At first glance, fashion month has very little to do with sustainability: it’s a blur of new designs shown against large sets, in front of crowds that have flown in from all over the world. But in the past, some designers have used fashion month as a Trojan horse to showcase innovations or different ways of producing fashion that challenge the status quo.
This season was eerily quiet on the sustainability front. I reached out to a long list of luxury brands to check that I hadn’t missed anything, offering a wide range of entry points, from integrating secondhand items and material innovations to collection themes that touch on climate or social justice. Very few had anything to share. Between the high concentration of creative director debuts and the growing political backlash against sustainability, it wasn’t the moment for big declarations, I was told.
Still, as much of the industry rests on its laurels, some continue to beat the drum for sustainability. Here’s where it did show up on the runway and across fashion capitals this season.
The season of secondhand
Ebay kick-started both New York and London Fashion Week by bringing back its Pre-loved Runway, following a successful debut last September. Every look was secondhand, from head to toe, curated by Ebay’s resident stylists Brie Welch (in the US) and Amy Bannerman (in the UK). As model and secondhand ambassador Dr Brett Staniland noted, the shows were a “glossy” affair, helping to “dispel the myths about pre-loved being old or tatty”. The same evening as the Ebay show in London, Staniland walked in the Oxfam x Vinted show, styled by Bay Garnett. As well as flying the flag for secondhand fashion, the show celebrated a diverse mix of models, celebrities and “non-model folks”, including activist and acid attack survivor Katie Piper alongside model and activist Munroe Bergdorf.
Beyond dedicated secondhand runway shows, Ebay also expanded its designers partnerships this season, sourcing pre-loved and archive one-offs from various brands, which were then styled alongside the new collections. Among the designers taking part were Altuzarra, Eckhaus Latta, Kallmeyer and Luar in New York; Erdem, Ahluwalia and Conner Ives in London; Moschino, Francesco Murano and Institution by Galib Gassanoff in Milan; and Ottolinger, Niccolò Pasqualetti and Burc Akyol in Paris.
A moment for textile-to-textile recycling
For many next-gen material innovators, a fashion week slot is the precursor to more commercial partnerships, and if that’s anything to go by, US textile-to-textile startup Circ is slowly gaining momentum. Last year, its recycled polycotton Circ Lyocell, made its fashion month debut in New York designer Christian Siriano’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection. This year, it cropped up in London with Queen Elizabeth II Award winner Patrick McDowell, and then again in Paris, with former LVMH Prize finalist Pasqualetti. This comes a year after Circ signed its biggest offtake agreement to date in October 2024, with Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla Group. The startup’s first industrial-scale facility for the recycling of polycotton textiles in Saint-Avold, France, is slated to open in 2028.
“I’m always looking for innovations in materials that solve a problem, and Circ has solved one of the biggest — mixed fibre textile waste,” says McDowell. “We created a gown and cape in a wonderful Italian georgette that was hand-printed in London. I think in this moment of convincing the industry that innovation materials are the future, it is imperative that we present them in the most beautiful way. If the product doesn’t look better than the alternative, the industry won’t buy into it.”
Material innovation
Alongside Circ, McDowell partnered with Dye Recycle, which has worked out how to extract dye from waste materials, reusing the colour to dye new materials and enabling the remaining greige material to be recycled more easily (colour can be an impediment to this). “Through extracting several sources of red textile waste, we were able to mix them and create a unique and desired shade of red,” the designer explains. “Christian Dior used to place a red dress in the middle of his runways to wake up his audience during the slow salon shows of the 1950s, so our own red dress was placed in the middle of the show, in honour of him, but with a very new meaning.”
The industry’s piecemeal progress also extended to next-gen materials this season, with bright spots appearing throughout the four fashion capitals. In New York, Gabe Gordon and Allina Liu both used Brooklyn-based innovator Tômtex, whose signature product is a bio-based and plastic-free leather alternative.
As ever, Stella McCartney was flying the flag for next-gen and plant-based materials in Paris, debuting several innovations. For SS26, she introduced the first denim garments using Pure Tech, a new material claiming to absorb and neutralise harmful air pollutants such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
While Susan Fang clearly states that she is not a “fully sustainable brand”, she continued her long-standing tradition of material innovation to minimise fabric waste. Fang’s new ‘airflower’ textile uses only straight strips of fabric to create dresses, reducing waste in the design process. This was inspired by her upbringing in China’s Zhejiang province, where there is a tradition of making clothes from squares of fabric, a skill passed down to Fang by her mother and grandmother.
Advocates for animal rights
In New York, Siriano partnered with recently rebranded animal rights non-profit Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International). The designer created three custom pieces — a bra, coat and pants — featuring an animal print fashioned from the Humane World for Animals’s new logo, on an “animal cruelty-free material”.
In Paris, McCartney turned her attention to feathers, for which many birds are killed, and ostriches — among the most prized in luxury fashion — are live-plucked every few months. McCartney debuted a plant-based alternative from UK startup Fevvers, an innovation she described as “insanely beautiful” and “proof that brands who continue to use feathers are choosing cruelty over creativity”.
Working with waste
Gabriela Hearst said 97 per cent of the woven products in her SS26 collection were made from the brand’s deadstock archive. When the collection goes into production, 83 per cent will be made from deadstock. As climate activist and storyteller Aditi Mayer said, this was “a meaningful distinction between show and sell-through that most brands never disclose”. The tarot-inspired collection also featured upcycled linen, coated in gold aluminium, as well as Sea Island cotton, produced in small batches in Barbados and cultivated using natural rainwater irrigation.
Deadstock and upcycling are among the more mainstream sustainability plays, especially popular among emerging designers. Staniland highlighted London designer Rory William Docherty as a particularly effective example this season. “I love seeing designers connect clothing to people and the planet, and Rory did this by honouring the coastlines of his home country, New Zealand,” Staniland explains. “Patterns and prints resembled the natural world, coral, sandy beaches and volcanic tones he grew up around. I particularly enjoyed his reworked denim, upcycled from vintage pieces and incorporating his signature designs, like the origami sleeve.”
McDowell also incorporated upcycling into his inaugural ready-to-wear collection, remaking old trench coats and wedding dresses, and using vintage thimbles for embroidery. “I love seeing the possibility in unloved pieces,” says McDowell. “In a world where we can often get swept up with newness, I always think it’s important to show how simple and beautiful sustainability can be. I love surprising clients by telling them that these materials have had a past life, and they love the pieces even more when they know it’s uniquely theirs.”
Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
