Mother of Pearl’s Amy Powney Steps Down to Launch Green Clothing Brand
LONDON — Amy Powney, longtime creative director of Mother of Pearl, is stepping down, with plans to launch a sustainable women’s clothing brand called Akyn.
Powney said that as creative director and partner of Akyn, she will be able to use her “voice and expertise on a wider scale, creating deeper impact and striving for continued and meaningful change within the industry.”
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Akyn will launch in the spring, and the website went live earlier Monday.
Powney is a longtime sustainability campaigner and starred in the independent documentary “Fashion Reimagined,” which came out in 2022. The film documented her efforts to create a clothing collection “from field to finished garment.”
Powney, who was raised on a farm in Lancashire, England, has spent her fashion career probing the origins of raw materials, and looking at the social and environmental impact of fashion manufacturing and distribution.
In May 2023, she delivered a TED Talk on the rapid expansion of the fashion industry and the pursuit of cheap clothing, calling on consumers to reconsider the value of their clothing and its connection to the natural world.
Powney studied fashion design at Kingston University, and on completing her degree started working at Mother of Pearl, which was founded by Maia Norman, the designer, art director and former partner of Damien Hirst.
In 2017, while at Mother of Pearl, Powney won the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund enabling her to launch No Frills, a core collection made with organic and natural materials.
It was the making of No Frills that led Powney to star in “Fashion Reimagined,” an independent documentary released in cinemas and across streaming services in 2023.
The making of No Frills was also the subject of Powney’s TED Talk, “How to Fix Fashion and Protect the Planet,” which was delivered in Detroit at TED Countdown 2024.
Mother of Pearl has shown at London Fashion Week and at Copenhagen Fashion Week, where Powney sits on the sustainability board.
During her long tenure at Mother of Pearl, Powney also worked on a number of collaborations and partnerships.
To mark the 10th anniversary of The Campaign for Wool in 2020, Powney responded to a request from King Charles to design a limited-edition scarf to showcase the sustainable benefits of the natural fiber.
Powney also worked on three sustainable jewelry lines with Monica Vinader, stationery with Papier and sustainable homeware with John Lewis.
Powney is also a brand ambassador for Tencel, the flagship brand of The Lenzing Group which creates specialty fibers that are wood based, biodegradable and derived from sustainably managed trees and renewable wood sources.
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