Hong Kong-based fashion non-profit Redress launched a sustainable fashion design competition to inspire emerging designers from East to West to reduce waste in the fashion industry.

As you may have heard, fashion is one of the world’s most polluting and resource-intense industries, and our accelerating consumption and taste for fast fashion are contributing to environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources and human rights abuses. Integrating sustainability thinking into massive global supply chains often presents significant challenges to fashion brands, but that does not mean it can’t be done.

Reconstruction, by EcoChic Design Award 2012 China finalist Chen Qin Zi. Photo by Mathieu Lunard

Designers are the main influences when it comes to sustainability thinking and are thought to influence about 80-90 percent of the environmental and economic impact of a product through the choices they make in design sourcing and manufacturing.

The EcoChic Design Award is a sustainable fashion design competition with a mission to educate and enable emerging designers to create mainstream clothing with minimal textile waste. In its fourth year, The EcoChic Design Award 2013 is expanding its search for creative design talent to Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, UK, France, Belgium and Germany.

The competition is open to designers and students with less than three years of industry experience. For many of these emerging designers, particularly in China, this is their first introduction to sustainable fashion design. They are challenged to utilize zero-waste, up-cycling and reconstruction techniques to create their collections. Following nine months of education, design and judging, eight finalists will be chosen by a panel of acclaimed judges to present their sustainable collections at Hong Kong Fashion Week in January 2014, for a chance to win “career-changing prizes that will further ignite positive change in the industry.”

“Sustainability in the fashion industry is an over-discussed but under-actioned issue,” says Christina Dean, CEO and Founder of Redress, the fashion NGO organizing the awards. “Not enough focus is being put on reducing waste. We must crack the industry’s problem of excessive waste production and lost economic value. The EcoChic Design Award 2013 fires-up emerging fashion designers from East to West to make tomorrow’s mass market and independent fashion industries sustainable from the source.”

The winner of the EcoChic Design Award will get to design a recycled textile clothing collection for global retailer Esprit. “The collaboration with Redress allows us to bring talented emerging designers with new innovative sustainable ideas to the forefront of the fashion industry by bringing their works to life,” says Charles Dickinson, Head of Global Quality Management and Sustainability, Esprit.

The EcoChic Design Award Hong Kong 2012 Winner Wister Tsang

Kuan Teo, Winnie Cheng, Christina Dean, Sandy Lam, Margaret Kutt, Johanna Ho and Charming Ho at The EcoChic Design Award 2013 launch in Hong Kong. Photo by Colin

Zero-waste design on the runway by EcoChic Design Award Hong Kong 2011 Winner Janko Lam

Second prize is an educational trip to learn how jewelry designer John Hardy integrates environmental and social sustainability into the core of design, production and business philosophies. A Special Prize winner will get to design a sustainable outfit for artist Sandy Lam to wear on the cover of a fashion magazine to “redress” consumers’ attitudes towards sustainable fashion. All semi-finalists and finalists receive a career-boosting educational package, including a combination of mentorships, promotional opportunities and a selection of sustainable fashion books and journals. Entries are open now until August 15, 2013.

Images courtesy of Redress

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To highlight the positive style and environmental potentials of reusing, Christina Dean, Founder of Redress, swore to wear nothing but discarded clothes for an entire year.

Over the past ten years, our consumption of fashion has increased by about 60 percent. This has resulted in increased environmental pollution and landfills full of textile waste that could easily have been reused or recycled. In the UK, more than 1000 tons of clothes are dumped in landfills every day. Seems like a waste (pun intended), no?

The environmental impact of landfilled clothes is detrimental, since not all clothes are biodegradable. This adds pressure to landfills and results in the emission of a climate-change-inducing cocktail of chemicals. Photo by Luke Casey

The 365 Challenge, which began on January 1st of this year, was designed by sustainable fashion NGO Redress to promote its ‘Redress it, don’t bin it’ concept. Founder Christina Dean is now five months into the challenge, and has chronicled her entire journey on Instagram.

The outfits were put together with 100 percent dumped, discarded or donated secondhand clothes, sourced with support from Friends of the Earth (HK). All were styled in collaboration with leading fashion personalities, who each got a month to rummage around used clothing bins with Dean.

Day 1. January 1, 2013 – styled by TaniaReinert of A Boy Named Sue

Day 4. January 4, 2013 – styled by TaniaReinert of A Boy Named Sue

Day 28. January 28, 2013 – styled by TaniaReinert of A Boy Named Sue

“I’m shocked at what we’ve salvaged from the clothing bins so far,” says Dean. “From bags to bras, we’ve found that the public are chucking out amazing branded, quality clothes, some still with their price tags on. With our fashion stylists’ creativity, we’re turning other people’s trash, from swimming costumes to ski-gear, into my stylish wearable wardrobe. With today’s fashion production and consumption spiraling out of control, we must educate and inspire the public to rethink the way we consume, wear and discard our valuable clothes.”

Day 51. February 20, 2013 – styled by Julie Shah

Day 57. February 26, 2013 – quality stitched and lined Armani trousers with Valentino linen jacket, styled by Julie Shah

Day 66. March 7, 2013 – Dean in black skirt swapped with Shanghai fashion designer Helen Lee

Day 71. March 12, 2013 – outfit with swapped tee, styled by Anupreet Bhui

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ay 82. March 23, 2013 – trousers swapped with Lucy Shea of Swishing, styled by Anupreet Bhui

Day 88. March 29, 2013 – styled by Anupreet Bhui

Tania Reinert, co-founder of online eco-boutique A Boy Named Sue, kicked off the year with January’s ‘Finding Your Wardrobe Essentials’ subject. February explored durability, styled by Redress’ Creative Director Julie Shah. In March, Anupreet Bhui focused on the idea of clothes swapping, enlisting help from people like Lucy Shea of Swishing. For April, DIY queen Geneva Vanderzeil, author of the blog a pair and a spare and the recently released book DIY Fashionista, took over with a (you guessed it) DIY theme.

Day 99. April 9, 2013 – DIY remade jacket, styled by Geneva Vanderzeil

Day 104. April 14, 2013 –  DIY remade blouse, styled by Geneva Vanderzeil of a pair and a spare

Day 113. April 23, 2013 –  blazer remade into vest, styled by Geneva Vanderzeil

Day 124. May 4, 2013 – “floral chic” for a sunny day in Brussels, styled by Elle.com.hk

Day 135. May 15, 2013 – monotone outfit set against secondhand jean mosaic wall at Taipei’s Amba hotel

Redress wants people to join the campaign by sharing pictures of themselves wearing restyled, reconstructed, repaired or recycled clothing on Instagram, and tagging them with @GetRedressed and #the365challenge.

The post The 365 Challenge: A Year of Stylish Reused Clothing appeared first on EcoSalon.