EcoSalon at NYFW: Titania Inglis

Titania Inglis, winner of this year’s Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation Award in Sustainable Design, gets street cred with her first New York Fashion Week show.

The show started early for Titania Inglis. Bedecked in black – lots of stylized black – guests waited upbeat, mingling behind black curtains. It was Inglis’ inaugural New York Fashion Week show, made possible by her recently announced 2012 win of the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation Award in Sustainable Design. It was clear that something award winning was about to take place. And, it felt as if we were part of Inglis’ cheerfully somber production. So, like good cast members we waited in the entryway of the Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, a non-profit enterprise and one of the country’s leading media art centers.

The stage was set for Inglis’ own shade of black, uplifted and far from bleak – a seamless blend of preppy plaid and gothic darkness. It was as if two, vastly separate, high school cliques instantly merged into one, very cool and non-cliquey band of fashion mavens. So, it came as no surprise when I overhead Inglis characterize her collection as “My So Called Life all grown up.”

Street-tough models bedecked in vegetable tanned leather from a farm in France, (where they guarantee the entire cow has been used, from food to fashion), in herringbone, recycled cotton plaids, asymmetrical skirts and soft fabrics like raw Japanese silk and Cupro glided by effortlessly.

Inglis, I discovered, has a special affinity to Japanese design – in part attributed to her preference for minimalism and in part, as she says, because “Japan just makes high quality textiles.  They also know how to work with the shorter organic cotton fibers in a way that we don’t in the U.S.” Despite her penchant for The East, she brings it back west with local production in New York City.

With just one month to put her show into motion after winning the prestigious 2012 Ecco Domani award, Inglis didn’t seem to cut corners.

“I wanted to create something clean, sophisticated and wearable for the everyday,” Inglis told EcoSalon. Simple as it sounds, the beauty lies in the details, like the contrast piping inside the garment and her attention to each piece’s “skeleton,” as she calls it.

When asked about her recent win, she appeared nonchalant and merely acknowledged, “My life has gotten a lot busier.”

In a show of support, last year’s Ecco Domani winner for Sustainable Design, Tara St. James of Study New York, congratulated Inglis and, as Inglis told me, offered words of caution over previous phone calls.  “The award is great, but it’s also just the start. It doesn’t guarantee you success,” Inglis paraphrases.

It may just be the beginning for the young designer, but it also feels just right.

Here are some highlights from the Titania Inglis show below:

 

Images: Jennifer Barckley

Jennifer Barckley

Jennifer currently resides in New York City where she covers eco fashion and beauty for EcoSalon.