Courtesy of Airinum.
Last week’s Paris Fashion Week coverage was significantly overshadowed by the UN Climate Action summit that took place in New York on Monday. As Greta Thunberg reprimanded representatives for stealing her future, the fashion industry is slowly waking up to the fact that they have a significant part to play in the climate crisis also.
Against this turbulent backdrop, Paris-based designer Marine Serre’s environmentally conscious Spring/Summer 2020 collection—according to Vogue 50 percent of her garments are now made from upcycled garments—emerged as one of this season’s standout shows. While her inclusion of a Pomeranian and a Belgian Shepherd were attention grabbing, the air pollution masks worn by two of the models continued with a trend started by Serre last season. For her SS20 show, Serre collaborated with Airinum—a Swedish start-up who create “health accessories” to raise awareness about air pollution levels and assist with breathing in cleaner air—on a custom version of their Urban Air Masks.
But being part of one of the shows of the season wasn’t enough for the Swedish company. Instead, Airinum continued with a trend that has been carried out by environmentalist activist groups like Greenpeace since 2016, and placed their air pollution masks on statues around Paris. For one of the startup’s founders, Fredrik Kempe, “A mask can both save lives and at the same time be a symbol for the climate crisis.” We caught up with the start-up to find out more about their campaign and how their collaboration with Serre came about.
Marine Serre SS20. Courtesy of Airinum.
How did this collaboration with Marine Serre come about?
Marine reached out to us saying she liked our design and point of view as a brand. And, given that Marine is known for her edgy futuristic designs reminding the fashion world that climate change is real, we thought it was a great fit for our mission. Then, after some fruitful meetings in Paris discussing the designs Marine wanted to do, we both realised that big names had been wearing her clothing in public together with our mask. So, at that point it felt that the collaboration between our brands was a perfect fit.
Do you consider the pollution masks to be a fashion statement?
Absolutely. Air masks has been seen on the runway and in the music scene for a couple of years now. Celebrities such as Ariana Grande, Naomi Campbell and Big Sean has been seen in our masks proving that it isn’t only K-pop stars that seriously use masks as fashion items to disguise themselves. The trend is becoming more established in the West and with that a broader acceptance towards wearing masks is being shaped.
Courtesy of Airinum.
And who purchases Airinum masks? Are they buying them mostly for fashion or health reasons?
Even though many people wear them as a fashion item a majority still buy (the Classic Collection) for health reasons.
Can you explain the meaning behind putting the masks on the statues in Paris?
Being in Paris for Fashion Week, we wanted to seize the opportunity to make a statement and also raise awareness about air pollution and the serious effects it has on human health. A mask can both save lives, and at the same time, be a symbol for the climate crisis. We hope this will make the public demand clean air and politicians to act since public knowledge is the first step towards creating change —we want to be apart of that.
Courtesy of Airinum.
What has been the public response to this?
We have gotten a lot of attention in media all over the world (Russia, Spain, France and the US to name a few) and people on social media have been interacting and sharing images of statues wearing masks showing this is an issue that concerns a lot of people.
Why should we be wearing pollution masks?
Given that the World Health Organisation estimates that approximately 7 million premature deaths are the result of air pollution—making it the world’s biggest indirect killer—it is evident this is a huge global problem and therefore, our masks are greatly needed.
Then, from our standpoint, we wanted to create something that people would not feel ashamed of wearing. If it’s air pollution, allergies etc. that people want to combat, we wanted to create a product and a brand that people would feel empowered and proud to wear—something which we’re now taking with us on all future products we’re working on.
Courtesy of Airinum.