Earth Mother
The model Arizona Muse has fronted campaigns for Chloé, Karl Lagerfeld and Louis Vuitton. Now, as her charity Dirt steps up the global conversation around soil health, she’s become the new face of modern activism.
L’OFFICIEL IBIZA: You were born in Arizona and raised in New Mexico. How did you end up in Ibiza?
ARIZONA MUSE: My husband [the French osteopath Boniface Verney-Carron] and I had been living in London for a long time. I have two children – Nikko is 13 and our daughter Cy is just three – and when the lockdowns began, we all struggled with boredom and concrete walls. We realised that this was a system that wasn’t working. We needed to be in nature. We settled on Ibiza because of the community here. As soon as we arrived, we felt like the island wrapped her arms around us.
LOI: You founded your charity Dirt in 2021. Were you already involved in activism?
AM: My sustainability journey began about seven years ago when I realised that, in spite of being a model for many years, I didn’t know enough about where clothes came from. I just knew they came from factories. It’s like that old saying that kids who don’t spend time in nature think milk grows in bottles. I began to educate myself watching obscure YouTube videos and talking to people and reading books. I realised that at the end of each thread, the story kept coming back to soil. I became passionate about regenerative agriculture and started to learn about the impossible situation that farmers find themselves in, where they work all year but only get paid for the crops they produce. And crops don’t just mean food – cotton is a crop. Flax is a crop. We don’t thank farmers for growing our clothes! So, I started Dirt in order to support farmers in the shift that the agricultural system needs to see towards regenerative practices and ensuring good soil health for the future.
LOI: Fashion has been slow to catch on to regenerative agriculture. Why is it such an important conversation to have?
AM: Because soil is soil. Soil doesn’t differentiate between what you’re growing. And if you’re spraying pesticides and synthetic fertilisers on a crop then the micro-life within the soil is degrading. Once it degrades it won’t be able to absorb water. It won’t be able to nourish roots. It will no longer be able to support life above the soil. It will simply become dead. And that is what we’re seeing now, everywhere in the world, including in Ibiza. There’s a much-need global conversation about this going on right now, but the fashion industry is never included. Look at the UN agricultural summit: it’s called the UN Food Systems Summit, right? I mean, what do you do if you’re a cotton farmer? You’re not invited? That is the biggest global summit on agriculture, and it doesn’t include those who grow hemp and flax and cotton or produce silk and wool and leather? That makes no sense to me. Alongside carbon sequestration, healthy, living soil offers so many other climate solutions – such as water absorption and retention, fire reduction, increase in biodiversity, termination of the use of toxic fertilisers and other polluting agricultural chemicals, to name a few.
LOI: As a mother, do you feel a responsibility to be bringing these kinds of conversations to the table to safeguard your children’s future?
AM: Yes, but also to ensure my own future. We do not have the luxury of time. In seven years, things are going to be very different for people like me and you who are privileged and who don’t feel climate change yet. We need to be honest about that. I don’t feel it yet. I’m able to live in a place where I’m not touched by climate change. Where I’m not experiencing major flooding or rising sea levels. Where I have access to food and fresh water. But there are millions upon millions of people who are already climate migrants. And this is the part that is absolutely devastating. People like me have a responsibility to educate ourselves. Climate poverty is real, and we share this planet with much more vulnerable people than ourselves. There are people suffering from famine and drought and extreme temperature rises, and it is because of our culture and our actions, not their own. These are the people who have been exploited in order to build up Western culture and they are now the ones who are suffering, because our actions have destroyed ecosystems. Climate justice needs to be addressed. That’s why I’m so passionate about this field. Because I’m surrounded by incredible, intelligent humans who are working together to create real solutions to the global issues. That’s a positive environment to be in.
