Lara Miller, the Chicago designer, made convertible knitwear you could wear five different ways. One garment, many lives, the opposite of disposable, at a moment when the rest of the industry was still selling more of everything.
She poured as much into Chicago's fashion community as into her own label, a legacy the industry never knows how to count. Her own line has quieted in recent years; the verifiable trail goes soft after the late 2010s, and I would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
But the idea was right and early. "Wear it five ways" is durability and versatility designed in, the personal version of what the EU's ecodesign rules now demand of producers: longer life, repairability, less waste built in from the start. And "wears like new for years" is exactly the sort of durability claim the FTC's Green Guides now expect a brand to be able to back up.
Being early is a kind of curse. It is also a kind of honor, and somebody should say so in print.
