Last March, Marta Marques and Paolo Almeida set off for Portugal to introduce their two-month-old daughter Alice to their family. What was initially planned as a three-week holiday was soon extended by the global stay-at-home order—and, since then, “we’ve barely been back [to London],” says Marques. “The other day, we sat down and realized that we’ve now been running our business for more than a year through a pandemic, with a newborn, no child support, and moving country.” Such a maelstrom of events has given the partners a self-stated “nothing to lose” mentality which prompted some of the biggest changes that they’ve ever managed to achieve in their decade-strong brand.
The forced pause of the fashion industry “lifted a veil of pressure” from the designers’ shoulders, and gave them the time to sketch out a manifesto for Environmental and Social Responsibility—a charter that outlines everything from fabric sourcing to workplace equality. Their new proximity to their Portuguese manufacturers allowed them to double down on their sustainability credentials, offering the opportunity to visit local factories and interrogate new materials and methods of production.
Collaborating with Marques’s sister, who works in film production, they’re reassessing how they stage their shows. Initial plans for a zero-waste show this season were slightly scuppered by on-set PPE requirements, but they are working towards zero-waste productions for next season, alongside committing to all-female teams. They also launched a publication, “See-Through,” with the intention of illuminating conversations around diversity and positive change, while advocating for a more transparent industry. “There was no pressure to keep up with the hamster wheel of fashion,” says Marques. “The thing about this past year is that it has opened up a bunch of possibilities by pausing the system and letting each brand choose their own route, their own way of doing things.”
It’s remarkably inspiring to see a brand having used this time to implement measurable changes in their business model. Marques’Almeida have long been proponents of a good-vibes way of doing things. Notably, they were one of the first brands to extend their model casting into encompassing a diverse array of friends of the brand or “M’A girls,” but by reemphasizing their core values, they appear to be leading the way in implementing long-term change in fashion.
Their new collection, showcased through a stunning, cinematic runway staged on the world’s longest suspended footbridge in Arouca, Portugal, evolved directly from the processes they were developing. A palette emerged from muted natural dyes (remnants of onion peels, plant roots, or wood have colored their fabrics), and those colors inspired a ’90s, grunge-inflected mood. The brand’s cool-girl, slouchy signatures were reworked through the lens of sustainability: The mesh tops that have long been a brand staple are now produced using recycled polyester; boyfriend jeans are ozone-washed and made using upcycled, recycled, and organic cotton; and taffeta is woven from biodegradable Greencel fibers.
Their credentials are extensive and impressive, but “it’s a minefield,” acknowledges Marques. “Because you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing—what fabric is best? What’s greenwashing? Last season, when we did re-made, we couldn’t get it wrong because we were using deadstock so everything was just going to go to waste otherwise. It was simple. When you’re talking about the practical side of things, it’s really hard.”
She’s right, it is—but Marques and Almeida have dived in head-first, and doing so without compromising their long-established aesthetic is certainly an achievement to be proud of. “We always want to be super aspirational. There’s a whole side of fashion that’s supposed to make you feel good, which is really important, but I think people are yearning for more than that now, for a bit of substance, for a bit of soul,” reflects Marques. “I see that perhaps as being the role of fashion for the next five or 10 years. It seems radical, but actually, if lots of people do it for a while, it will just become the norm.”
