The Green Carpet Fashion Awards Kick Off Oscar Weekend in Los Angeles
The days leading up to the Academy Awards in Los Angeles are always a whirlwind of red carpet events, full of fresh off-the-runway fashion moments. But this year marked the debut of an equally glamorous award show with a distinctly different dress code: The Green Carpet Fashion Awards. Established in 2017 in collaboration with Eco-Age creative director Livia Firth, the event pulled in a high-wattage crowd of environmental activists with the common goal of uniting the power of fashion and entertainment for positive transformation. Among the guests in attendance at Neuehouse in Hollywood were GFCA’s co-chairs Cate Blanchett, Quannah Chasinghorse, Tom Ford, and actors Simu Liu and Simone Ashley, along with board members Amber Valletta, Bethann Hardison, and Vogue’s Sustainability Editor Tonne Goodman.
The move to Hollywood represents a full circle moment for Firth, who conceived the one-of-a-kind fashion event after finding herself on the Oscar red carpet in 2010 when her ex-husband Colin Firth was nominated for his roles in Ford’s film A Single Man. “My personal relationship with sustainable fashion started in Los Angeles,” she explained. "The person I asked to explain to me how fashion on the red carpet worked was Richard Buckley, and that’s when I came up with the idea for The Green Carpet Awards.” This year’s honors included six societal archetypes: The Visionary, The Messenger, The Rebel, The Healer, The Sage, and The Futurist—with the prizes going to a diverse group of established change makers and next gen, international activists. “Passing the microphone to young activists is one of the most important things that we can do right now,” said Firth. “This is not us giving our blessing; we recognize that young activists are the driving force of empowerment. We owe them a debt and heavy recognition.”
As guests including Rafferty Law, Heidi Klum, Petra Němcová, and Maria Carla Boscono took their seats for a plant based dinner, the awards ceremony kicked off with Trudie Styler introducing the Visionary honoree Tom Ford–founder of The Plastic Innovation Prize, a global competition powered by nonprofit Lonely Whale to source and scale marine-safe and biologically degradable alternatives to the traditional thin-film plastic polybags used in the fashion industry. “I started this prize three years ago with a harrowing fear that the world our children would inherit would no longer be a livable one,” said Ford. “I wanted to be a part of the solution, not be an arbiter of the problem. If we did nothing about the waste and pollution flooding our oceans, the disruption to our planet would be irreconcilable. Watching the brilliant minds within this competition has given me extraordinary hope in making the impossible possible.”
Other highlights of the evening included actor, and United Nations Messenger of Peace for Climate Change, Leonardo DiCaprio presenting the Futurist award to Sonia Guajajara, Brazil s first minister of Indigenous peoples, for her extraordinary achievements in upholding the rights of forests and helping to reposition Indigenous Peoples central in the global climate agenda. Beastie Boy, Mike D presented the Sage award to Chloe designer Gabriela Hearst, under whose leadership became the first luxury fashion house to earn a B Corp certification, while actress Jodie Turner-Smith presented a special honor, Game Changer award to Vogue’s Edward Enninful for his work championing diversity and inclusivity in the industry. “I have always endeavored to use my platform to champion causes that hopefully leave this world a better place than how we found it,” said Enninful, whose date for the evening was Naomi Campbell, fresh from the Versace show runway earlier that evening. “It’s been my life’s mission to spotlight, improve and drive the stories of the underrepresented. The progress we have made as a culture and fashion community in recent years has been fantastic, but we can do more. We must do more.”