Ethical Fashion Forum

I have finally joined the Ethical Fashion Forum, and can't believe that I haven't got round to becoming a member before now! The free to join social networking site has been set up as a not for profit organisation and focuses on environmental sustainability in the fashion industry.

On the main website there are several informative areas to guide the conscientious follower of sustainable textile and fashion design, through the most recenet topics, events and the complex issues discussed on the Ethical Fashion Forum. This site covers many issues from fast fashion to fair trade, from recycling to real-life stories from the manufacturing process.
The Resource section is particularly useful as reports regarding the different stages of a garment's life from supply to buy have been compiled in easy to download PDF formats.

The Ethical Fashion Forum also conducts several events throughout the year. Places at the workshops and seminars, like the ones being held today on working with cooperatives and sourcing from Asia are limited and are like gold dust, so it's a good idea to register early! I unfortunatley, haven't registered early enough and so will miss the discussion tonight, but Clara has informed me that the EFF events she has attended previously have all been very stimulating, informative and interactive, so definitely worth penciling the next one in the diary now!

The social networking side to the forum site is somewhat new to me. I have joined facebook (so that my sister can send me photos) and I do read blogs on various design-led sites, but I have never really socially networked in an online environment before.....I love it! Already, I love it! There are lots of friendly, proactive members working in areas of fashion design, consumption and retail. Various discussions are set up to allow people with similar interests to interact on a professional yet informal level and lots of people seem keen to collaborate, share ideas and develop their projects with a little help from their forum. It is also a great place to integrate student desingers with professionals in the field, which is a hugely important initiative if you ask us at TED.

Image credit: Ruffle skirt £40 by Round London

Fashioning an Ethical Industry Conference

The Fashioning an Ethical Industry annual conference was hosted at The Rich Mix, London – a fitting venue being that it used to be an old garment factory.

The conference was opened by director Hannah Higginson, who advised that global sourcing was the theme of the day bringing together speakers from all areas of the supply chain.

The audience consisted of fashion, marketing and business students as well as industry experts and designers. You could feel the tension in the audience as these difficult issues were discussed and feel the genuine passion for fairer and more ethical approaches to be applied within the fashion industry.

The speakers talked about the difficulties surrounding production methods, working conditions and global sourcing. There was a representative from ASDA who talked about their plan to be the number one retailer for women’s fashion in the UK by producing quick affordable fashion in an ethical way.

A representative from People Tree talked about their grass roots approach to re-skill workers whom they refer to as artisans. They talked about their application of traditional handcraft and how it can take ten times longer to produce clothing but this is more sustainable as they eloquently referred to our hands being the oldest source of renewable energy.

One of the most inspiring talks of the day was by Dr Kate Fletcher, reader in sustainable fashion and textiles at London College of Fashion. She talked about systems thinking and the complexity of the fashion industry. Kate advised that we should not look for and can not find one complete solution but instead seek out ways to inspire and initiate lots of small changes, as this can collectively inspire big change.

The day closed with delegates being divided into three workshops focusing on design, marketing and business. In teams we were challenged to address an ethical fashion dilemma. I really enjoyed this part of they day as I got to meet new people who were passionate about fashion but committed to finding ethical ways to make, consumer or engage.

Overall this was a great day I left feeling really inspired, more educated about ethical sourcing and I even made some new friends. The day offered a holistic view of the sustainable issues challenging the fashion industry and I think it motivated delegates to find small ways to contribute towards making a difference.

Visit their website for further resources
http://fashioninganethicalindustry.org

Co-Design and On-line Fashion

We recently attended a talk at London College of Fashion exploring the latest developments in co-design within online fashion.

Julia Wolny explained that there are several different models for co-design in this context:

Co-creation of a service: Zafu, is a company who recommend a style/type of jean that suits what a consumer may be looking for.

Co-creation of fashion ‘looks’: My Virtual Model is a service which gives you a 3D model to play around with clothing items. It started as a site to sell clothes from different retailers but has also developed an online community who simply share their favourite existing outfits.

Co-creation of a product: There are several examples of this idea where companies ask consumers to have a say in the colour or ‘cosmetic’ decisions of a product, like the Reebok trainers which you can choose the colour combinations for.

Consumer as designer: Ponoko is a company which makes interior products based on a customer's design. They also sell designer/makers work and helps consumers to manufacture and distribute a product.

Threadless are a successful Tshirt company who allow the consumer to choose/vote on a favourite design for a tshirt. The design with the most votes is put into production.

In the past, fashion brands may have run focus groups with consumers to gauge what they wanted from a product, but the Internet has made it much easier to facilitate a more open-source approach to including consumers in the design, development and manufacture of a product.

However, how realistic are these ideas? Julia Wolny asked the most obvious question: Are consumers creative? Do we really believe that consumers will want/be able to get involved and contribute to the design and manufacturing process of fashion garments?

Will our modern lifestyles, with the lack of time and lack of incentive to 'customise', prevent this format from becoming mainstream?

Time will tell, but if the commercial success of an interactive enterprise like Threadless is anything to go by, fashion consumers are keen to get more involved.

New Digital Technologies for Textiles

TED recently attended a workshop at the Creative Industries Centre at Metropolitan Works in East London, to learn about the latest digital manufacturing technologies that are taking the design world by storm.

The largest laser-cutter in London is here as well as a water-jet cutter (image above) which can cut through steel, metals, glass ceramic. Most exciting was the 3D printing, or 'rapid prototyping' as it is called in the trade. You can 'print' or build objects using a nylon powder which solidifies, and this is mainly used to build prototypes and models. Acting like a 'bureau', all of these machines are available for designers and artists to try at a reasonable rate and you also get advice and help from very the knowledgable technicians.

My mind was racing as I tried to imagine all the possibilities for using this technology for textiles. Philip Delamore is one designer who has been experimenting with rapid prototyping, and he is currently working on a project called Evolving Textiles, exploring apporaches to creating body conforming textiles which combine 3D scanning, design and direct 3D manufacturing using laser sintering. The image shown above is a chain-mail textile which has been built using the rapid protoyping technology.

TED members at the Cutting Edge

TED members Rebecca Earley and Kate Goldsworthy have been included in a new book called Textile Designers at the Cutting Edge by Bradley Quinn which also includes many of TED's favourite designers!

The book examines the changing face of textile design and explores how recent developments within the field of textiles have presented new technical possibilities, with applications in fashion, architecture and interior design, making textile design a uniquely multi-disciplinary field of innovation and research.

Slow Textiles classes

Dr Emma Neuberg, a member of TED, is hosting a series of Slow Textile classes which will showcase her well-known theoretical approach to textile practice by offering participants both a 'how-to' and a theoretical framework to producing beautiful textiles.

The first class is called 'Extended Life Textile Techniques', and focuses on Chinese silk painting and embroidery. Emma will lead you through the the basics of Chinese floral symbols and teach you how to paint on paper and silk, finishing with some embroidery techniques.

Also planned is a Slow Textile Sewing Group, which will meet up regularly to sew and socialise.

I recently attended one of Emma's lectures to Stage 1 students here at Chelsea called Flora & Flight: the semiotiocs of naturalism in textile print and it was a fascinating analysis of the use of floral motifs in textiles and fashion, and the symbolism around abundance, fertility and nature which came out of our pre-industrial lifestyles.

Emma has her own practice involving the reappropriation of plastics into beautiful surfaces and textiles, but she also brings this rich and varied knowledge about design history, psychoanalysis and materials (among other things!). It is such an interesting mix and these textile classes are not something to be missed.

For more information on the classes and to book go to: http://www.slowtextiles.blogspot.com

New PhD student starts

The new Textiles Futures Research Group (TFRG) PhD student Jennifer Ballie has started her research and is based at the TED Project. Jennifer will be exploring the potential for a participatory design model which would allow consumers to upcycle fashion in their own homes thereby adding meaning and value to their wardrobes.

Jennifer will be looking at the ideas around co-design and experience design for inspiration and will also be running workshops with students from the University to explore the ways in which fashion consumers relate to their garments to help inform her research.