Fashion Reimagined: this woolly, self-congratulatory doc isn’t as radical as it thinks it is

The difference between documentary and PR is revealed to be dispiritingly brittle, and vulnerable to casual erosion, in director Becky Hutner’s debut feature Fashion Reimagined. Following the work of Amy Powney, a fashion designer on a mission to produce a sustainable clothing collection, Hutner attempts to use Powney’s work to traverse the thorny intersection between high fashion and ecological politics. But where other fashion documentaries, like Dior and I (2014) and The First Monday in May (2016), revel in the opulence and exclusivity of this insular industry, Fashion Reimagined makes a distinctively ethical claim for itself: Powney is not merely a fashion darling, or a celebrated designer, but an all-out environmental ‘revolutionary’.

Revolution is a strong promise. Alarming statistics outlining the catastrophic impact of mass clothing consumption are smacked onto the screen – three out of five garments end up in landfills within one year of purchase, 2.5 million children pick cotton every year – laying out the situation in which Powney’s admirable but fundamentally small-scale project intervenes. Powney travels the world tracking down ethically sourced materials, and demands that her clothing is organic, traceable and socially responsible. But when she realises her beloved wool from a Uruguayan sheep farm must travel to Peru before reaching her London studio, Powney decides that shipment through three countries is “not too bad”, implicitly posing the compelling question: how many compromises can be made before a garment is no longer ‘100 percent sustainable’?

Such is the hagiographic thrust of Fashion Reimagined, however, that any spirit of inquiry into the limitations of Powney’s mission is almost completely effaced. The film’s triumphant roll-call of celebs who wear Powney’s designs – Emma Thompson, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Vicky McClure – extols the luxury status of these items, seemingly forgetting that the ‘mass’ in ‘mass consumption’ encompasses those who can’t afford such durable, high-end pieces. When juxtaposed with the apocalyptic flavour of Hutner’s statistics, Powney’s work appears slight, and relevant only to an elite minority. For all the film’s ethical charge, this myopia produces the same logic as the traditionally lavish fashion doc: it’s our world, and we’re just giving you a peek.

It’s no surprise that DUCK Productions, one of the companies behind Fashion Reimagined, is an official production partner of London Fashion Week. The documentary’s aesthetic is rooted in the same ideals of flattery and lustre, with delicately lit talking heads drifting into slow-motion shots of Parisian apartments and Uruguayan landscapes. Far from a vision of the revolution, it looks less like a manifesto and more like a puff piece.

► Fashion Reimagined is in UK cinemas now.