Stella McCartney Collaborates with Artist Urs Fischer and Photographer Harley Weir for Fall/Winter ’17 Campaign

by Paige Reddinger

Staying true to her messaging on sustainability and responsibility, Stella McCartney chose to shoot her Fall/Winter 2017 campaign against piles of waste that have unfortunately accumulated on the Eastern Coast of Scotland. Shot by Harley Weir and illustrated by Urs Fischer, the campaign brings attention to the consequences and responsibility of our human footprint. “The idea we had with this campaign is to portray who we want to be and how we carry ourselves; our attitude and collective path,” said McCartney in a press statement. “Our man-made constructed environments are disconnected and unaware of other life and the planet which is why there is waste.” The designer added that “single use” and “disposable” products are wreaking havoc on our environment and that we are now producing nearly 300 millions tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use.

The new campaign features models Birgit Kos, Iana Godnia, and Huan Zhou in Stella looks amidst piles of trash or on top of a discarded car. Certainly not the kind of clothing you would want to recline on a pile of garbage in. Thankfully, McCartney’s clothes aren’t single-use products.

“Stella’s fashion to me is about dignity, love, and a beautiful attitude to all challenges,” said Fischer in the press statement. “All while feeling good and looking great and we wanted to reflect that in the concept of this campaign.”

Since the brand’s inception, McCartney has prided her eponymous label on being both ethical and environmental. McCartney never uses fur, leather, or skins in her collections and 53 percent of the womenswear collections are made from sustainable materials including viscose, regenerated cashmere, organic cotton and denim, recycled nylon, sustainable wood and cork, and eco alter nappa.

Read up on facts about waste in the U.S. today, according to plasticoceans.org and epa.gov:

 

Additional Facts on Plastic Waste

  • The world’s plastic production this year is 300 million tons, half which is used just once then thrown away.
  • By 2050 when the population explodes to almost 10 billion, it is expected that plastic production will triple.
  • 63 billion gallons of oil are used every year to supply just the US with plastic water bottles.
  • More than 90% of these plastic water bottles are used only once.
  • The US alone throws away 38 billion bottles every year.
  • That is 2 million tons of plastic going into US landfills (only from water bottles).
  • Which means that this year alone in the US, every man, woman and child will consume about 300 pounds or 136 kilos of single-use plastic.
  • The problem with this that only a fraction of the plastic we produced is recycled the rest ends up in our environment and is coating our lands and our oceans like a disease.[1]

 

Additional Facts on Waste and Recycling

  • In 2014, in the United States, about 258 million tons of MSW (municipal solid waste aka trash and garbage) were generated.
  • Over 89 million tons of MSW in the US were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 34.6 percent recycling rate.
  • In addition, over 33 million tons of MSW were combusted with energy recovery and 136 million tons were landfilled.
  • In 2014, 89.5 percent of corrugated boxes were recycled.
  • About 61 percent of yard trimmings were composted.
  • Organic materials such as paper and paperboard, yard trimmings and food were the largest component of MSW generated.
  • Paper and paperboard accounted for over 26 percent, and yard trimmings and food accounted for another 28.2 percent.
  • Plastics comprised about 13 percent of MSW; rubber, leather and textiles accounted for over nine percent; and metals made up nine percent.
  • Wood followed at over six percent, and glass over four percent.
  • Other miscellaneous wastes made up approximately three percent of the MSW generated in 2014.
  • Recycling and composting of MSW results in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction.
  • In 2014, the 89 million tons of MSW recycled and composted provided an annual reduction of over 181 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, comparable to the annual emissions from over 38 million passenger cars.[2]

 

[1] Plastic Oceans www.plasticoceans.org

2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency www.epa.gov 

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