Madre Natura shows ‘old’ clothes to make sustainability statement

At Australian Fashion Week, opinions on the various shows can swing widely between “amazing”, “nice” and “terrible”. One person’s wishlist is another person’s worst nightmare, and so forth. But there’s been one uniting force at the event for more than 25 years: newness.

But that’s changing, no more so than on Thursday, the penultimate day of the industry event, when a brand making its runway debut did the unthinkable and showed “old” clothes.

Jackie Galleghan, of Madre Natura, was no longer satisfied with merely telling people her brand was sustainable. Instead, she wanted to use the grand stage of Australian Fashion Week to prove it by sending models out wearing her past collections, which are still available to buy. She has pledged not to release her resort collection (the collections almost every other designer has shown this week to a coterie of buyers, media and invited guests) until existing stock sells out.

“Being sustainably focused, I had to be brave enough to do something different,” Galleghan says, adding she wanted to “challenge the fashion industry to do something positive, [that] makes a difference”.

“We knew it would be a brave move to take a stance on zero waste.”

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While she flirted with the idea of dumping landfill on the runway, much to the olfactory relief of the attendees at Galleghan’s show at Sydney’s Carriageworks, she decided to let the clothes – gender agnostic, timeless, and built to last – speak for themselves.

When asked whether she was squandering an opportunity to present newness to buyers, some of whom have travelled from as far as Dubai and France, Galleghan is resolute. “It’s [about] being brave enough to take this stand for the debut. It’s highlighting our brand values. It’s not about selling.”

And, of course, if anyone wants to see her new collection, they only need to ask: it has been designed and is in production, but Galleghan says since becoming a mother for the first time last year, she didn’t feel pressured to conform to fashion’s faster pace.