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A month before the pandemic hit, actor Joaquin Phoenix won the best actor Oscar. In his acceptance speech, he quoted a lyric penned by his late brother River: “Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow.” For former Mother of Pearl creative director Amy Powney, it struck a chord, but she wouldn’t realise why until much later.
In 2023, Powney was the subject of a documentary titled Fashion Reimagined, which followed her sustainable fashion education and subsequent overhaul of the brand she called home for almost 20 years. As she learnt about regenerative agriculture, shifted away from fossil fuels and aimed to tackle the thorny subjects of overproduction and degrowth, Powney became an unintentional activist. Later that year, she was invited to deliver a Ted Talk on how to fix fashion and protect the planet. The pressure came thick and fast.
“After the film came out, I felt as though it was my job to fix everything rather than just leading by example,” she tells Vogue Business on the eve of launching her new brand Akyn, which takes the lyric as the name of its debut collection. “I don’t think people respond to negativity and I’m also exhausted from carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I don’t want to tell people off all the time or make them feel depleted and unhopeful. I’m proud to be an activist, but I am also trying to tap back into that little girl inside of me who wanted to be a designer for all the right reasons. It’s not like I’m hiding behind positive language — we have done the work in the supply chain to back it up — but I want to make my customers feel great.”
In early February, Powney stepped down from Mother of Pearl and announced the impending launch of her first solo venture, Akyn. Having worked at Mother of Pearl for her entire career, this marked a long-awaited opportunity to start afresh.
The creative director overhauled Mother of Pearl’s supply chain in line with sustainability. Her new brand, Akyn, will launch this May.
Her new approach says a lot about where the sustainable fashion sphere sits now, and how consumers are engaging with it. Powney says she wants Akyn — which is an amalgamation of ‘atelier’ and ‘kinfolk’ — to be a trusted source for its customers, so women can shop “without guilt”, knowing that the hard work of building and verifying a more sustainable supply chain has been executed for them. The positive spin is her way of appealing to consumers who are confused and overwhelmed by the complexities of sustainability, consumers who often renege on their self-proclaimed values in favour of convenience, cost and desirability.
Her vision for the brand — or at least the way she is positioning it — is relatively straightforward. “It’s purpose-driven, community-focused affordable luxury with sustainability at its heart,” she says. But the messaging will focus on the craftsmanship and community, telling positive stories about the supply chain without falling into the trap of fear-mongering or anger-inducing educational content.
There will be a limited material mix, designed to keep supply chains simple and avoid fossil fuel-derived products. The bulk of products will be made from organic and regenerative cotton, with the caveat that there are still plenty of kinks to be ironed out in these supply chains, and the long-term plan is to swap some virgin fibres for recycled cotton. For warmer climes, there will be linen pieces made from European flax and hemp. And for the cooler months, wool, most of which is certified by the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS). Powney will also continue her partnership with Tencel lyocell, which she has acted as brand ambassador for since 2022.
Los Angeles apparel brand Outerknown opened up its regenerative cotton supply chain in Peru to Vogue Business. While progressive, challenges need to be addressed to achieve commercial scale.
The designs will be elevated basics, not dissimilar to what Powney was producing in her latter years at Mother of Pearl. To secure this continuity, Powney bought back her intellectual property, mailing list and social media platforms when Mother of Pearl shuttered. “The nice thing about starting over,” she says, “is that you can take the triumphs with you and leave everything else behind.”
While the broader fashion industry pushes towards circularity, Powney is hoping to go one step further, building a “regenerative” business from top to bottom. That’s a tall order, not least because the term regenerative is still loosely defined, and can be applied to everything from agriculture to leadership styles, with a high risk of greenwashing. For Powney, it means an emphasis on regenerative agriculture when using natural fibres, a push towards renewable energy throughout the supply chain, and a shift in the notoriously toxic culture many fashion businesses run on. “My ultimate goal is to regenerate every step in the supply chain and be so regenerative that we leave very little trace,” she says.
The brand will primarily be sold direct-to-consumer (DTC), with select wholesale partners to provide a bricks-and-mortar experience in key geographies. Liberty London is the exclusive launch partner. Neiman Marcus will pick up the collection in the US from September, as well as United Arrows in Japan. UK retailer John Lewis plans to carry the core collection, including denim.
Powney will continue to eschew fashion weeks (she last showed Mother of Pearl in London in 2020). “I’m just too tired for all of that,” she says. “Right now, because I’m just launching the brand, everything is manic and frenzied. When you do fashion week, you have that twice a year, without fail. As a small company, everything else stops. You create all this product for a fashion show, you host this massive event, and you work through the night. The team is exhausted, and, once it’s over, you have to pick up the backlog you’ve been neglecting. It makes sense for some brands, but not for us.”
Starting from scratch — and being self-funded — means there are limits to what Powney can achieve off the bat, but her regenerative vision has room to grow. The brand has already submitted its application to become B Corp certified, and Powney has her sights set on seed funding once the concept has been proven. She’s cautious about the role of shareholders in a sustainability-centric business, but admits that investment will be needed down the line. “I would like to incorporate some kind of part staff ownership and give something back,” she says. “Doing everything on a budget as a small company is tough.”
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