Paolo Carzana – storyteller – is at home amongst the British Library’s studious Reading Room; it’s warm, dimmed lighting, and vast archive of rare books.

Notes on The Sixth Extinction / Mother Earth as the Genius and Humanity as the Monster – a title as poetic as it is visceral. Behind the scenes, Carzana spoke of creating as an anecdote to the atrocities happening in the world, as a way of reconnecting to emotion, to art, and to nature. And it’s from nature that Carzana took his greatest influence, using exclusively natural textiles and dyes to create clothing that feels intensely alive. “My initial obsession when beginning this collection came about from thinking about the idea of ‘Supernatural’,” said Carzana in the press notes. “Not something far away,” he continued, “but something on our earth. The beauty of this planet, in our ocean, land, plants, animals, creatures, species shows the existence of beauty far beyond our own imagination.”

From the earth, the collection was born. Abstract, artisan textiles inspired by endangered and extinct animals were sculpted around feathers made from cotton rag paper and exquisite silk and chiffon headwear crafted by Nasir Mazhar and made to resemble aquatic silhouettes. Everything was dyed using organic forms, including turmeric, onion, vinegar, cream of tartar, pomegranate, seaweed and lemon juice, imbuing each fabric with its own unique tonality. Carzana, currently in residence at the Paul Smith Foundation, developed these techniques using Smith’s facilities – the designer himself sitting front row in support.

Layered muslin, bamboo silk, peace silk chiffon, and cotton netting were crafted into second-skin sculptures that twisted and turned across the body like coral formations. Early looks were bleached out, almost ghostlike – echoing global coral bleaching – but as the show unfolded, colour returned in electric, mystical tones, suggesting a dreamlike reversal of damage that places planet before people. A “journey back from the ongoing sixth extinction,” as the show notes read.