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Livia Firth, wife of Colin, is a keen ethical fashion advocate. So much so that for last weekend’s Golden Globe Awards (she gets to go on the arm of said husband) Livia wore an Armani dress made from recycled plastic bottles. It was part of her Green Carpet Challenge, and the first time that such a large fashion house had designed something ethical especially for the occasion.
The strapless black dress looks like silk satin to the eye, with damask patterned panel to the skirt and piping around the bodice. It certainly doesn’t look like the result of recycling used plastic bottles collected from Italian households. On Livia’s Vogue blog, she repeats Roberta Armani, Giorgio's niece and right hand woman for the official description of the dress: 'For the 69th Golden Globes my uncle has designed an exclusive gown for Livia, created from a special fabric made with fibres derived from the mechanical, non-chemical recycling of plastic bottles. The dress is a strapless column style, with the bodice composed of horizontal strips of fabric that create a peplum at the front, opening up to form a geometrically-pleated train at the back, highlighted by an ornate lining.'
Livia is Creative Director of Eco Age, an ethical fashion and lifestyle store in Chiswick, London. She started in Green Carpet Challenge in December 2009 with journalist Lucy Siegle. Following the Golden Globe nomination of Colin Firth for A Single Man, Livia announced that she would from then on only wear ethical and sustainable fashion on the Red Carpet in order to raise the profile of such garments.
Livia has previously worn Henrietta Ludgate, Kami Organic and Gary Harvey, among others. She has said that for 2012 other big names have signed up for the cause and designers on board include Chanel, Tom Ford, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Paul Smith.
