Silvia Giovanardi’s Beautyable fashion

Fashion and the environment are increasingly speaking the same language. Thanks, thanks, thanks! Lots of new fashion designers are hearing this dialogue and giving us lessons out of it. That is the case of the italian designer Silvia Giovanardi.

At 19, she started her studies at the European Institute of Design (IED). When she graduated, she got hired by one of the most important Italian fashion houses. During her years there she learned a lot, she gained the know-how required to work in this business thanks to her team. Meanwhile she started to study in depth the behind the scenes of the fashion system: the second most polluting industry in the world. My impetuous spirit was reflecting on contrasts between beauty and negativity the world of fashion is rooted in. The urge in me to change things grew stronger and stronger.

We often don’t realize that we were given an amazing and powerful gift: Mother Nature. Nature is rich and generous: it nourishes us by generating food, it attires us giving us fiber.

Now, Silvia Giovanardi doesn’t intend to represent a mere fashion brand, but an actual lifestyle, a modus vivendi that promotes the reconversion of the concept of fashion to its original significance: the embodiment of the sublime facets of the generation of clothes, food, photography and livable art. To her, by getting back in touch with it and embracing a more natural rhythm, we will take care of ourselves while respecting the environment, local crafts and everyone in the supply chain. One day my modus vivendi won’t be the revolution, but the customary – she hopes.

Fast fashion can not be beautiful

For those who still do not know, fashion today has a damaging impact on both ecology and human rights: it’s the second most polluting industry on Earth, right behind oil. The use of pesticides to produce cotton is depleting soils, polluting water and causing diseases among farmers. On the other hand, garment workers in developing countries are paid way below minimum wage. Not only that, they work in unhealthy and unsafe conditions and their exploitation has disastrous social and political effects.

Fashion undeniably generates beauty. When beauty derives from such horrible things, though, it can’t be real, it’s an illusion. The fashion that creates this kind of beauty, therefore, is an illusion too.

To Silvia, fast fashion feeds the vicious circle of consumerism because it produces more than we need so we tend to discard faster and create more waste than we can dispose. As well, the relocation of production is causing the loss of precious heritages such as local long time-honored crafts, knowledge, skills and culture.

Respect in every detail

That is why, sustainability is at the center of Silvia Giovanardi’s work. Her philosophy promotes the return to the conceptual and original meaning of fashion as a lifestyle. She wants to share through art, the beauty of nature. And that is what made us fell in love the day we say her collections for the first time.

Silvia’s main purpose is to create a product that elevates itself beyond time, gender, corruption and lack of elegance, to become a powerful tool that world can use to find a new balance.

In her creations, Silvia Giovanardi uses only organic fabrics, natural and therapeutic dyes, Italian artisanship and social responsibility, in order to create seasonless, peaceful and genderless pieces.

All the fibers I use are 100% natural, so everything can potentially be buried, create new humus, therefore, new life. 

Certified organic fibers (linen, silk, cotton) and ecological fibers (hemp, soy, corn, milk) are the main protagonists. Natural dyes (dyeing plants like gardenia berry, campeche wood, turmeric…) and vegetable tanned leather (from food processing waste) complement the garments.

Also, my creations are non-seasonal and durable. Simply timeless. And I try to create multifunctional pieces: belts can also work as scarves, necklaces as jewels, and some pieces can be worn by men and women as well – she underlines.

Japan as a endless Honeymoon

But, how did it all begin? In 2014, her husband Davide and her went to Japan for their honeymoon. The impact of the majesty of this land and its culture was so pervasive and inspiring that, as soon as she got home, her hand started drawing without even asking her.

Her body internally captured her experience and elaborated it creating her first collection, Honeymoon 1, which is nothing but the logical consequence of Japan touching her soul. I let my own love, for Davide and for Japan, be both the spark and the guiding light of this collection’s work – she says.

Fast fashion now stacks up 52 micro-seasons per year: every week a new collection. To me, there is no Fall Winter or Spring Summer anymore.