Stella McCartney’s ‘Future of Fashion: An innovation conversation with Stella McCartney’ exhibit was launched at the 60th annual Salone del Mobile, the world’s largest furniture fair. The installation was hosted at Caselli 11-12 within the historic Porta Nuova gate in Milan, and was open to the public from 7 to 12 June, 2022.
The exhibit was in partnership with Bank of America, who in 2021 made a $1.5tn commitment to sustainable finance, including $1tn to help finance a low carbon planet. This was the second edition of this evolving and traveling installation, which leverages Stella McCartney’s current achievements to inspire future actions and follows its successful unveiling at COP26 in Glasgow.
Stella McCartney’s work was aligned with the Terra Carta – the guiding document of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), of which Stella is a member and is co-chaired by His Royal Highness Prince Charles and Brian Moynihan, Bank of America Chairman and CEO. The SMI encourages collaboration, innovation and puts sustainability at the heart of the private sector.
‘Material innovation is the future of our planet, and design is what makes it desirable. The Future of Fashion exhibit brings these worlds together, placing pioneering products like my Frayme Mylo mycelium handbag alongside a mushroom infinity room and our first-ever interiors partnerships – all hosted within Milan’s historic Porta Nuova, bridging the past with a better tomorrow. I am incredibly excited to showcase what we have achieved for Mother Earth and our fellow creatures.’ – Stella McCartney.
Combining fashion and cutting-edge design
Continuing the Summer 2022 collection and campaign’s theme of fungi are the future of fashion and our planet, the 200-square-metre installation combined cutting-edge fashion and design. It also introduced Stella McCartney’s first-ever interiors partnerships – including collaborations with iconic Italian furniture maker B&B Italia as well as heritage British wallpaper house Cole & Son.
Salone del Mobile is a laboratory for design experimentation, innovation, and cross-pollination, which made it the perfect platform to introduce the creative changemakers of today to Stella’s solutions for our shared tomorrow. Future of Fashion invites the world to discover the limitless possibilities of material innovation for creating a more nature-positive market.
‘Frayme Mylo Bag’ luxury bag and the ‘Pop-up Shop’
Guests could explore curated items from Stella McCartney’s over two decades of conscious leadership, such as the new Frayme Mylo bag – the world’s first-ever luxury bag crafted from mycelium, created in partnership with Bolt Threads. Areas of focus were vegan, mycelium, regenerated, and plant-based material innovations. Other highlights included: a material innovation pop-up shop, exclusive interiors partnerships, larger-than-life fungi sculptures, and an immersive infinity room.
Future of Furniture by Stella McCartney and B&B Italia: Stella McCartney collaborated with B&B Italia in the reimagine the design company’s iconic Le Bambole armchair, upholstered in the Summer 2022 collection’s hand-drawn Fungi Forest burgundy print and crafted from conscious materials. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Le Bambole was originally designed by Mario Bellini in 1972 and is produced today by B&B Italia with a radically new sustainable construction method and circular composition. The special Le Bambole marks the beginning of an ongoing collaboration between Stella McCartney and B&B Italia, with more to come.
Stella McCartney x Cole & Son Wallpaper: The Summer 2022 hand-drawn Fungi Forest toile de Jouy print has been reinterpreted as burgundy and navy wallpapers by Cole & Son – with a substrate derived from 79% renewable fibres and a manufacturing process using 30% fewer greenhouse gases than traditional non-woven wallcoverings, making this the luxury interiors expert’s most sustainable wallpaper to date. The integrity of the artwork has been maintained utilising a method that retains the sharpness of lines and depth of colour. Commercially available via Cole & Son’s website and flagship store later this year, the Fungi Forest wallpaper decorates the Future of Fashion space.
A psychedelic impression on the Summer 2022
Fungi Sculptures: Larger-than-life fungi sculptures appeared throughout the exhibit and outside the space – a psychedelic impression of the Summer 2022 collection theme. Each sculpture was crafted from Green Cast, made of 100% recyclable acrylic sheets sourced entirely from recycled materials.
Infinity Room: An immersive infinity room featured sculptural fungi neons made from recycled materials, repurposed from Old Bond Street window displays, and transported guests into a trippy mushroom experience. A soundscape was composed by musician Cosmo Sheldrake using bioelectric sounds from plants and fungi, subterranean hydrophone recordings of plant roots, the stridulation of soil-based insects, and noises from earthenware.
Fantastic Fungi Screening Room: Guests could discover Louie Schwartzberg’s ground-breaking documentary, Fantastic Fungi (2019) – journeying through time and scale, exploring the mycelium network beneath our feet that has the potential to heal and save our planet. The film partially inspired the Summer 2022 collection and campaign.
Material Innovation Pop-up Shop: A curated edit of Stella McCartney conscious ready-to-wear and vegan accessories were for sale, in a space decorated with Cole & Son wallpaper.
‘Future of Fashion’ and more…
Future of Fashion was the first exhibit held at Caselli 11-12, a space dedicated to showcasing emergent and established practices through a programme of partnerships and research-based projects. Giving back to the community, the project has renovated and preserved Milan’s iconic Porta Nuova – one of the city’s historic six gates, built between 1810 and 1813 by architect Giuseppe Zanoia. All materials from the exhibit will be repurposed for future activities, reducing its environmental impact, and the installation will also be supported by exclusive events at Stella McCartney’s Milan flagship.
More information, please visit: stellamccartney.com.
