Vin + Omi are far from your average fashion designers. With works spanning film, television, music and one-off creations, they have worked with some of the world’s top artists and public figures. Their designs have been worn by the likes of Kate Moss, Michelle Obama, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Pamela Anderson and their long-time friend and muse Debbie Harry.
Renowned for their innovative designs, they were called in to help with one of Bubble’s outfits in the 2016 film, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. With the look being such a success, they were tasked with creating the rest of Bubble’s wardrobe.
In February 2018, Vin + Omi presented their first ‘real’ ready-to-wear collection, titled ‘WE ARE NOT SHEEP’. It took 60 models to bring to life 66 eco-friendly looks, resulting in a superb show.
Vin + Omi have created 11 eco-textiles, including leather made from chestnut skins, no-kill wool from pet llamas and reworked denim – they collect surplus denim, regrind it and make it into new denim. Their most innovative material is a wool-like fabric from plastic bottles. “We work with an organisation in New York called the River Keepers. River Keepers clean plastic from the Hudson River, we then manufacture the plastic into fabric in upstate New York. We are currently talking to the mayor’s office to see if we can to the same thing in London. We’ve been creating fabric from plastic since 2004 so it has been a long process,” Omi told Manner.
They try to avoid using cotton as it ‘doesn’t come from great working conditions’ and silk as ‘it’s not very sustainable or eco-friendly’. Omi explains, “It takes 7 Mulberry trees worth of silk worms to make one silk tie. Silk worms go through a Mulberry tree at an average of a week and they take a long time to regenerate. There is only one piece in our collection that consists of silk fibres, the rest is from plastic bottles.”
And to top things off, if you get bored of your purchase, you can sell it back to Vin + Omi and they will reuse the fibres. “It’s not a very clever way of making money, but I think we’d rather be known as being responsible.”
