Zendaya, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Donatella Versace, Jennifer Coolidge, Annie Lennox, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Amber Valletta and Trudie Styler, walked the red carpet at this year’s Green Carpet Fashion Awards at 1 Hotel West Hollywood, alongside some of the world’s most respected leaders, young activists and Indigenous representatives. The annual awards celebrate leaders who are creating collective transformation and showcase the need for an intersectional approach to achieve change.
This year’s special GCFA Game Changer honoree was Donatella Versace for her activism on LGBTQ+ rights.
Receiving the honors are co-founder and Chair of the Elders, Mary Robinson, garment worker and union leader Kalpona Akter, musician and social justice activist, John Legend, Ugandan presidential candidate and Oscar nominee, Bobi Wine, and his wife Barbie Kyagulanyi and Greenland Indigenous leader Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq,.
The highlight of the night saw Vanessa Nakate, on behalf of a group of young leaders, honor U.N. Secretary General António Guterres as The Sage, inacknowledgement of his courage, clarity of message and unwavering work on environmental and social justice.
Accepting the award on behalf of the United Nations, Guterres paid direct tribute to the young leaders’ steadfast work saying: ‘Together our efforts are making a difference. We need a quantum leap in action to put an end to the fossil fuel age, and save ourselves, and our planet, from the worst of climate chaos. So, let’s keep fighting, keep speaking the truth, keep creating change, and keep up the pressure. You can count on me. And I am counting on you.”
Founder of the Green Carpet Fashion Awards, Livia Firth said, ‘This incredible night is exactly why the Green Carpet Fashion Awards are different. Fashion and entertainment is our platform but we are in the business of transformation. This is how we move the narrative of the climate crisis, and this is how together we refashion the world. To have our young leaders on the frontline of climate chaos honor the Secretary General of the UN is a really big moment. Tonight, we are modelling the leadership humanity needs.’
A surprise moment saw Amber Valletta challenging guests to eat their jeans as they got served pasta with tomatoes grown using Candiani COREVA denim, the same material was used to create her bespoke plastic-free stretch denim tuxedo dress designed by Triarchy. During the night the guests were served drinks by Champagne Telmont and Flor de Caña Rum.
The 2024 GCFA Young Leader Honorees include: grassroots environmental justice organizer and scholar Alexia Leclercq, Macedonian social entrepreneur, innovator, and founder of EnRoute Angela Busheska, Ugandan environmentalist, tourism goodwill ambassador and fashion model Judith Heard, climate justice activist and social entrepreneur Kevin Patel, leading climate activist and Founder of Justice Environment Saad Amer, Afro-Caribbean climate activist and researcher Yurshell Rodríguez, former competitive swimmer, refugee of the Syrian civil war and member of the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team Yusra Mardini and visionary founder of Designers Consociate and champion of sustainable development Zara Odu and poet Rupi Kaur.
