Last week two of TED’s PhD students (Jen Ballie and Matilda Aspinall) attended the Ethical Fashion Forum’s SOURCE EXPO 2010.
The SOURCE EXPO aimed to promote sustainable fashion practices and facilitate sustainable sourcing amongst fashion professionals. The exhibition showcased a selection of work from suppliers and manufacturers from all over the world, working to promote fair trade and ethical standards, linking them with hundreds of designers, retailers and brands.
A series of seminars were also scheduled throughout the day, and we attended the ‘Innovation’ seminar to learn about the latest inspirational products and processes in the sourcing sector. This was chaired by Emily Pearce, EFF’s Ethical Fashion Project Manager, with speakers from Initiate Design, Bag it Don’t Bin It and Pants to Poverty. The work of Susanne Lee (Biocouture) and PUMA SAFE - Clever Little Bag was also introduced.
Each speaker introduced their innovativion by explaining their design concept, how their product was made and any additional services. We were impressed at the range of challenging design approaches adopted by each speaker. The subjects discussed explored local production and cottage industries, cradle to cradle design through closed loop methodologies and crowdfunding.
The session explored how design could be coupled with innovation to create desirable products that were both useable and engaging. The end user played a central focus through each strategy and they tried to engage users by encouraging participation, supporting well-being and promoting social values.
This event has scaled up since last year and attracted a massive audience. It was exciting to see designer’s working in new ways to scale up sustainable design.
