Vogue’s Tonne Goodman on her industry’s wasteful image: ‘Fashion is not disposable’
The magazine’s sustainability editor shares her lessons on sustainable style, shopping vintage and fashion’s impact on the planet.
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Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
The most important name in sustainable fashion you may not know: Tonne Goodman has been an instrumental voice in the fashion industry for nearly five decades.
Having been vice president of advertising at Calvin Klein, Goodman went on to become American Vogue’s Fashion Director for 20 years – and she recently made a slight side step, becoming the iconic fashion publication’s first ever sustainability editor.
It’s been a natural evolution for this fashion lover. “I was a hippie, I was part of that inner peace movement,” says Goodman. “I was there for Earth Day in 1970 and it has been a part of what I grew up with.”
Joining Vogue just before the turn of the millennium meant there was a buzz in the air and an inkling for change, she recalls.
“[Fellow Vogue editors Hamish Bowles, Edward Enninful, Anna Wintour and myself] experienced the Nineties differently. I was actually starting my family and fashion was an exciting ballast in the middle of this,” says Goodman.
“I introduced the column ‘Style Ethics’ from 2009 to 2014, and more recently for vogue.com, ‘Then and Now’. I’ve been able to address sustainability as a Vogue editor now more than before.”
New meets old
Sustainability in fashion often starts with circularity – whether it’s recycling water, patterns or fabrics, or shopping vintage.
“Vintage is a great vehicle for everybody to be able to not only understand but embrace, and it’s a vital form of a circularity. It also promotes the philosophy that fashion is not disposable,” says Goodman. “Fashion has meaning, and it should have a relevance in your life, and it is not something that you buy and get rid of.”
For Goodman, having a sustainable approach to dressing means embracing your garments as if they are part of you. “I think that the concept of fashion applies to the individual. From all of the enormity of it, it trickles down to one person and what they are putting on their body.”
Your fashion choices are an immediate expression of who you are, what you believe in, and what you want to let other people know, Goodman adds: “Fashion has a great responsibility in that way. Fashion is one of the few direct vehicles for announcing and promoting what is important to an individual and ultimately to a crowd, ultimately to a country and ultimately to a planet.”
The meaning behind her uniform
Like many time-poor celebs, Goodman has recently adopted a style uniform. Known for her sombre colour palette and sartorial silhouettes, she says this stemmed from a place of complications: “As life became busier and more complicated, [streamlining my wardrobe] was very welcome.”
She continues: “I don’t want to rob fashion of fantasy, because I think it is so important. Dreams are important, they keep hope and aspirations alive, but for me it was just a practical thing.”
For Goodman, when one applies practicality to one’s lifestyle, they start to make better decisions. Buying less means your wardrobe helps build a stronger identity that becomes inextricable from your persona.
Her goal, she says, is to get to a point where “there’s no mistaking who I am from what I put on myself – I think that commitment to fashion is what will help sustain a point of view that will ultimately help the industry,” Goodman adds.
People power
She is clear on how the rise of fast fashion has had a detrimental impact on the industry, and believes the pace of the modern technological age is pushing overconsumption and the health of the planet to its limits. “It’s been bad,” Goodman says. “I could use other words but I’m not going to.
“I think that social media has allowed people to act too quickly, to dismiss things too quickly, to embrace things too quickly – to just be too quick about everything,” she exclaims.
“You have to give yourself time to think about something. As an individual who puts clothes on on a daily basis, you have got to commit to what that gesture really means and how it impacts a whole chain of events.
“The world operates in a system that relies on money, right? I think that if the concept can be understood better by the general public, and that they, within this concept, realise they have a choice and a vote, and they can be very influential to any company.
“Their purchasing power dictates to designers and companies what they must do. That purchasing power is an amazing concept for promoting sustainability.”
The onus is on everyone within the fashion industry too, of course. But we, as buyers, should never underestimate our power – because, as Goodman adds: “The small wins add up.”
In Vogue: The 90s will premiere exclusively on Disney+. Volume I (eps 1-3) will be available on September 13, followed by Volume II (eps 4-6) on September 20.