Saving the Earth with Caroline Zimbalist SS25

This is Caroline’s symbiotic future.

Photography by Alexa Jae

Sustainability has found a new face, and it’s Caroline Zimbalist. When entering Zimbalist’s makeshift forest, you’re pulled in through vibrant colors intermingling with tussled tulle. The swirling plaster tops drape over navels, weaving through the tulle to find a home above the sweeping ground. The effervescent colors are reminiscent of the unusual beauty of nature. Don’t think of trees or prancing leaves but beneath the dirt. Envision glimmering fossils or futuristic forest floor finds.  The flexible garments make abstract shapes, peeking pieces of the body’s silhouette. Each model saunters through corridors, climbing upstairs and around guests as if merely an extension of the other art decorating the venue. This is Caroline’s symbiotic future. 

Hailing from Parsons School of Design, Zimbalist was tired of buying the fabric rolls in the garment district. There wasn’t excitement but a redundancy of materials. She had heard of biomaterial recipes from another sustainable designer and decided to try her hand at at least 30. Through experimentation of trial and error, she landed on three that mended her aesthetic vision. She leaned toward seaweed and tapioca starch for a close, rubbery fabric to honor her attraction to texture. 

Photography by Alexa Jae

“I see our effects on nature and its inhabitants and try to imagine man-made replications of what we are losing,” Zimbalist says. “The biomaterial I use is an idea of the marriage between plant components and the plastic that is taking its place.”

The whimsical nature is the feeling of the collection. Long lilac tulle skirts with ruffled gathering catch the ankle, and moon crescent shape halters snatch it together. These are core players in Zimbalist’s Forest story. The avant-garde empowers her and transforms her models into nymphs, working with the movement of the garments. The shape of the bio-material encasing reflects movement as well, as if forever stuck in a moment of breeze. This illusion is seen in her accessories, marked by a table filled with colorful twisted hair pins, earrings, and sunglasses, all with their own personalities. The bio-material transparency adds softness and grace to each piece, making sense with the addition of tulle. Seeing through each garment allows the new wearer to use their body as filler, an unusual but beautiful emersion.