Tue 19th February
This season, Bethany Williams worked in collaboration with Adelaide House, a women’s shelter in Liverpool, and alongside the artist Giorgia Chiarion, who created illustrations of the women of Adelaide House, which were used as prints on her collection. Williams sent out her AW19 line-up to a packed audience that included Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall.
Using fabrics created from book waste and wools created using renewable wool fibre from dead stock yarns; Williams’s eco-conscious and thought-provoking collection, spoke directly to the mood in London this week: that being the awareness of, and anger towards, the destruction of the planet by the fashion industry. Some of the models who walked in the show were part of the TIH Models – a model agency that supports homeless youths in the UK.
The clothes, a co-ed collection of oversized knits, a patchwork boiler suit and pair of raw hemmed cotton jeans – no bleaching here –came naively stitched with the faces of women of Liverpool’s sheltered accommodation. The Duchess of Cornwall kindly gave a speech at the end of the show, firstly recognising the work of Karl Lagerfeld, and then awarded Williams with the Queen Elizabeth II Award for Design. It was a beautiful show with a beautiful sentiment. And off to Milan we go…
Photographs by Jason-Lloyd Evans.
