The Circular Bioeconomy Alliance has held a conference at St James’s Palace in London, aimed at giving a further boost to the sustainability effort behind the Himalayan Regenerative Fashion Living Lab, a major humanist project set up in collaboration by the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s fashion task force, Italian luxury cashmere label Brunello Cucinelli, and the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance.

At the conference, Brunello Cucinelli’s CEO Riccardo Stefanelli illustrated the project’s progress to some one hundred participants, among them researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and indigenous leaders, the main stakeholders invested in supporting circularity and environmental protection, as well as sustainable fashion and tourism.

Stefanelli showed for the first time some handmade pashmina items made with material sourced locally in the Himalayan region. Speaking alongside Federico Marchetti, chair of the Fashion Task Force, and Giuseppe Marsocci, chief commercial officer and deputy managing director at Giorgio Armani, Stefanelli said that the Himalayan project has been the brainchild of Marchetti and Brunello Cucinelli himself, and that “[the Brunello Cucinelli label] will continue to be involved in the project, with the firmly established goal of ensuring a production output that is mindful of humankind’s well-being, without ever forgetting that Nature and the planet we are living on need to be safeguarded.”

The project, which is supported also by King Charles III, is about to enter a second, “even more intensive” phase. Stefanelli spoke with King Charles, showing him the first items made using cashmere collected in the Ladakh region. “Like the first day on which we undertook this significant commitment according to the will of His Majesty King Charles,” said Stefanelli, “today too we are deeply honoured to be able to make our contribution to such a noble cause. I am grateful to those who so splendidly organised this special event, during which I had the privilege and pleasure of being able to illustrate, first to a highly prestigious audience and then to His Majesty himself, the milestones we have achieved in the project’s first phase.

“Being able to handle the very first garments made thanks to the project was hugely exciting. In the name of human sustainability, which has always inspired [Brunello Cucinelli], we will continue to do our best to contribute to the Himalayan Regenerative Fashion Living Lab project, in which we truly believe and which we are sure will shine a new light on humanity’s path,” he concluded.