Zanacco: All-Italian Sustainable Luxury.

If reading Dana Thomas’ Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre taught me anything, it’s that the luxury sector is – for the most part – populated by brands with the capitalist credo of ‘Profit Above All Else’ at the forefront of their collective mind. Outsourcing labour to third-world countries, manufacturing products using unsustainable materials and peddling myths all seem justified in their quest for cash.

 

So it’s good to know that there are those that aren’t quite so Machiavellian in approach, yet are still producing products to have and to hold, and to love for ever more. Zanacco, an Italian brand through-and-through (all their goods are 100% made in Italy), has released its Spring Summer 2011 lookbook which is testament to their laudable talent for blending ethics and aesthetics…

Using the same manufacturers as household brand names such as Bottega Veneta and Zegna, Zanacco take eco-friendly materials such as vegetable tanned leathers, water-based glue, cocofibre inner soles, biodegradable soles and organic cotton lining to create collections marked apart from the usual ‘green’ ranges, which may help save the planet, but – as is often the case – put your image at serious risk; no one wants another hemp shirt.

^ Personal favourites; judgement based purely on their novelty – haven’t really got a clue as to how they’d be worn well…

Find them at Wolf and Badger and Eterno in London, and for a full list of stockists see here.