Stunning in white at the Golden Globes

With Colin Firth receiving a seemingly endless number of ‘Best Actor’ nominations for his role in A Single Man, wife Livia was announcing her intention to use upcoming red carpet photocalls to showcase the best in ethical fashion.

Along with friend and eco-journalist, Lucy Siegle, she would call upon ‘some of the biggest names in mainstream fashion and the greatest authorities on style on the planet’ with the aim of showing whether sustainable fashion can rise to the challenge of being most scrutinised. Her journey would be followed through her own blog on Vogue.com.

In Lucy’s words ‘Sustainable fashion is a beautiful and progressive movement with social and planetary justice at its core…It is time to test this vibrant yet nascent movement in the most intensely scrutinised, glamour laden arena we could find – the red carpet.’

How fantastic to see an A lister putting their profile to such good use. But with Livia Firth, this is no great surprise. As well as a talented film producer, she is a passionate eco-campaigner and creative director of Eco Age, another very clever idea.

Based in Chiswick, Eco Age is described as ‘a store, showroom, consultancy and green hub that offers inspiration, ideas and specific domestic solutions for all those who want to lead a greener and more energy efficient life.’ Its vision is ’to create a full-service one-stop-shop in which people can find beauty, design, inspiration, ideas, advice, and apply concrete solutions for green living.’

The Eco Age store in Chiswick

I was charmed to bits by Livia when Daisy bagged an exclusive interview with her the day after news of Colin’s Oscar nomination broke. I had heard that she doesn’t like talking about Colin in interviews (understandably when she has such an amazing career of her own) and I wondered if she would come across as aloof, perhaps to protect herself from the too-often intrusive media spotlight.

But with her seductive Italian accent, ready girlish giggle and easy manner, I felt comfortable chatting immediately and it was obvious she was glowing with pride for her husband. First off, I just had to ask, what will she wear to that most famous of ceremonies?

How do you feel about the prospect of finding an ethical dress to wear?
I find it incredibly exciting, truly exciting, and when we started the challenge we were really worried about whether we would ever find one dress to go on the red carpet let alone more than that, but we found so many and now we almost ran out of events so it’s very exciting for the Oscars to see how it’s going to work and what to do

It’s so fantastic to see that you’re a going to make ethical fashion that high profile and really prove how stunning it can be. How easy has it been to find ethical fashion that matches the competition on the red carpet?
Well we thought is was a difficult challenge and at the beginning I was full of, you know, “I would never compromise style”, “I would never wear anything that is not sustainable” but I didn’t know there was so much available and I have found incredible clothes in the US when I went there for the Golden Globes - a lot of designers and a lot of people there. We found some beautiful outfits.

Could you name check a few of your favourite discoveries?

In Sara Shepherd at the London premiere

Well in terms of designers I wore a Sara Shepherd dress at the [London] premiere of the film. It was beautiful and she is truly a stunning designer; she is British but based in San Francisco. I love her designs also Linda Loudermilk who I am going to wear in Paris next week.

She truly was the pioneer of ethical fashion and she has done incredible research with scientists into sustainable fashion. Some of her gowns are truly stunning and elegant and really perfect for the red carpet. There are another couple of designers who I have also discovered who I might wear as well.

I have been reading with interest about your 12 Degrees Pop Up Shop at Eco Age that’s been going for quite a few months now. How’s that going?
Yes, this is how it started. Me, Lucy Siegle, Orsola De Castro and Jocelyn Whipple came up with the idea of the 12 Degrees of Ethical Fashion. We wanted to create a platform and a shop on the high street which I could provide to showcase the designers who were working in a sustainable way, to show consumers that you can find beautiful clothes which were made differently and try sort some of the issues and confusions around ethical fashion. Because what exactly is ethical fashion?

It’s so many different aspects so we wanted to do a programme where each month we could address one of the issues and showcase the clothes around that issue and it’s been very successful. We’ve loved doing it and now we are going to have a more perminanent fashion selection in the shop for Spring/Summer this year, so from March onwards we will have what we selected as the best brands and the nicest clothes to showcase.

Does Colin dress ethically?
For the publicity, Colin has been dressing in Tom Ford [The fashion designer and Director of A Single Man] which in a way again we get into ethical fashion and what exactly it is. One of the things that impresses me about Tom Ford is that he knows exactly how everything is made, where it is made, and everything about the material. Everything. Every single detail which is very rare in a fashion designer as so often they source the production, they give it to someone else and they don’t know how it is made.

Is that even the case at very high end fashion?
Ah yes but have you had this experience. I have had this experience. I have items in my cupboard – shoes, handbags and coats that I bought when I was 18/19/20 – they were incredibly high quality - I invested money in them. I remember I had my first coat – the first coat I bought with my money I saved for an entire year to buy that coat and I still have it. It’s beautiful. It’s 22 years old and it looks like new. The same can be said with shoes and bags that have been in my cupboard for ever.

I bought very cheap things before because I couldn’t resist and I don’t have them any more. The quality wasn’t good or because I didn’t care for them. It’s a real question of how you look at fashion and what fashion really is and what it means and what you want to wear.

On the 12 Degrees web page it says “You will one day conquer the entire retail world”. I know those weren’t your own words but it leads me to wonder whether you have plans to expand Eco Age. Were you thinking about opening new stores?
Yes we definitely will. We are relatively new. We have only been trading for two years and so we still have a lot to do in terms of understanding how to expand and where to expand but we definitely will.

Fantastic news. Will the blog in Vogue continue?
Oh yes. Sure.

Thanks very much for talking to us Livia and really good luck with it all.
Thank you.

Livia’s Green Carpet Challenge blog is at Vogue.com. Find out more about the Green Hub at Eco Age.

Golden Globes photo: Caroline Schiff (www.carolineschiff.com)