Moda Operandi on Thursday debuted its latest “Made for Moda” exclusive capsule of collaborative knits by Mama Farm — actress Isabella Rossellini and her daughter Elettra Wiedemann’s Long Island community-driven and biodiversity conservation-focused farm and bed and breakfast — and Brooklyn-based, independent knitwear designer Aisling Camps.

The “farm-to-fashion” capsule is the primary of its kind for the retailer and includes 4 limited-edition knit ready-to-wear styles available for pre-order. Every bit of the Made for Moda: Aisling Camps for Mama Farm is hand-loomed by Camps in her Brooklyn studio from sheep wool sustainably sourced from Mama Farm’s flock. 

“We’ve got done special ‘Made for Moda’ capsules prior to now [when a collection is made in partnership with brands specifically with the Moda customer in mind] but that is the primary of its kind because there are three parties involved. Moda has connected a supplier of sustainable raw materials to an independent designer to inform a deeper story. Finding the fitting designer is integral to the capsule’s success, with Moda — who has all the time been known for scouting fresh talent — acting as a connector and nurturing the working process between the 2 brands along the way in which.

“Our unique platform, with an emphasis on editorial content, allows us to inform the whole story of the creation of a set like this to a highly engaged audience who’s searching for exclusive product with heart and meaning behind it,” said Moda Operandi chief merchant April Hennig.

“This capsule was not engineered to serve a particular trend, or merchandise need. It was purely an organic collaboration between Aisling and Mama Farm that is targeted on the great thing about the raw material and took over a 12 months to incubate and produce to market. It’s so special that the aim of this collection was the shared goal to inform a story; it wasn’t nearly selling clothes.” 

The thought for the concept capsule got here to life after Hennig was introduced to Rossellini and Wiedemann and learned of their mission to “foster the subsequent generation of environmental stewardship through Mama Farm’s educational programming,” said Hennig. She added that, through the conversation, the 2 corporations realized there was a “larger story to inform the style industry in regards to the importance of making sustainable sourcing and production locally here in Recent York,” which led to the posh designer collaboration.

“Small farms which have flocks of sheep on this country are in an actual pickle: they’ve sheep, they must shear them [sheep have to be sheared for their own health], yet getting the wool processed into yarn or fabric is simply too expensive and takes an excessive amount of time, often as much as a 12 months or more. That is resulting from globalization and the offshoring of mills and processing facilities. There was lots of of mills within the Northeastern United States alone; now there’s one amongst of Recent York State and just a number of others scattered throughout the region. This ends in many farmers, especially those running small farms, to shear their sheep after which burn or bury the wool,” said Wiedemann, executive director of Mama Farm. 

“Some farmers we all know did attempt to create easy sweaters and other products with their wool, but the value point was too high for his or her customer base, who at the moment are accustomed to low-priced products made out of synthetic or synthetic blends. Within the technique of talking with other farmers and weavers and coming to grasp the problems, I noticed what was needed was to create a very elevated wool product — ‘wool couture,’ in the event you will — and to coach consumers about these issues. That is after I reached out to Lauren Santo Domingo at Moda and talked her through what we were facing and asked if she could be willing to collaborate, to experiment together to create a capsule collection that was not only inspired by couture, but in addition to create something that is really local and ‘farm-to-fashion.’

“Lauren is such a visionary; in fact she understood the chance and the challenge. Through her chief merchant April Hennig they got Aisling Camps on board, who’s an incredible wool artist based in Brooklyn,” said Wiedemann, who emphasized the importance of not specializing in the negative effects of the industry — specifically fast fashion — but quite utilizing the “tenets of the farm-to-table movement,” and channeling it into the industry.

From there, Hennig was influenced to partner Mama Farm with Camps (who Moda Operandi currently sells) for her appreciation for sustainable practices, creative outlook, distinctly recognizable designs and for being a “one-woman show” running her business, handling all areas from sketch and design to sales and production.

“The primary goal of this project was to essentially showcase the distinctiveness of the heritage breed sheep at Mama Farm. A number of the Jacob sheep had their wool handspun locally in Bellport. The colours were separated so I had a stupendous palette to work with; ivory, purply gray and a deep chocolate brown. My team and I were present for the shearing this spring at Mama Farm and we handpicked luscious curls from the Lincoln Longwool sheep. These were washed, scoured and deep-conditioned by my team and we had a bountiful mass of curls to create from. The remainder of the wool that was collected was sent to Battenkill Fibers to be converted into yarn that I could easily use in my machines. That process can take several months,” said Camps. 

Every bit (as seen on Camps, Wiedemann, Rossellini and model Toni Smith at Mama Farms, photographed by Dan Martensen) was designed with simplicity in mind, with the intention to let the wool’s natural textures and colours shine. Moreover, each style is out there in extremely limited quantities, based on the supply of materials sourced from Mama Farm’s flock.

The 4 Aisling Camps x Mama Farm styles, priced $1,590 to $3,990, include a Mama sweater (a slouchy jumper in classic Englishman’s rib with Camps’ signature leather crochet trimmed neckline); Duse set (an identical off-the-shoulder cropped sweater and maxi pencil skirt with fringes and multitexture details), and O’Keefe vest (named after the sheep for its curls, and noted to be a speciality piece of the road). Along with the exclusive collaboration capsule, a collection of Camps’ 22 latest collection styles have launched on Moda Operandi for pre-order and buy-now in limited quantities.

“We made a chunky V-neck vest but we kept the perimeters open with ties so it’s easy to layer in some ways. We actually didn’t need to lose the gorgeous curl pattern of the Lincoln Longwool fleece. Each perfect curl was chosen and hand-woven right into a knitted base in a process that took about per week to finish. It truly is a labor of affection and a variety of care and thought is put into each decision from farm to fashion,” said Camps.

“Normally, I hope our audience takes away a deeper consideration of the interaction of fashion, the provision chain, and mother nature,” Hennig said. 

In the longer term, she further hopes that by Moda Operandi taking sustainability a step further with the concept of “farm to fashion,” other brands and potential recent designer partners shall be inspired by the project’s use of ethically and locally sourced materials with slow production cycles. “Introducing this approach into the conversation can have a robust impact that we’d like to pursue further.”

“This capsule collection is a small contribution, but it surely’s proof of concept: you possibly can make beautiful clothing without leaving Recent York State, from sheep to spool after which into a novel garment. Now we’d like to grow this model and encourage more people to hitch the movement. It can occur when more designers realize that their materials come from a farm — similar to their food — they usually develop into interested in what else is feasible and forge a recent path forward. The federal government has declared its interest to make domestic supply chains more robust and that features textiles and wool. We will all be a part of that movement,” said Wiedemann.