Why Katharine Hamnett has become Kanye's Muse
Katharine Hamnett was a pioneer in searching for organic solutions to fashion design within the 80s; Following the 1930s depression, Cotton farmers have mostly used chemical fertilizers on the soil and plants in order to increase their harvest. Due to the potential health hazards this poses and the other environmental issues raised by such methods of production, manufacturers are increasingly looking at ways to develop organic fibres that can be grown from non GMO plants. "I launched my own brand in 1979 and it grew quickly. We were getting great publicity and there was more demand for the clothes than we could manufacture. I thought, let's do something clever with that; let's make giant t-shirts with messages writ so large that you could see them from 200 metres on ethical and environmental issues that needed tending to.” Katharine was among the first to hire major talents such as Juergen Teller and Terry Richardson. She spearheaded the movement of political and slogan t-shirts, a trend which has been replicated by more labels than not in the wake of civil and political unrest in the United States. Towards the end of the 1980s, Hamnett commissioned social and environmental research into the cost of cotton, and dedicated her A/W 1989 collection titled "Clean Up or Die" to calling out ongoing abuses in the fashion industry. Three decades later, her dystopian stance on the waste within the industry has only been exacerbated, following Burberry burning $36.5 million in unsold clothes just to avoid going on sale. Hamnett has been invited to speak at the UN on sustainability, and continues to clean up various companies processes and supply chains. With the fashion industry becoming increasingly aware of their effect on the environment, designers such as Kanye West have taken note of Hamnett’s work, showing off Organic solutions for cotton production in his recent GQ editorial. As climate change and C02 production becomes more and more crucial to sustaining human life, finding solutions that don’t contribute towards pollution will be more and more important in the meta of businesses and brands.