ABOUT AMY POWNEY - Creative Director - Mother of Pearl
Amy Powney is a UK based fashion designer, creative director and activist living in London. From the age of 10 she grew up on a farm, which was off grid in rural Lancashire with her sister and parents. Her family's lack of materialism would later become the grounding in her understanding of how we give and take from the earth.
In 2002, Amy left her home in the north of the county to study Fashion Design at Kingston University. On completing her degree she started working at Mother of Pearl in 2006 as an assistant who swept the cutting room floor. From there Amy worked her way up to Studio Manager, eventually taking over the helm as Creative Director and owner.
In 2017, Amy won the BFC / Vogue Designer Fashion Fund, which enabled her to launch No Frills in 2018. A core collection made from organic and natural materials, with a transparent supply chain, putting social responsibility, respect to animals and low-environmental impact first and foremost. Everything Amy learnt in creating the No Frills collection is now applied across the entire Mother of Pearl brand making it the most traceable and transparent label in the UK. Amy’s journey to embed sustainability into the Mother of Pearl business is now the subject of a new documentary film by Becky Hutner, Fashion Reimagined, released in cinemas in March 2023.
Amy’s sustainable collections have been shown at London Fashion Week and Copenhagen Fashion Week (for which Amy now sits on the sustainability board) and have been stocked by prestigious global retailers including Net-a-Porter, Harrods, Neiman Marcus and Goop.
Through Mother of Pearl, Amy has also embarked on a number of collaborations. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Campaign for Wool, Amy was asked by his then Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, to design a limited edition wool scarf to showcase the sustainable benefits of wool and to raise money for The Prince’s Foundation’s Future Textiles initiative.
Other collaborations include a sustainable jewellery line with Monica Vinader with season 2 launching in 2023. A film with BBC Earth, the development of stationery with Papier, sustainable DIY knitwear with Wool And The Gang and a sustainable homeware line with John Lewis, bringing expertise and driving change on the highstreet.
Amy is also a brand ambassador for TENCEL™, the flagship brand under The Lenzing Group that covers textile specialty product fibre offerings that are wood based, biodegradable and derived from sustainably managed trees and renewable wood sources.
“I am really excited to be appointed as a brand ambassador for TENCEL™ which is a branded cellulosic fibre of botanic origin. I have been using it in my collections for a number of years but often the consumer doesn’t make the connection that cellulosic fibre actually comes from trees.” - Amy Powney
Watch more of Amy’s story and how she transformed Mother of Pearl into a sustainable brand in Fashion Reimagined.
