STYLE MUSE | Margherita Porrà, Creative Director

Q: What role does sustainable packaging have when shopping?

"Consumers care more than ever about the impact that their purchasing decisions have. In our research at Arithmetic, we know that shoppers are more likely to buy from brands that use lower impact packaging and have values that align with their own. It can be really frustrating for a consumer to have high level environmental values and want to purchase a product they like, only to realize that that decision led to unexpected waste consumption. Nobody wants to compromise their values, it just feels shitty."

Q: Why do you choose secondhand?

"A love for learning about design history through the process of combing through a myriad of eras, designers — the story of the
designer, the time they lived in and the person who once owned it are all woven into the fabric of a piece - that history is valuable and incredibly fascinating to me, Additionally, there really is very
little need to manufacture new products, the world is saturated with stuff. Buying second hand is one thing that I can do to help scale back the demand on manufacturing"

Q: What is your most coveted secondhand piece?

"It’s a tie between my Celine Macadam Triomphe brief which I use as a laptop bag – it’s tan with camel leather piping AND my Swiss made black and gold Gucci watch. Both pieces have their way with me, when I wear the watch and carry the brief, I feel emboldened and that’s exactly how I want to feel when I am walking into a client meeting."

Q: Where do you see the fashion industry heading?

"My vision is that it continues towards a circular economy. The momentum is gaining in this direction with consumers realizing they can both save money and support their climate positive values. The big guys are paying attention and implementing change and quite frankly while I prefer independent brands, its the big guys that can afford to invest in the technology and systems required make the advances that our earth needs such as textile recycling. Those advances will become more accessible for the independent brands to access for climate positive innovation."

Q: What fashion lessons do you want to leave for future generations?

"Everything needs to slow down. With social media, there is this wave of influence that is faster acting than any other time in history. There used to be a delay in how a trend gained momentum and tipped, there used to be a mystery about style in different parts of the world, which made it fun to discover. The result of our current trend arc is this rapid consumption and exhaustion of trends, fatiguing a style so quickly that it is disposable almost the moment it peaks. This is both fascinating and sad to me. I’d love to see the concept of trends become unpopular, giving way for variety in style, expression and embrace all sorts of colours, styles and combos."