Paula Ulargui Escaloni started making waves in the fashion scene when her 2023 collaboration with Loewe saw the fashion giant sending models down the runway with grass growing from their sneakers.
The self-proclaimed ‘Sustainable Fashion Investigator’ created the techniques used for the shoes and some other garments that gave a new, more literal interpretation of the phrase ‘floral dresses’.
The pieces, used in Loewe’s 2022 Paris Fashion Week show for SS23, were actually cultivated over 20 days in a polytunnel on the outskirts of Paris.
But isn’t using living plants on clothes and shoes highly impractical? Or are we missing the point?
Born in Northern Spain but based in Madrid, Paula is as much an artist as she is a designer. She told NSS magazine: “As I grow the plants I take so much care – they are delicate but nature is much stronger than we think.
“I developed this technique during my last year in university. I did a whole project based on creating garments out of nature. I grew plants, I grew mushrooms. And I discovered a technique to weave plants to make actual fabric for a garment that is completely alive and made out of vegetation.”
Paula’s work explores the intricate relationship between humanity and the natural world. She is not bound by a single medium, working with sculpture, installation and digital art and her pieces often highlight the fragility of ecosystems, the impact of human activity on the environment, and the potential for symbiotic relationships between different life forms.
Using seeds, soil and plant matter, alongside technological elements, Paula blurs the lines between the artificial and the natural. This allows her to examine the often fraught relationship between humans and the environment.
Describing her work as “a personal and creative textile art project” her concern for the future of the planet informs everything she creates. She explains on her website that all the designs and materials have the same aim: “To raise awareness of the undeniable urgency of climate change and the need to rethink our consumption model and our impact as a society. A change that will undoubtedly only happen with the help of everyone: artists, brands and consumers.”
But Paula’s work does much more than raise awareness—she’s actively developing alternatives to the materials that are causing so much harm: She explains: “The industry has been using the same fabrics and materials for years and this is where the challenge of sustainability lies. Thinking twice about the materials we use as creators/designers can make a big difference and this is why this field has become my main area of interest: researching innovative, alternative, ephemeral and, of course, sustainable fabrics.”
Check out Paula’s website.
