They tell us, “Stewart + Brown, Loyale, John Patrick Organic, and Loomstate are household names—well, if you live in our kind of household, that is, where we eat eco-fashion for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—but 2009 also saw the emergence of a growing cadre of up-and-coming green designers. Below, we’ve nominated seven of our favorites, not only for over with their groundbreaking designs, but also for their commitment to sustainability and socially-responsible production.”
Right now, as of the time of writing this article, it’s looking like a close race between Casey Larkin of Mr. Larkin with 178 votes, Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart of Vaute Couture with 140 and Tara Eisenberg & Inessah Selditz of Sublet Clothing with 138 votes.
Check them out and see if you agree, and then vote!
Fashioning the Future brings together a global community of creative thinkers and doers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs ready to offer the fashion industry opportunities for the future.
Founded in 2008, Fashioning the Future has been developed to include a wider range of disciplines, now with five separate awards, celebrating and promoting a generation of emerging talent for the fashion industry of the future.
Fashioning the Future Awards, an international student competition run by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion took place recently. Some of the winning ideas from this year included clothes made from recycled cotton paper, exquisite designs that need less laundering, hand crafted luxurious hemp satin pieces and hand-knitted pieces that are fastened onto basic wardrobe staples to create a completely adjustable wardrobe to cherish.
Each winner demonstrated that being sustainable does not mean compromising on style or quality.
Miriam Rhida won the Design for a Thriving Fashion Industry Award for her hemp satin dress, shown here.
“The material used lends itself perfectly to the brief. The hemp plant is a natural, renewable and eco-friendly resource. Hemp satin was the fabric of choice as it is a lightweight, elegant and fairly fluid fabric that was quite easily frayed to create the desired effect. By using only a 100cm by 150cm fabric piece, slicing it in half and meticulously fraying the fabric at the edges, I created the shape of the front and back of a pattern piece for a simple shift dress. Natural dye extracts were used to colour the fabrics.”
One standout entry was from Tara Baoth Mooney, from Ireland, shown here:
“I seek to address this disconnected state of being by exploring fabric and garments as the interface subconsciously adopted between the inner persona and the world the outer persona inhabits. I illustrate this through various artistic processes that act as both reflective and connective forces between people and the environment they inhabit. The mediums of video and music coupled with the physical garments and moss collars are an invitation for the viewer to ‘look closely’ at their surroundings, look at the effects of everyday living on their surroundings and consider a wholesome and participatory path towards a new manifesto for thoughtful engagement.”
Ecouterre tells us that “while governmental leaders from all around the world met in Copenhagen last week to hash out a new climate-change treaty, the fashion industry convened at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit (the “most important fashion event of the year,” according to organizers) to discuss the role it must take to promote sustainability and social responsibility in a shifting clime, both literally and figuratively.”
Ecouterre’s Yuka Yoneda and Jasmin Malik Chua offered great coverage that we’ll just hint at here. But we urge you to check out their article for the full effect. Here’s just the gist of their “5 Things We Learned About Sustainable Fashion From COP15”.
1. It’s good to be NICE
The Nordic Initiative Clean and Ethical, or NICE, was launched at the Fashion Summit. It brings together the five Nordic countries to help designers and textile companies to align their values with the environment. Or in other words, be NICE.
2. Green can be profitable
Integrating social issues into your business plan not only benefits society, but it can also improve profitability. Social responsibility can even offer a competitive business advantage.
3. Environmentalism is self-preservation
“We’re seeing growing local conflicts between business and consumers about access to water,” said Peder Michael Pruzan-Jørgensen, managing director of BSR Europe, a corporate-responsibility consultancy. “We’re depleting our planet of the resources we need for future consumption: our own and the consumption of our children and our grandchildren,”
4. Luxury can be sustainable
The luxury industry is stepping up its own pro-planet efforts, from PUMA committing to reducing its carbon footprint to Gucci joining forces with the Rainforest Action Network to eliminate paper sourced from Indonesian rainforests. Luxury and sustainability share common values, including the “timelessness of lasting worth,” said Laurent Claquin, senior vice president of corporate social responsibility at PPR Group, which manages such high-end brands as Stella McCartney, Gucci, and Yves St. Laurent. Buyers of luxury goods, he said, expect the best of everything, from design to working conditions.
5. People matter
Ros Harvey, the global programme manager of the Better Work Programme said improving labor standards goes together with improving business performance. “It’s important to remember that is is about people,” she said. “It’s about the millions of people who are working around the world and have hopes for themselves and their families for a better life.”
It’ll take less than 5 minutes to watch video above get a little something from the NICE Fashion Summit Copenhagen Roundtable Discussion. So check it out!
The video above gives you an idea about what it means to have a Cineforum for Ecotopia, but we’ll try to explain here too.
On December 4th in London, a company called Fair Knowledge hosted an event in which a conversation (or a forum) about creating a sustainable future was inspired and informed by some extraordinary documentary films from around the world (AKA cinema, hence the “cine”).
The conversation involved the best thinkers, mavericks, strategists, scientists and pioneers they could find, who then spent the day synthesizing their collective brainpower into a shared strategic vision of the future. The goal was to share this collective vision far and wide; starting by taking the results to the climate conference in Copenhagen, to be shared as a film, Ecotopia.
They also worked to create a strategic map of the next 10-20 years – to detail the specific pathways available, informing decision making by identifying both the opportunity areas and barriers to creating a positive and sustainable future.
The final output of all this would be to bundle up the film and strategic map into a toolbox for strategic planning beyond 2010.
The event was the first of its kind, bringing together over thirty ethical and ecological suppliers from all over the world. It included ethical garment and textile manufacturers, suppliers of organic and fair-trade cotton, representatives of cooperatives and community groups, eco-color dye and printing specialists, suppliers to leading retailers, designers and pioneering brands.
The event was open to designers, retailers and students, to make it easier for them to use ethical materials and production in their next collections.
Traditionally it has been difficult for designers and fashion brands to ensure they have an ethical supply chain, as it has been difficult to find reliable information. This event, following on from the Spotlight on Sourcing Seminars, has the power of change to future of fashion production.
Over 250 people attended the event. As well as young designers and established ethical brands such as “Frank & Faith”, “Ascension” and “Luflux”, the high street was present. There were representatives from a range of big retailers including representatives from Marks & Spencer, Topshop, and Ted Baker.
The Global Sourcing Marketplace was run in partnership with some of the most established global networks of suppliers and experts in the ethical, eco and fair-trade fashion fields, including the Fairtrade Foundation, the World Fair Trade Organisation, Made By and the Textiles Environment Design project at Chelsea College.
As part of the event, we showcased how sustainable fabrics can become high fashion with an exclusive view of the iconic pieces designed for the RE:Fashion Awards.
The designers including Vivienne Westwood (seen in the video above) and Zandra Rhodes worked with fabrics and components sourced from African manufactures and community groups. Alongside this designers worked with recycled and reclaimed materials to create the exclusive designs which were shown on the catwalk.
The pieces were shown exclusively for the first time since they were modelled by Daisy Lowe, Pixie Geldof, Leah Wood and Leah Weller on the night.
“The Global Sourcing Marketplace brought together an impressive combination of sustainable enterprises working along the design supply chain. The marketplace provided many insights, tools and leads to move our business forward. That, combined with the inspirational stories of everyone in attendance, made it a really wonderful and fruitful two days.” Benita Singh, S4Style, Visitor.
Treehugger’s Warren McLaren reported on 3.8 million more reasons to love the clothing company known as Patagonia: “In the past fiscal year Patagonia gave away $3,816,750 in grants and in-kind donations. That makes $34 million USD they’ve put back into the environmentally and socially responsible community since 1985.”
He also reminded us that Patagonia is still a privately held company whose owners aren’t pocketing those millions. Instead, this past year almost 400 environmental groups were beneficiaries of this generous largess.
Their downloadable PDF document, “Patagonia Environmental Initiatives 2009,” gives you insight into this company’s many other green endeavors. Like how the 80% of their Fall 2009 clothing line can now be recycled through their Common Threads program. How they’ve trained 953 activists, at their Tools for Grassroots Activists Conferences. (These are not casual affairs — the 2008 conference cost Patagonia almost $100,000 to run.) And how 750 employees have been paid, since 1992, to donate their energy, skills and enthusiasm as part of Patagonia’s environmental internship program to help Patagonia fulfill its mission to “use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
So next time you complain about the price of a Patagonia product, consider the broader positive result your purchase will have. As the company themselves see it; “Patagonia is a small, but relatively influential company. We know that if we don’t reach beyond our own walls to implement our environmental work, the impact won’t be felt.”
Watch the video above to learn how Patagonia is taking the idea of giving back even further—perhaps towards Utopia. It’ll blow…and grow…your mind!
During the discussion portion of the Symposium’s program, questions were directed to the panel of industry leaders. Following are the key topics of discussion and an overview of the answers given. At one point, there was even a heated debate!
Is sustainable/ethical sourcing satisfying or creating consumer demand?
Both have a part to play. Consumers now are very savvy and have high expectations in ethical trading. It’s grown since the hippy era of the 1970’s to the 1990’s when Fair Trade was born. Awareness is getting better too–now 80% of people recognize the Fair Trade mark and everyone is doing the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
However the consumer’s level of investment is not quite there yet to make it the norm. Consumer demand is increasing but is not being satisfied and everyone needs to work together in order to make ethical fashion the norm in the mainstream market.
How much international interest is there in ethical sourcing and how should we market products within the industry?
Ethical products seem to carry old values–-vintage, home-made. But budget is important and can limit the amount of interest. Smaller companies miss out due to the ‘tyranny of the bigger brands’. However there needs to be a paradigm shift, where it is not seen as a niche market otherwise it will never change the mainstream.
Consumers want value but many don’t understand the importance of ethical design. With great design comes popularity and heightened awareness.
How relevant is the sustainability of a product to fashion reporting?
The tough economy is making things difficult. Consumer prices must reflect the trade prices. Wal-Mart has introduced a ‘Sustainability Index’ but products don’t seem to live up to their claims –- there is lots of work needs to be done to put a positive spin on these stories.
What are the necessary definitions for ethically sourced products and how do you enforce standards?
There needs to be a code of practice –- transparency, the washing process, minimum wage –- and not giving business to those who don’t meet the standards. Laws and rules need to be enforced, but the task is daunting. Definitions that everyone understands are important, and certification keeps us in a framework and gives accountability.
How much does the ethical/sustainable message need to be incorporated into fashion education?
It needs to be brought in effectively. Masters students don’t seem to be interested as they are only interested in their own trajectory rather than ethics and the ramifications of the process. Coercion has the opposite effect, so it needs to be taught from the very start of the school education.
There is a complex debate between eco and ethical – the first is easier to address and get involved in whereas ethical is complex and gives little direct contact which means it has to be part of life as well as education. Social values and educating the educators would mean complete local understanding.
In a speech by the Ethical Fashion Symposium’s Chairperson, Colin McDowell, he explained that the general feeling is that “someone” should be doing something about ethical fashion. But that someone can be and needs to be us. Everyone should be doing their bit to make a better fashion industry and world.
The Keynote Speech from John Thackara, one of the great international voices on sustainability, had a lot of great points. He said that Sri Lanka should take a leadership role to inspire the rest of the world about the benefits of an ethical garment industry.
The following is borrowed from his Doors of Perception blog, in which he shared a speech he made elsewhere, but there are overlapping points, which are as follows:
Peak energy. Peak credit. Peak climate change. Each of these challenges is daunting on its own.
Taken together, they mean that business- as-usual is over - for good. The old ways will not return.
Yes, there are “green shoots” - but they are not the same old plants.
They are the first sign that new economic and social life forms are emerging.
I believe that we have arrived at what complexity researchers call an “inflection point”. After forty years of talk and prevarication, we have arrived at a moment of profound transformation in the economy.
I believe our instinct for survival is taking hold.
I say survival, because the old economy - the economy in which Gross Domestic Product is the only measure of success – has become, in the words of the True Cost campaign, a doomsday machine”.
The traditional economy can only survive if it keeps growing, to infinity; and yet it wants to grow to infinity in a biosphere whose carrying capacity is finite.
That’s what makes the old economy a doomsday machine. Running after GDP, we ensure the destruction of the biosphere for economic reasons.
It’s madness.
The economist Lord [Nicholas] Stern was talking at the People’s University of Beijing last week.
Stern, an insider’s insider, a key architect of the global status quo, stated the unthinkable: “we have to question whether we can afford future growth”.
Can’t afford to grow! What an extraordinary thing for a former World Bank chairman to say!
But what choice did he have? Do we all have? The basic operating system of the economy is broken.
The good news is that a replacement economy – a green economy – is now emerging.
With climate change and global warming presenting such challenges, Thackara said that now is the time to be planting new seeds and changing the social and business arrangements.
And it’s already happening — people are doing more in order to live sustainable lives themselves, waking up to climate change, carbon footprints, and sustainable lifestyles.
It’s not about numbers anymore – it’s about value.
He praised MAS for being 50% of the way there on the road toward the ideal ethical and sustainable garment industry.
What needs to happen now is a new mindset and ethical boundaries, not legislation, but unconditional respect for life as the gold standard. Sri Lanka has that – because there is little boundary between man and nature. This is the mindset will redefine ethical growth economics.
The Ethical Fashion Symposium was held in Colombo on November 29th as part of the Sri Lankan Design Festival, which began November 27th and runs through December 5th. Held at the Mount Lavinia Hotel’s Empire Ballroom and organized by Sri Lanka Apparel, authorities on the topic of sustainable fashion from the international arena gathered to share their thoughts on concepts such as a buyer’s code and how expertise might be shared internationally, ideas which promise to radically enhance the industry as a whole.
Our Ethical Fashion Symposium Chair was Colin McDowell, who has worked in the fashion industry in a number of capacities for thirty years. The author of 16 books on fashion and related subjects, he has written on style and design for newspapers and magazines around the world, is the senior fashion writer for the Sunday Times Style, is the founder and creative director of Fashion Fringe, and is also Creative Editor at Large for Net-A-Porter.com.
The Keynote Speech was delivered by John Thackara, an international voice on sustainability and founder and director of The Doors of Perception–an event production company that organizes festivals that allow grassroots innovators to work with designers, creating possible sustainable futures and finding practical steps to realize them. The video above is a presentation he made at the Lift conference in France on “The role of Design in a Sustainable Future”.
Other delegates included were Dilys Williams, Elizabeth Lasker and Claire Hamer.
Dilys Williams is a fashion designer, innovator and director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion. She’s been instrumental in the development of a curriculum with respect to sustainability at London College of Fashion. Having designed for both luxury and high street brands, including ten years designing collections with Katharine Hamnett, she prefers using organically produced materials and works to promote awareness of issues surrounding ethical and environmental design and production methods.
Elizabeth Lasker is founder and director of the Ethical Fashion Forum and one of the few ethical fashion image & lifestyle consultants in the UK. Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF) provides support, training, access to information and tools for designers and businesses in the fashion industry, to allow them to bring social and environmental responsibility into their day-to- day practices. In doing so, EFF aims to reduce poverty, create sustainable livelihoods for garment workers and reduce the impact of the industry on the environment.
Claire Hamer is a Sustainable Sourcing specialist with years of retail buying experience with the UK’s leading fashion retailers. During her time at TOPSHOP she became passionate about the importance of the role of sustainability within supply chains and instigated and developed a number of ethical fashion initiatives concessions in London’s flagship Top Shop store.
Sri Lanka’s fashion manufacturing industry is at the forefront of ethical manufacturing, where the already strong ethical policy has expanded to include an significant investment in green production as well. We call it Garments Without Guilt!
Green fashion and lifestyle were the topics at the Green Blogger Convention in Los Angeles on November 6, 2009. The video above from EcoDivas TV.com gives a great overview of both the discussion panel and the fashion portions of the program.
Hosted by EcoStiletto.com and presented by Green Works Natural Cleaning Products. As they tell it on EcoStilletto:
“First, we sipped organic Cafe de Olla and nibbled piping hot churros from the Border Grill Truck, marveled at hairspray-free up-dos that really stayed put from Steam Salon, grabbed a DBP-, formaldehyde- and toulene-free manicure from Sheswai Lacquer and enjoyed chemical-free mini-makeovers from Terra Firma Cosmetics. For the thirsty, water was provided by NIKA, which donates all proceeds to communities in third-world countries that have none; organic floral designs were by Wisteria Lane, and sparkles without chemicals by Greener Cleaner LA.”
The panel discussion included authors and bloggers like:
• Kim Barnouin, co-author of New York Times Bestseller Skinny Bitch and founder of HealthyBitchDaily.com;
• Starre Vartan, environmental journalist, editor and publisher of Eco-Chick.com and author of the site’s companion book, “The Eco Chick Guide to Life: How to Be Fabulously Green,” who also writes for the Huffington Post, The Daily Green and Greenopia
• Jen Boulden, co-founder of IdealBite.com.
• Jane Buckingham, trend forecaster and president of Trendera.com, founder of CAA’s The Intelligence Group, author and host of “The Modern Girl’s Guide to Life” books and series on the Style Network.
• “Green LA Girl” Siel Ju, contributing editor to BlogHer.com, blogger for MNN.com and Lime.com, and former editor of the Los Angeles Times’ environmental blog, Emerald City.
• Lauren Selman, founder & producer of Reel Green Media & “Sustainable Sirens;” associate producer of “EcoDivas” TV.
And the models were finalists from Project Green Search—the beauty contest where no previous modeling experience or agency representation is required, but candidates must be dedicated to professionalism, environmental awareness and social responsibility. Later in the week they announced their winner, Rachel Avalon, an expert in green living, detoxification and holistic nutrition.
Advertisers know that women make more than 80 percent of the buying decisions in all homes. And if you look at the number of strong, powerful, entrepreneurial women mentioned above, the future seems to be looking pretty green! �
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