Livia Firth’s 5 Best Green Carpet Challenge Dresses

Livia Firth is one of our faves (we’ve even featured her as a Heroine for the Planet); her Green Carpet Challenge is a call to action for those with style klout and concerns about the ecological and humanitarian impact of the fashion industry. (Her husband, Colin, even gets into the action—check out his incredible suit made in Yorkshire, England from New Zealand wool for the recent Kingsman premiere.)

Firth explains her motivation for raising consciousness and awareness in this video for the 2014 Trust Women Conference.

Firth founded Eco Age—her sustainability consultation company in 2008 with her brother, Nicola Giuggioli and husband, actor Colin Firth. They operated a retail shop—filled with ethically-sourced home goods—before shifting their focus to full-time consultation. In 2010, Firth issued the first Green Carpet Challenge.

The world renowned Green Carpet Challenge® (GCC) is a dynamic project, pairing glamour and ethics to raise the profile of sustainability, ethics and social welfare. Working with A-list designers and globally recognised celebrities, the GCC has catapulted sustainable style into the spotlight at the world’s most high profile events. From the Golden Globes to the Cannes Film Festival, the GCC has collaborated with all of the iconic design houses in the world, winning widespread critical acclaim and international media attention. 

The list of collaborating designers is extensive, including Gucci, Valentino, Lanvin, Tom Ford, Prada and many, many more.

Firth certainly practices what she preaches. Check out our favorite Green Carpet looks.

Firth wore a gown crafted from up-cycled scrap Duchesse silk to the 2013 Winter Whites Gala, paired with a Chopard necklace made of fair-mined gold and responsibly sourced diamonds.

Firth wore an Erdem frock (pictured here with Erdem himself at the 2013 launch of the Net-A-Porter capsule collection) made of OEKO-TEX certified silk and Newlife satin (100% recycled plastic bottles).

She later wore another Erdem gown to the 2015 Golden Globes with jewlery from the Chopard Green Carpet Challenge line using materials certified by the Alliance for Responsible Mining.

At the 2015 Met Gala, Firth donned an Antonio Berardi creation made of 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles (next to Colin Firth in a repurposed Tom Ford tuxedo).

To receive the 2013 Green Award at the Harper’s Bazaar Women of the Year Awards, Firth wore a fully-traceable black Australian wool gown designed by Victoria Beckham for the Net-A-Porter at Apsley House Green Carpet Challenge Collection.

Firth shows no signs of slowing down. The Green Carpet Challenge is growing strongly, and she is currently keeping busy as an executive producer for the documentary The True Cost, directed by Andrew Morgan.

This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?

Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world’s leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva, The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.

What you wear may make you look good, but does it make you feel good? Firth argues that awareness is key to changing the human and environmental footprint the fashion industry leaves on the world at large. We wholeheartedly agree.