On the evening of Sunday September 22, all the leading lights of Italy’s fashion and showbiz world congregated at the prestigious Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The occasion was the ceremony for the third edition of the Green Carpet Fashion Awards (GCFA) organised by the Italian Fashion Chamber (CNMI), the Oscars for eco-responsible fashion celebrating the engagement for sustainability by fashion labels working to foster a rapid change in attitudes, while also preserving the heritage and authenticity of small-scale producers.

Among the Italian and international celebrities present, Valentino Garavani and Sophia Loren, who didn’t hide her emotion in presenting the legendary designer with the Legacy Award, which the co-founder of sustainability specialist Eco-Age, Livia Firth, and CNMI President Carlo Capasa chose to dedicate to Valentino.

The event’s guests were welcomed in a green-tinted Piazza della Scala, which morphed for one night into an evocative Renaissance vineyard. The setting was curated by the event’s Creative Director Hamish Bowles, international editor at large for Vogue, who was inspired by the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo Da Vinci.

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The event was hosted, alongside Livia Firth and Carlo Capasa, by models Adut Akech and Jon Kortajarena. In the audience, some of the fashion world’s most influential names, including Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue USA, top models like Doutzen Kroes, Amber Valletta, Isabeli Fontana, Candice Swanepoel, Elisa Sednaoui, Toni Garn, Elsa Hosk and Alessandra Ambrosio, as well as designers and industry grandees like Stella McCartney, Angela and Rosita Missoni, Pierpaolo Piccioli, Renzo Rosso, Paolo and Gildo Zegna, Tomaso Trussardi and Alessandro Sartori.

The awards’ winners, all recognised with a statuette in Fairmined-certified ethical gold by Chopard, were the following: the GCFA Visionary Award was presented by Ginevra Elkann to Kering’s boss François-Henri Pinault; the GCFA Circular Economy Award was presented to Healthy Sea. In the Technology and Innovation category, the statuette went to the President of Italian green tannery operator SICIT, Walter Peretti, and its CEO Massimo Neresini. The Social Media Changemaker Award went to fashion model Doutzen Kroes, while the Franca Sozzani Award for Best Emerging Designer was presented by Arizona Muse and Sara Sozzani Maino to Flavia La Rocca. The ‘I was a Sari’ project by Gucci won the Responsible Disruption Award, while the North Star Award was presented by Colin Firth and transgender model Lea T to Auret Van Heerden and Dorothée Baumann-Pauly of NYU Stern’s Center for Business and Human Rights, and to Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham of the Union for Concerned Researchers in Fashion.

The CNMI Award in recognition of Sustainability was presented to Elia Maramotti of Max Mara and to Alessandro Sartori and Gildo Zegna, of Italian luxury menswear label Zegna. Stella McCartney won the Groundbreaker Award, while the Art of Craftsmanship award was given to embroidery specialist Pino Grasso. Finally, the Eco Stewardship Award went to the gondoliers of Venice.