British designer Vivienne Westwood has recently been backing an online petition against "ecocide". The petition calls for a European law that may hold businesses and individuals responsible for environmental destruction, declaring the latter a crime.
In recent years the fashion industry has played a major role in environmental destruction, overproducing garments, manufacturing them with toxic chemicals and carelessly disposing of the wastes, and, last but not least, exploiting workers. The Rana Plaza factory building collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, last April, a disaster in which over 1,000 people died; the fire that killed seven people in a Chinese owned clothing factory in Prato, Italy, last December and, more recently, the textile workers killed in Cambodia when police opened fire while they were striking and calling for the government to double the minimum wage, are all tangible proof that such exploitation can't be tolerated anymore.
Yet there are solutions and there are also young designers and brands introducing a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable fashion system. Sass Brown, Assistant Dean of the School of Art and Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, showcases in the volume Refashioned: Cutting-Edge Clothing From Upcycled Materials (Laurence King Publishing), 46 designers and labels working in ethical ways.
The book is divided in two parts, exploring the work of designers reincorporating in their works reclaimed materials and of creatives who mainly employ materials from unusable and unsaleable stocks.
The list of recycled, upcycled and reused materials is extremely long and goes from book covers and recycled carded wool to paper, parachutes, vintage fabrics and leftovers from the Haute Couture industry; from recycled denims and flour sacks to socks, random objects found at flea markets, soft-drink can ring pulls, ribbons and industrial plastic waste.
There are designers who follow a more technical approach in creating their garments; others assemble instead bits and pieces in a Doctor Frankenstein-like modus operandi that leads them to unexpected results; others apply traditional techniques to recycled materials.
The pieces included in the book go from the commercial to the conceptual or arty: bicycle tyre inner tubes take a new life transformed into accessories and jewelry; scraps of tweed, knitwear and jersey are combined and remixed together; military knits, tents and ship sails are turned into sturdy bags. The most original products and garments remain the ones made employing very unusual materials that verge between the odd and the repulsive, such as human hair and cow nipples.
The volume doesn't only introduce restyled and redesigned collections, but highlights the processes that go behind renewing and reviving old materials, proving how research is leading some young brands and labels to the discovery of new environmental solutions for the fashion industry that extend the life of materials and reintroduce them into the production cycle. Emphasis is also put on minimal environmental impact, and a local and transparent production cycle.
Brown highlights that eco-fashion is still misunderstood, but the amateurish approach to producing garments with recycled textiles has almost gone (it must also be noted that this volume is not a recipe for make do and mend, but it's more about showcasing the eco projects of a group of designers) in favour of research for an eco-wear aesthetic characterised by interesting fabric, colour and textural combinations.
The fashion system has generated a state of over-saturation and the hidden costs of fashion have also destroyed art, design and creativity. Re-evaluating waste from undervalued materials could be a way to give a new life to the fashion industry, and also inject into it a much needed dose of creativity.
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