There was a packed house for Monday’s “Real Fashion With Julie Gilhart” event as 180 people filled The RealReal’s Wooster Street store in Manhattan’s SoHo. The fashion industry-centric crowd came to hear a discussion about the social and ethical implications of sustainability with Public School designers Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, and Carmen Gama, Renew designer for Eileen Fisher, which was led by Gilhart, founder of Julie Gilhart Consulting and a former fashion director of Barneys New York.
“You’re more socially responsible and transparent,” Gilhart said to Maxwell and Chow. “What happened?”
“I remember we were doing eight to 10 collections for DKNY,” said Maxwell, who with Chow in 2015, was hired as a co-creative director of the brand under LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The designers exited when DKNY in 2017 was sold to G-III. “We were designing so much product, just to fill a line plan or accounts. We said, ‘What are we doing all this for?’”
Gilhart recalled that Osborne and Chow had gone to the 2017 Copenhagen Fashion Summit, and the designers described feeling a sense of epiphany after hearing Eileen Fisher speak.
“I have this responsibility to think about what I do for my children’s generation,” Chow said. “It
Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.
Read More…