At Paris Fashion Week, some of the industry’s most famous designers are trying to get back on trend.

Fashion shows aren’t known for their sustainable footprint. But as the annual event draws to a close in the French capital, it’s hoping to leave a slightly smaller mark on the city as a symbol of a wider effort to turn the industry greener.

French President Emmanuel Macron last Monday invited 100 fashion designers to the Elysée to emphasize that the industry needs to become more sustainable — reportedly arguing that as the country that gave haute couture its name, France must lead by example.

The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, which organizes Paris Fashion Week, promised that this year the show running through Tuesday would cut out single-use plastics, create reusable sets and use electric bus shuttles to reduce carbon emissions.

The industry is known for being one of the world’s most polluting sectors, given the raw materials and chemicals involved in producing synthetic fibers as well as the need for water-intensive crops like cotton. Fashion houses often argue their impact is relatively limited because they produce a small number of items and only two collections a year — compared with six or more in the fast fashion industry.

French designer Gaëlle Constantini launched her brand 10 years ago, famously creating new clothes out of second-hand fabrics.

However, a recent study by the nonprofit Changing Markets Foundation singled out a number of luxury brands, including France’s Christian Dior, for their lack of transparency and commitment to sustainably source fabrics.

“Our findings show that many brands and retailers are still paying lip service and making lofty promises, rather than actually delivering transformative change,” said Urska Trunk, campaign adviser at the foundation and one of the authors of the study.

Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Hermès did not respond to requests to comment for this article.

Leading by example

Some designers aren’t waiting for haute couture to make its move.

French designer Gaëlle Constantini — a household name in sustainable fashion — launched her brand 10 years ago, famously creating new clothes out of second-hand fabrics including discarded curtains from the French Senate.

“We crossed a point where sustainability in the fashion industry is not something marginal anymore, as it was two or three years ago, but is now becoming a norm,” said Thomas Ebélé, co-founder of the fashion eco-label SloWeAre.

But still about 13 percent of the material used to manufacture clothing worldwide is recycled into new clothes, according to a study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

At France’s fashion schools, the focus on sustainability is growing. The Institut Français de la Mode based in Paris launched a sustainability professorship in November, and runs courses teaching students how to minimize waste while designing clothes, how to use recycled textiles or how to integrate environmental considerations into their business models.

“In the past years, we’ve seen an evolution of the topics students choose for their thesis … with more and more working on a topic related to sustainable development,” said Andrée-Anne Lemieux, the current holder of the professorship at the institute. “About 80 percent of the young people who apply [to the institute] mentioned sustainability [in the fashion industry] as one of their concerns.”

The question for many is how far and how fast the big brands are willing to move.

François-Henri Pinault, CEO of the luxury group Kering — which owns 15 brands including Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci and Balenciaga — last year drafted the Fashion Pact, a voluntary pledge for companies to reduce their carbon footprint. Companies ranging from Adidas and Nike to fashion houses Chanel and Hermès signed up.

But Ebélé described the pact as “a form of greenwashing,” adding that “it lacks ambition compared to what was ratified with the Paris Agreement, for instance.”

Campaign group Ethique sur l'Etiquette (Ethics on the Tag) criticized that the pact was nonbinding and had been drafted by the industry itself.

“We would like to remind Emmanuel Macron that his role is not to delegate to companies the task of writing their own regulation; it is precisely the role of public authorities to impose rules accompanied by sanctions, to force them to respect fundamental rights and the environment,” the group wrote at the time.

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