kids of 1968. As Moratti noted: “That generation helped make the world a better place, fighting for human rights, racial equality, and reproductive rights, and against the war in Vietnam. There is a big parallel between then and now. But what we are seeing in New York is different, too, the call to action is coming from the younger generation. I think they are our only hope, and they are right. We don’t have a plan B, so we have to change now.”
So, what has Moratti changed? This was his third year of using only vegan, biodegradable “leather.” Plus, the cotton was organic, the denim was recycled, the lycra was made from reclaimed fishing net, and the silk was, he said, certified to have considerably less negative environmental impact than “normal” silk. What hadn’t changed was Moratti’s unabashedly Roberto Cavalli 2.0 aesthetic. This time around it came tempered with wide-kick flares in “leather” or washed denim, and soft paisley shirting belted and pussy-bowed with men’s ties. There was a military-style shirt jacket with gold frogging and a gold sequin-dripping star at the shoulder. For Redemption, these were relatively pared-down and blissed-out pieces in keeping with the soundtrack of Richie Havens, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, and Buffalo Springfield. Elsewhere, it was business as usual with plenty of floating diaphanous animalia, tiger-zebra-mash-up striped jacquard hot pants and shirting, and a wide selection of white or black jersey dresses made to wind around the body as suggestively as possible. There were casualties: one trip (nicely recovered) thanks to a soft floral-printed, long-at-the-front, full-and-ruffled-at-the-back white skirt, while one of those jersey dresses in black lacked the heft to contain a breast. As we watched, we heard the great Buffalo Springfield lyric: “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong / Young people speaking their minds / Are getting so much resistance from behind.”
Backstage, Moratti had been proposed this notion: Should we not just shut down fashion altogether for the sake of the environment and today’s young people speaking their minds? “Well, I could say something controversial and say yes—which is something I believe in my actions and how I dress—but I also say no. This is an industry that is the second-largest employer in the world, and we can change our methods and help shape the world and the lives of everyone in the industry to be better and fairer.”
