Redrafting the pattern: Fashion4Land traces sustainability back to healthy land

Cashmere can look weightless on a runway. Whether its footprint is equally light depends on the health of the rangelands that produce it. 

In Mongolia, around 190,000 herder households and 27 million goats are behind the fabled fiber that accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world’s raw cashmere. Its quality begins long before spinning or knitting, on vast rangelands that sustain animals and livelihoods but are also under growing pressure.  

Rangelands cover 54 per cent of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, and in Mongolia they make up more than 70 per cent of the country’s territory. Yet 81 per cent of Mongolia’s land is affected by degradation.  

This made Ulaanbaatar a fitting location for a new edition of Fashion4Land, which returned to UNCCD COP17 after its debut in Riyadh in 2024. What would it take to change the way clothes are designed, sourced, worn and regulated while retaining the talent, ingenuity and beauty that make people care about fashion in the first place? The forum brought together designers and manufacturers, global luxury brands and Mongolian producers, pastoralist advocates and policymakers around a simple premise: fashion begins on land. 

When discussing sustainable fashion, UNCCD Goodwill Ambassador Inna Modja sees an opportunity rather than a constraint. “Fashion has a unique ability to inspire, connect people and translate complex sustainability challenges into stories that everyone can understand,” she said. One such story is already famous. For Team Mongolia’s Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic wardrobe, GOYOL Cashmere’s Creative Director Munkhbayasgalan “Baysa” Delgerbat revisited clothing worn during the Mongol Empire, retaining details shaped by life on the steppe: a raised collar against the wind, an overlapping front for warmth and side slits designed for movement. 

“People don’t fall in love with a product because it is sustainable,” Baysa says. “People fall in love with story, with beauty, with craftsmanship.” A garment carrying cultural and material value, she argued, is more likely to be cared for, kept and eventually passed on. 

For Nan Hu of Nan Knits, the color of the fiber itself offers an exciting design opportunity. The brand leans toward the subtle shades of yak fiber — soft browns, dusky grays and creamy whites that become an irresistible palette rather than something to overwhelm with dye. For a designer known for experimental contemporary knitwear, the appeal lies in taking a well-known material somewhere unexpected. Sustainability, he argues, need not limit creativity – it can jump-start it. 

At LVMH, the raw material can mean something the industry has already made but was unable to sell. Alexandre Capelli described how designer Kevin Germanier gathers unsold products from the group’s boutiques, dismantles them and turns the material into new designs in which the initial object might be impossible to recognize. Other experiments with young designers involve regenerative flax, food-industry waste, discarded hotel linens and innovative materials for dyeing. The idea is not to make sustainability visible as an aesthetic. It is to make it part of how design happens. 

UNCCD Goodwill Ambassador Ricky Kej took that logic a step further. His #ReWear4Earth campaign began with a minor red-carpet heresy: wearing the same clothes to a next high-visibility event. Speaking at the COP17 Fashion4Land event, he challenged the disposable expectations encouraged by fast fashion and social media. 

“The Earth will not remember what we wore to our last party, but it will certainly remember how we treated it,” Kej said. “We do not need a different outfit for each Instagram photo.” 

But does a beautifully made garment worn for decades necessarily mean it is land-positive? Fashion4Land resists the convenient idea that “natural” automatically means sustainable. Cotton can place enormous demands on land and water. Wool and cashmere can contribute to overgrazing when production is poorly managed. Synthetic fibers depend heavily on fossil fuels and can shed microplastics. The question is: what is the impact of wearable beauty on the planet’s finite resources? 

For Battsetseg Batmunkh, Mongolia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP17 President, that question reflects directly on livelihoods. New environmental requirements, she argued, should help producers improve rather than price herders and smaller businesses out of sustainable supply chains. 

“The future of sustainable fashion should be measured not only by the value of its products but also by how effectively it protects the land, ecosystem and communities upon which production depends,” she said. 

However, the more than 400 standards and certifications across textiles and fashion do not in themselves ensure that the industry’s environmental impacts are addressed. Mongolian producer Gantakhi Gantsetseg warned that repeated audits and certification fees can consume money without a cent reaching the rangelands they are intended to protect. The challenge is not weaker standards but smarter ones — compatible systems that reward measurable improvement in practice. 

UNCCD Executive Secretary Yasmine Fouad pointed to Mongolia’s ability to bring tradition into a modern industry while remaining “grounded at the land.” Fashion4Land’s next chapter, she said, should bring greater policy coherence, stronger partnerships and greater responsibility for “the people and the land together.” 

That evening, the COP17 Action Dome — a larger-than-life Mongolian ger — transformed into a runway. Each brand brought its own signature style  to the catwalk: NOLUR spoke the language of quiet luxury in Mongolian cashmere; OYUNA wove nomadic heritage into contemporary design; Nan Knits took knitwear into new experimental territories; BODIOS brought the warmth, softness and comfort of Mongolian yak to the runway; TANGOLA traced yak fiber from high-altitude grasslands to the final stitch; GOYOL showcased the craftsmanship of a family-run Mongolian fashion house; GOBI celebrated cashmere’s natural colors and the traditional art of hand-combing; and Khanbogd turned Mongolian raw cashmere into finished fashion for the world, keeping the craftsmanship at home. 

Next time we are in the market for new clothes, let’s not forget: a stylish garment does not begin at the tailor’s table. Truly sustainable fashion helps keep the land healthy long after the runway season is over – and that is a pattern that never goes out of style. 

Photos : © UNCCD/Kiara Worth