“Sustainable doesn’t need to be vanilla,” says Chilean-born Maria Cornejo, a founding member of the CFDA Sustainability Committee and frequent award recipient for her innovation in responsible fashion. “It can be luxurious. It can be sexy.”
Clockwise from left: A recent sketch; Markers Tria Pantone, Chartpak Ad, and Sharpie; Cornejo and longtime client Michelle Obama.
Photographs by Cole Wilson.Her long-standing NoHo atelier, Zero + Maria Cornejo—of which Christy Turlington and Michelle Obama are fans—is proof positive of her belief. And by using upcycled fabrics (car seat leather; recycled cashmere) and local manufacturing, Cornejo demonstrates that it can be refreshingly pragmatic too: “If a yarn is Bolivian,” she says, “then we knit it in Bolivia. If the leather is from Italy, then we make the shoe in Italy.”
Left: “I love the cat because he’s so happy. Women move, we work, we have many different lives—like cats, you know?”
Right: “I always say: Get creative with less. It’s amazing how creative you can be when you put limitations on yourself.”