Sustainable Fashion Event

Rencontres de la Mode Responsable ©Direction de la Communication - Manuel Vitali

A Sustainable Fashion event organised by the Mission for Energy Transition, took place on Wednesday 25 May as part of the 10^th Monaco Fashion Week.

The event was held in English, in partnership with the Chambre Monégasque de la Mode (CMM) and Monaco City Hall which had previously, over three days, arranged a new collection of donated clothes intended for local creators, aimed at recycling and circularity.

Environment and Fashion: how can these two seemingly opposing worlds be reconciled? With issues ranging from greenhouse gas emissions and water use to microplastics, the fashion industry is one of the world’s largest polluters. 

Members of the public were invited to debate the subject with a number of key players in international and Monegasque fashion:

- Federica Nardoni Spinetta, President and Founder of the CMM;

- Matteo Ward,  designer, “sustainability activist and innovator”;

- Claudio Betti, owner of the Spinnaker brand, representing Camera Buyer Italia;

- Ines Bensalah, for Inessa Creations, new Ambassador for the National Energy Transition Pact, who describes herself as a “sustainable fashion scientist”;

- Alexis Giannotti, for Giannotti Monaco, local sustainable designer.

… and the winners of the “Monte-Carlo Fashion Week Sustainable Contest”, announced the evening before: Verabuccia, and Regenesi.

The speeches were followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

From circularity and choice of materials, to the role of consumers and changing business models, retail prices, and recycling, all kinds of issues were discussed, leading to one conclusion: the quest for meaning, utility, and sustainability in Fashion is more relevant than ever. The textiles industry knows it has to reinvent itself, and Monaco is bristling with ideas on how to lay the foundations for sustainable fashion, and find new ways of manufacturing and using fashion products.

In a concrete sign of its commitment to sustainability, the Chambre Monégasque de la Mode signed up to the National Energy Transition Pact in February 2022, along with a number of similarly committed designers.