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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This is part two in our series on the Sharing Economy and how it can save money, time, and help you become more connected to your community. Part One explained how sharing services can help you save money. Today’s installment highlights some of the ways collaborative consumption can reduce waste and our impact on the planet.

We’re imprisoned in an ever growing mountain of our own waste. Streets are littered with the cast off shells of purchases we couldn’t live without. Massive houses suck up huge amounts of energy so that we can each have our own flat screen television, and enjoy 80 degree indoor temps in the middle of winter. We “need” a car for each member of the family, even though research shows that the average personal vehicle sits idle 22 hours a day. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a Texas-sized island of floating plastic debris, poisons the sea and kills marine life.

We’ve consumed our way into billions of dollars of debt, and buying more stuff, even very green stuff, isn’t the way out. Collaborative consumption allows us access to the things we need and want without assuming the burden (or carbon footprint) of ownership. When resources are shared, the total number of new things that must be produced goes down, taking related pollution and eventually landfill-bound waste, with it. Here are some more ways the sharing economy can help you achieve a zero-waste lifestyle.

1. Reduce

According to the EPA, the average passenger vehicle emits around 5.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Living without a car would be ideal, but it’s not a reality for those of us with big families or who live in sprawling suburbia. Car sharing, membership-based services that allow you rent a fleet car or your neighbor’s ride, can be a painless compromise. Studies have shown that car sharing reduces the number of cars on the road as well greenhouse gas emissions, all without forcing people into a car-free lifestyle. But if you are trying to go carless, bike sharing can ease the transition. The most popular urban bike sharing programs place bike stations at convenient locations, like outside train stations or shopping areas. This makes it easy to make short trips without hailing a cab or losing your parking spot.

2. Reuse

Few of us can commit to making our own…everything, but thanks to collaborative consumption we can gain access to the things we need without driving to a big box store to buy overpriced, over-packaged things made in China. Before assuming that you need to buy, why not check in to see if your community has what you’re looking for? There are literally hundreds of services that make it peer-to-peer rental, barter, and consignment as easy as checking your email. By swapping, you extended the lifecycle of each shared item, which means things are in use much longer before they head to the landfill.

3. Repurpose

Although it’s easy to share tangible things, like clothes, electronics, cars, but don’t think for a minute they’re the only things we can share. We can also share time, space, and perhaps most importantly, skills. Time shares are a great way to turn free time into a valuable currency that can be used to stimulate the local economy. Hacker and maker spaces are collectives for those who would rather produce than consume. Members share knowledge of beer making or woodworking or solar panel construction as well as the space and tools required to realize their projects. There are even repair cafes dedicated specifically to teaching people how to repair broken items so that they don’t get trashed just because they’re a little worn.

Image: Robert S. Donovan

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Using patented no-waste technology, knitwear brand Kotoba makes pieces that are as conscious as they are covetable.

At New York Fashion Week, knitwear seemed to make an appearance in some form on just about every runway. On Thursday, collective knitwear brand Kotoba celebrated the launch of their Spring/Summer 2013 collection with a fun, low-key presentation at The Maritime Hotel in the Meatpacking District.

Kotoba is the Japanese word for language and the collection, designed by Melinda Danko and Lindsay Mann, featured timeless pieces in simple, versatile silhouettes enhanced by unexpected structural details and textures. Basics in black, taupe and ivory were complemented by pieces in bright and playful colors, particularly orange and mint green, two of the most on trend hues this fall and going into spring.

“We were inspired by multiple things, but it all came down to leisure activity,” says Melinda Danko. “We thought about the one thing that people forget to do, which is how to enjoy themselves – how to have fun doing sport activities, going to the beach, taking care of environment – things that are important in life.” This playful spirit was evident in the presentation, as the models were given props like footballs, skateboards and baseball bats.

“Lindsay and I developed the collection very organically,” says Danko. “We just burst out ideas and silhouettes and with the yarns we have it just came together. We started with one design and it all just fell into place after that”

All the pieces in the collection are produced using WHOLEGARMENT technology, a patented production technique derived from Shima Seiki, a Japanese knitwear machine manufacturer that has been around for fifty years, but has more recently, in the past five years, developed knitting machines for making clothing. It’s an innovative way of producing knitwear that is lightweight and stretchy and made virtually without any waste.

“We wanted to bring back crafts and trade and the sustainability aspect to the U.S. domestic market,” says Danko. “Everything we make is seamless, there’s no waste in the production, and the entire collection (except the yarns, which are from Italy) is made in America”

Kotoba’s spring collection is everything I love about sustainable fashion – it’s locally and ethically produced (in NYC’s Garment District), using innovative technology, but it’s also fun, sexy, wearable and timeless.

Danko says: “We make qaulity garments that, yes, you are going to spend more money on. But the lifetime and durability makes them pieces that you can have in your wardrobe and love for years.”

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ColumnWant to change the world? Stop eating packaged food.

A block and a half from my apartment there is a Safeway. For the last few years it has been a dingy place with dark aisles and dusty shelves, the kind of grocery store where you might just see an unmentionable rodent scurry across the floor. Then it got a remodel.

Located in the heart of a neighborhood where bike commuting and raising chickens are of the norm, Safeway knew their demographic, and the remodel followed suite. A few weeks ago the new and improved version opened, complete with brick walls, high ceilings, an abundant organic produce section and even an outdoor patio with tables and chairs for sipping afternoon coffee. Take away the Safeway sign and replace the Starbucks something a little more hip – Blue Bottle for example – and it would look just like every other yuppie-centric food shopping center. Don’t pretend you don’t have an affinity for such things – we’re all slaves to marketing.

Having always avoided the store except for last minute shopping emergencies, I entered the remodeled edition with an open mind. Access to grocery stores is not something that should be taken for granted; the fact that I can buy whole grains, fruits and vegetables a block and a half away from where I live is a luxury, and I try my hardest not to take it for granted. After all, a full grocery cart from Safeway is leaps and bounds from a dinner at McDonald’s.

On first look I was impressed. Fresh looking carrots, apples and kale? Check. Bulk foods? Wow. Topping the charts on sustainable seafood ranking? Hat tip. But as I walked around the periphery and was offered a variety of samples – “Would you like to try some nonfat yogurt with fiber cereal?” – panic started to set in. That nonfat yogurt was strawberry flavored, with who knows how much sugar. And the fiber cereal? Just one of hundreds of packaged cereals in the breakfast aisle touting the benefits of vitamins and minerals and all that other stuff that is part of a complete breakfast.

A quick look down the aisles to see jars upon jars of peanut butter (only one brand made without sugar or high fructose corn syrup) and dozens of different chewy granola bars confirmed my fears: I was in packaged world hell. Yes, much of it was branded as “healthy” – I am sure we would all be better off if kids were eating 100% Fiber Bites instead of High Fructose Neon Colored Synthetic Gems – but is healthy food just a name? As it turns out, as Americans, we don’t have an understanding of what healthy is anymore. We think avocados are fattening and bran muffins and a non-fat vanilla latte are a good way to start the day. Time for a reality check?

To pretend that I normally shop at grocery stores that don’t sell packaged food would be ridiculous – we live in a world of convenience after all and no matter where we shop, packaged foods abound. But what happens in the large percentage of big box chain grocery stores is the quantity and messaging. There is an overabundance of food that isn’t really food; it’s food elements combined with a handful of synthetic nutrients that we’re told is good for us, and because we’re busy, overworked and need to eat, we buy it. Yet our addiction to pre-made products wrapped in plastic, boxed in cardboard and labeled with colorful messaging should certainly be put to question, because not only is our health at risk, so is the planet’s.

The more processed food we eat, the further we are distanced from the food’s source. Don’t ever show a child a farm and a cow, and they might think that meat just comes from the butcher. Artichoke hearts are delicious on wood fired pizza, but do you know how an artichoke plant grows? I didn’t until a couple of years ago. The more we eat out of boxes and determine our diets by nutritional guidelines, the more we pull ourselves away from nature, losing our connection with the earth that is providing us with the food in the first place.

Take a look at zero waste efforts. In the last several years we have seen everyone from No Impact Man to My Zero Waste set out to reduce their footprint on the planet by pursuing lifestyles that reduce their all around waste. At first sight, that may sound like it’s all trash related, but take a closer look and it’s clear how inextricably linked food and waste really are. You can’t talk about one without the other.

In the documentary film The Clean Bin Project, which follows a Canadian couple as they commit to living waste-free for a year, one of the first scenes is a trip to the grocery store and an attempt at buying cheese at the deli counter that’s simply cut off the block and not pre-packaged. Buying food that isn’t packaged, even if you’re on a steady diet of whole foods, is difficult. When even bananas come wrapped in plastic, you know there’s a serious problem at hand.

Talk all you want about being an environmentalist, but if you haven’t taken a serious look at what is in your pantry, you could just as well be running over endangered turtles with a Hummer. An addiction to packaged foods doesn’t just contribute to waste, it contributes to an entire infrastructure that doesn’t support local farmers, encourages us to overeat and leads to obesity and is destroying our environment by continuing a process that is fueled by monoculture, deforestation and a multitude of other things you learn about in Environmental Studies 101. If living more in balance with nature is the path we want to take towards a more sustainable world, we have to start with food.

Question what you eat, where it came from and commit to simplifying, because real food isn’t complicated. Just because the sea salt, fennel and olive oil crackers came from Trader Joe’s and not from Safeway doesn’t mean you should be buying them. They’re still packaged, probably full of preservatives, and do you even know how easy it is to make crackers yourself?

If we have time to devote to watching trashy reality television, we have time to devote to eating well. No excuses.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: nanny snowflake, pawpaw67

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ColumnSometimes the best design is in the details.

Constructing a 100 percent sustainable fashion collection may never be possible, but having a team 100 percent committed to designing clothing that women can feel good about wearing is achievable; and fashion designers Daniel Silverstein and Marge Bacon of 100% NY are putting their sewing machines where their mouths are to do just that. Founded in 2011, 100% NY strives to use a selection of organic, recycled, and ethical materials throughout their luxury sportswear collections that they produce entirely in New York.

Designer Daniel Silverstein

Design Destiny

Silverstein tells EcoSalon, “Designing has always been a part of my life. I have been drawing, taping, and sewing since I can remember, and my parents were very supportive in helping me turn my passion for using my hands into a set of marketable skills.” Nurturing his inner calling for the tactile aspects of designing, Silverstein began his first true sewing instructions in a summer program at age 11. By the time he had graduated from his teens, he was attending Saturday Live classes at FIT for high school students. Now, as a graduate of FIT in International Fashion Design with a year abroad studying in Milan, Italy, Silverstein is breaking the mold as to what luxury fashion means in today’s market.

Autumn/Winter 2012

Inspiration

100% NY’s most recent collection for Autumn/Winter 2012  called Aquarius, drew upon renderings rooted in the zodiac sign mixed with images from Greek and Roman mythology. Designers Silverstein and Bacon are both Aquarius, and as time would have it, the collection was born under this astrological association as well. For another layer of musings, Silverstein tells EcoSalon, “We also brought in work by Picasso for linear inspiration as well as images from the Beatnik movement for inspiration for the proportions and silhouettes.”

Spring/Summer 2012

Source to Style

For 100% NY, their sourcing and creation process is based upon a general framework rooted in beginning locally and expanding from that out of the U.S. only if necessary.

“Bacon is the more tactile inclined of the two of us, she uses our mutual approach of starting with what we can find domestically, and then expanding to what we can source from other countries that is organic,” says Silverstein. Overall, 100% NY works diligently to use U.S.-made goods whenever possible to keep production local and CO2 emissions lower.

A glimpse inside 100% NY’s studio

Waste Not, Want Not

Zero-waste design is undoubtedly generating a buzz in the ever-evolving conscious fashion design community. This philosophy is embraced in distinct ways by different brands; for 100% NY, their staple piece is the Spine TM.

“We use all of our extra fabric, which would ordinarily be trimmed off of the pieces, to create a repetitious rectangular applique that resembles the discs of a human spine,” says Silverstein, adding that from that point, every piece is intricately hand turned and stitched in their Brooklyn-based studio to create an effortlessly chic bodycon dress.

Actor Jennifer Hudson rocking the Spine Dress

Edgy Comfort

An “edgy aesthetic” often triggers more sharp, harsh images than soft and ease-infused feelings. But for 100% NY, they have captured a distinct look that fuses true comfort with an edgy sex appeal. Silverstein tells EcoSalon, “We think in New York, you need to be ready for anything at any moment. Even your yoga pants should be cool.”

Designers and friends: Daniel Silverstein & Marge Bacon

Fashion For Your Friends

Looking cool and feeling good about what you’re wearing is a refreshing mantra. Silverstein says he’s inspired by his friends and wants to create clothing that they would want to wear. Silverstein tells EcoSalon that his message via 100% NY is all about, “creating clothing at a contemporary price point that you can look sexy in, feel great in and still maintain your New York City edge while being socially and ecologically responsible.”

Sounds like a win, win in our book.

The post 100% NY Focuses On the Details That Connect Us To Our Clothing appeared first on EcoSalon.

A look at the people who are truly making your clothes unique.

Fashion designers within the conventional fashion industry have become disengaged from fashion construction and makers are marginalized. Designers are the public face of the fashion industry, basking in its glamor and prestige, with makers often sitting at the opposite end of the hierarchy. The distance is philosophical, with the role of the fashion designer seen to involve applying creative vision to generate a sketch for the maker (or more, usually a team of makers) to manifest.

Julian Roberts, inventor of the “Subtraction Cutting” method in an Openwear interview talks of designing in patterns, “rather than in vague illustrative drawings which become reinterpreted by other skilled cutters.”

The distance between designer and maker of fashion at the design stage can also be physical, with the actual manufacturing process hidden from view in far-away sweat shops and not talked about or celebrated. Julian Roberts says “before you buy a garment and wear it, it will have been touched by many skillful hands, but often the hand that touches it the LEAST is the hand of the fashion designer.”

The physical and philosophical distance has enabled a range of issues to arise and be solidified over the last 150 years, or ever since Charles Worth the “Father” of fashion design, placed his label on a garment. These include concerns of exploitation, copying, speed vs. innovation and secrecy. How can a re-engagement of design and making foster meaningful, sustainable change in the fashion industry?

Shingo Sato

I consider myself to be a patternmaker-designer. To design zero waste garments you need to be able to design as you make the pattern and not just in response to a design. Design occurs in many places but it does not occur as a sketch of the exterior of the garment, but in the development of the pattern. What implications does designing in this manner have on the development of a sustainable fashion industry? For a start it can result in the unexpected. Much of the fashion we see is a copy of what’s been done before, either last week, last season or last century. For many, the design process involves directly or indirectly copying an existing design, so the patternmaker’s job has become to faithfully recreate the look within the companies size range and for the desired fabrication, perhaps with a few modifications.

The end result can be disheartening for consumers when they see a rapid dissemination of similar styles globally, a process that leads to its ever-faster fashion “death.” It is also a difficult thing for designers, as they know styles are repeated ad nauseam throughout history, then their consumers can (and do) buy vintage garments while remaining fashionable.

For most companies it does not make economic sense to invest time (and therefore money) into the development of a design if the likely outcome is not known. The speed of change driven by the monetary benefits of Economies of Scale and consumer are demanding, so while the argument for which comes first generally descends into a chicken and egg debate, the problem is a very real and immediate one for fashion companies. A problem they solve by repeating and copying existing styles. It should be no surprise that this is the foundation of the contemporary fashion system.

Comme des Garcons, AW 2012

Famous Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie MacIntosh, once said “There is hope in honest error. None in the icy perfections of the mere stylist.” Have fashion designers become mere stylists? With economic and time pressures at an all time high for fashion creatives, the space once available for truly innovative fashion is being squeezed out and much of what does happen occurs at the fringes of the industry. This is often in education, where both graduates and academics in many cases have more creative time and space without the financial restrictions demanded by the need to produce a commercial body of work up to six times per year (or more in the case of fast fashion).

Luckily every season there are examples of designers who push things in a different direction. Whether by material use, technique or form there are designers and their creative teams which pride themselves on demonstrating true innovation in at least parts of their collections. When Rei Kawakubo of Comme Des Garcons sent her models down the catwalk for AW 2012 devoid of a soundtrack with 2-Dimensional garments full of wry cliché it was a clear critique of the growing “flatness” of the industry.

Junya Watanabe

Rei Kawakubo is renowned for being an innovator in the true sense of the word in the fashion world, constantly pushing viewers and wearers with her own unique view of the dressed body – famously bulging and distorted, always 3D – so for her to present such a flat body of work speaks volumes of the state of the industry. As the representation of the fashion industry becomes more and more about ubiquitous and repetitive copies, fashion rebels like Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe seek to find alternatives. For many, this alternative is evident in the rise of craftsmanship, in particular, a re-emergence of innovative patternmaking.

Pattern Magic, Tomoko Nakamichi

Patternmaking is seen by many to be an aloof, mathematical and often dry practice, certainly not design, and very inaccessible. However, when Patternmaking and Design meet as equals, magical things can happen. The brilliant and enigmatic book series from Laurence King Publishing called Pattern Magic, gives a taste for what kind of alchemy is possible. Written by Tomoko Nakamichi of the famous Bunka Fashion College in Japan – a college who taught fashion innovator Yohji Yamamoto –  this series of books introduces the reader to thinking about the design of garments in unashamedly 3D and unexpected ways. Originally printed only in Japanese the images show garment features merging from collar to body, form leaping off the body, while soft geometry and the body tussle with each other and mercifully, standardized forms became passé. The skilled patternmaker can become a kind of magician-designer, deceiving the wearer and viewer, distorting the dressed body, and giving us something refreshing.

From Pattern Magic

Patternmaker, designer and educator Shingo Sato gives away many of his techniques and make his “tools of the trade” readily available on youtube. While his approach, which he calls “Transformation, Reconstruction” has been critiqued as simply dart manipulation and elimination, something which is neither new or innovative, he demystifies the process, merging design with patternmaking to “draw” line and form on the dress form, often with a magic marker. An exploration of his techniques reveals an ease with breaking tradition and the adoption of new form, the old rules need not apply.

Julian Roberts, Subtraction Cutting

Julian Roberts is a UK based designer and inventor of what is called Subtraction Cutting. This process involves designing not the exterior, not the front, back or side, indeed there are usually no side seams to his garments (after all, do humans have side seams?). Instead, Roberts designs the interior space of the garment that the body travels through. His approach results in forms that are difficult to predict, requiring an intimate relationship between designer, hand, cloth and body. While acting as “Fashion Adviser for Europe, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa” for the British Council, he also spends much of his time teaching workshops full of students how to take the creation of clothing in new directions by engaging their maker-mind in the design process.

Julian Roberts, Live Subtraction Cutting, Liverpool

Both Shingo and Julian freely share their processes, rebelling not only against aesthetic norms but also against the tradition of secrecy in the fashion industry. The growing call for openness and transparency strikes fear into the hearts of many designers and the wider implications still need working out. However, sharing design processes which cannot lead to mindless copying (from designer to designer to highstreet to trash), helps to slow the fashion juggernaught down, provides consumers with real choice and not just the illusion of choice, while reconnecting designers and consumers with makers and producers, will lead to an industry which does all things better.

And for that we should all rejoice.

Image: Style.com, Laurence King Publishers

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Zero waste fashion designers step up the aesthetics to be more pleasing for the masses.

Zero Waste Pattern Design seems at first glance to deal unashamedly with only the front end of the fashion cycle, with the theory going that if the designer agonizes over eliminating waste then consumers only need worry about what to do with the garments when they don’t want them any more. But it is much more than just a matter of asking “Have I used ALL of that piece of cloth?” as doing only this would potentially result in garments that no one would want to purchase.

With zero waste pattern design, and indeed all sustainable fashion, aesthetics cannot be at the expense of the environment, just as much as the environment cannot be at the expense of aesthetics. There must exist a harmony between both, and thankfully many sustainable designers have found it.

It is a strange thing however, that many of the worlds zero waste designers come from two such apparently different parts of the world, New York or Australasia. Australiasian designers who explore these ideas include Material By Product, Mark Liu, Timo Rissanen and Julia Lumsden. There are a number of New York based designers who use zero waste fashion design philosophies in their work, notably the iconic Yeohlee Teng.

I spoke to last year and this year’s Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation winners Tara St James and Titania Inglis this past week, fresh out of their New York Fashion Week shows. Here’s what they had to say.

Mark Liu

What is your sustainable fashion philosophy and how were you motivated to take your work in this direction?

Titania Inglis: My philosophy came from my mother, who taught me from a young age that it was better to buy a few beautiful pieces of clothing than lots and lots of not-so-great clothes. With the end goal of a small wardrobe in mind, I try to make clothes that are versatile and can often be worn in multiple ways; that feature high-quality, long-lasting fabrics and finishing; and that are both of the moment and yet well-proportioned and classic enough to wear for years to come.

Tara St James: To date I haven’t focused on one single sustainability philosophy, instead I try to examine several aspects of ethical design to evaluate which are a good fit for my brand and which are not.  For example my very first collection, entitled The Square Project, was a study in zero waste pattermaking, while of course using all overstock or sustainable textiles, and to this day I still implement a lot of zero waste in my designs.  I also work very closely with artisan weavers and knitters through Source4Style and other outlets. And I produce about 90% of my garments in New York City.

Ironically I was steered towards sustainability in 2004 when I started my previous brand Covet and was sourcing new textiles in China where I found a bamboo jersey I loved. I say ironically because I no longer work with either bamboo or China, but it opened my eyes to the concept of ethical sourcing, and that’s when I started researching different textiles and production methods. There has been tremendous change since then, I’ll say that.

Titania Inglis, Spring 12

How do you incorporate this waste reduction/elimination philosophy into your design and/or production processes?

Titania Inglis: Again, I believe strongly that classic, beautifully made clothes are the best antidote to waste. That said, with an eye to cradle-to-grave sustainability, I recycle all of my fabric scraps and try whenever possible to cut smaller pieces from existing scraps; try to choose 100% cotton and 100% wool fabrics that are easily recycled; and recommend on the care labels that garments be aired out often and washed less, both to save on water and to ensure that they last longer.

As far as zero-waste pattern making goes, my Spring/Summer 2011 collection was based around that technique, and I approached it both through bias cutting and origami folding, creating two origami-pleated bustle skirts and a bias top and dress that were cut from simple shapes that could be interlocked on the marker to eliminate fabric waste. Because there was a tiny bit of fabric that wasn’t used in the pieces, I called it my “Almost Zero” collection. Some of the pieces have since reappeared in successive collections, with the bias T-shirt becoming one of my signature pieces.

Tara St James: I’ve found it much easier to reduce waste on an individual level and less so when larger production quantities come into the picture. If I’m designing, cutting and sewing something myself, I can easily control how the garment is made, but to scale both the design and pattern to include different sizes and fabrications has been a challenge, although not an insurmountable one.

Tara St James, Spring 12

How do your customers respond to your ethical goals and resulting products – how strongly do you market your products as ethical?

Titania Inglis: While I do offer information about my philosophy and production methods on my website, I choose to market the line first and foremost as a fashion line, leaving the ethical standards as an added benefit. Clothing is a unique product in that it’s meant to be worn, so the look of it, the fabric choice, and the fit come first when a woman is shopping. If she loves a piece and will wear it forever, that’s far more environmentally sound than if she buys it for its ethical production methods and then leaves it in the back of her closet because she hates the look.

Tara St James: I don’t actively market my brand as ethical, I want my customers to buy the clothing first because they love it, and they usually only find out the sustainability of the brand after they’ve spoken to the shop owner or done some research on the brand.  However there is a rising population of shoppers who seek out ethical fashion and want to support local designers. With them I’m happy to be as open sourced and transparent as possible. After all, the story behind the clothing is my means of creating a dialogue with my customer. I don’t want that dialogue to end when they’ve made their purchase.

How do you see yourself improving on your current practices – what’s in the future for your company?

Titania Inglis: The biggest challenge is always fabric sourcing. I’m constantly on the lookout for beautiful new organic or sustainably produced fabrics; I’ve traveled to London and Tokyo for sourcing, and found amazing materials there. This season I sourced a gorgeous vegetable-tanned leather from France, and I’m dying to make handbags or shoes from it as soon as I find the right collaborator.

Tara St James: I would like to start researching more technical and recycled synthetic textiles. I love using natural fibres such as hand woven cottons, wools and silks, but when I examine the water consumption for some of these fibres, it’s difficult to ignore the reality and is pushing me towards longer lasting, more versatile textiles such as recycled polyester, which can also be printed by companies like AirDye, who I worked with on my Spring 12 collection.

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Loomstate debuts its first zero-waste garment developed in collaboration with Parsons The New School for Design.

Recent Parsons graduate Andria Crescioni, and Loomstate founders Rogan Gregory and Scott Mackinlay Hahn are this week debuting their first zero-waste garment developed in collaboration with Parsons The New School for Design. The winning design, by Crescioni was inspired from a zero waste fashion course at the school and guidance from Timo Rissanen, Parsons Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Sustainability and an expert in zero waste fashion.

Rissanen developed the course for students to learn a new approach to design: that of wasting absolutely nothing in the entire design process. Hahn and Gregory served as mentors on the project, educating students about such issues as sourcing, dyeing, finishing, and energy consumption of organic denim. The two continued to guide Crescioni in the manufacturing of the garment from development through production. The result is this modern, truly sustainable spin on a wardrobe favorite that never goes out of style.

“Zero waste fashion is an innovative design process that produces no fabric waste. In effect, patternmaking becomes an integral part of the process, creating a richer, more sustainable design practice,” says Simon Collins, dean of the School of Fashion at Parsons. “Through this collaboration, we have proven that zero waste can be a viable manufacturing process for designers.”

You can see more from Crescioni at the Awamaki Lab, a Peruvian non-profit that works with indigenous female weavers, where she is developing a capsule collection.

The winning anorak will be available starting this week at the ROGAN boutique located on the Bowery in New York City and at Loomstate’s online store.

The post Lustables: Loomstate & Parson’s Zero Waste Anorak appeared first on EcoSalon.

EcoSalon’s top 20 favorite sustainable fashion sites from around the globe.

They help us find out about new designers, industry news, trends, learn what sustainable fashion means, and discover all the swanky events we can attend on a global level – these are our eco fashion writers and designers, our go-to girls reporting all the news fit to print, from the exciting and beautiful to the all-too-often tragic and wasteful designer landscape. These are the pioneers of a new type of fashion that explores, connects and draws us in to what the industry could be if we simply supported it more.

We’d like to throw our own hat into this ring, as well- but then, you’re already here reading us, aren’t you?

Past Fashion Future

Past Fashion Future founder Emma Grady says: “I founded Past Fashion Future one year ago as a platform to explore my personal style aesthetic and to show the beauty of timeless and classic fashion and style. I love hearing people’s personal style stories, specifically about their sentimental connection to the clothing that they wear.”

We love the site layout, sharp, stylish images and especially, Something Old, Something New, a series that reveals how modern day style mavens wear heirlooms, vintage, and ethical fashion.

Vogue’s Green Style blog

Come on, It’s Vogue, it’s Livia Firth, it’s eco fashion and it’s high style – do we need to say any more about it?

Ecco eco

BurdaStyle

BurdaStyle, is an online social community that uses the web to bring the craft of sewing to a new generation of designers, hobbyists, DIYers and anyone looking to sew. What could be more sustainable than making clothes yourself? Sewers flock here to mingle, share and support over projects, patterns and full galleries of completed designs.

Join their community to keep current with what other budding (and seasoned) designers are doing. We most certainly do.

Six Magazine

SIX says it was founded with one aim, “to celebrate the designers, individuals, independent brands and companies who are creating a more ethical and sustainable future for the fashion industry.”
We love how the site incorporates beauty products as well as high fashion and packages it so beautifully we want to read every article.
We also love that SIX represents the sixth sense we all have when it comes to style and value.

Clever.

4 Equal Sides

Tara St James, founder of Study NY and 4 Equal Sides believes that “open source material plays a strong role in the development of the sustainable design community,” making her the rare designer that has vision enough to see how the sustainable designer’s new model needs to play out. Under her guidance, Study’s interns have developed, produced and continue to sell their own sustainable mini collections. St James is very open about her production and design process and documents her own story as a designer in a visually as well as editorially personal way that makes you come back for more.

Fashion Me Green

FashionMeGreen is a sustainable fashion awareness project and style site. Founder Greta Eagan says it’s “Conscious coolhunting from around the globe,” and we are in total agreement.

All the curated product pulls, designer features, amazing photo editorials and fashion trend pieces give us extreme hope for the future of ethical fashion that it can in fact be stylish enough to become mainstream without anyone even noticing.

Closette

Yuka Yoneda, founder of Closette and Ecouterre’s Senior Editor calls herself a shopaholic.

“Well, I was a shopaholic. I was always a jeans and sweatshirt kinda girl, but when I graduated from college and got a job in the city, I went a leeeetle crazy with the shopping – okay, a lot crazy. Then I learned about where the clothes I was buying came from and how they were affecting and hurting other people, particularly women and children, around the globe. The idea that these crimes against women, pollution and chemicals going into our water and bodies, and just shear waste were all happening because I wanted a new top or jeans really made me feel ashamed. I knew I had to make a difference in my own life, so I started thrift shopping, supporting sustainable designers and making my own clothes and I feel wonderful knowing that the garments I wear don’t contribute to anyone else being hurt (except maybe for the people who have to look at my crazy outfits).”

Check out Closette for some fun DIY ideas, shop vintage and secondhand clothing or try winning one of her fun giveaways.

Goodlifer

Founded by Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Johanna Björk, Goodlifer is all about style and the good life. “With your help, we’re writing a guidebook for a new generation of Goodlifers. We want you to share in and help craft a positive, enthusiastic vision of a future that is both sustainable and achievable. Through first-hand, personal journalism and thoughtful exploration and discussion we’re here to consider daily choices, reconsider assumptions, pose questions, uncover opportunities, make you think and collaborate with us on what it means to be a Goodlifer.”

Sign us on Johanna.

We’ve been following Timo Rissanen since we came across him in this New York Times article and were more than elated to finally meet him recently at the Yield exhibit in Brooklyn. Timo says on his site: “I’m investigating fashion creation without fabric waste creation through design practice.”

We are fascinated by his finds.

EFW

EcoFashionWorld says they aim to inspire with new ideas, ideals and information. “Our goal is to keep you green, gorgeous and growing with a comprehensive guide to finding sustainable designer brands and online eco fashion stores.” For those new to the game and fumbling over the words like Peace Silk or tencel, check out their glossary for the latest terminology definitions.

Ethical Fashion Forum

The Ethical Fashion Forum is a non-profit organization, that makes life just a little more easy “for fashion professionals to integrate sustainability at the heart of what they do.”
Membership to the EFF delivers support for sustainable fashion businesses through three programs with each program including several essential tools which members can take advantage of to succeed in ethical fashion business.

Members can also stay current with events, sourcing and EFF socials.

Ecouterre

The fashion daughter of Inhabitat, Ecouterre is a heavily photo-curated website devoted to the future of sustainable fashion design. “We’re dedicated to showcasing and supporting designers who not only contemplate cut, form, and drape, but also a garment’s social and environmental impact, from the cultivation of its fibers to its use and disposal. Our ethos: To follow the evolution of the apparel industry toward a more environmentally sound future, as well as facilitate a conversation about why sustainable fashion matters.”

Treehugger

What came first, eco blogging or Treehugger? I think many of us were reading Treehugger when eco fashion was just beginning to evolve past the point of crunchy. Still on track to provide us with timely fashion news, we’ve bookmarked the site and will continue to go back.

Eco Chick

Eco-Chick editor Starre Vartan, consultant and author of The Eco-Chick’s Guide to Life, says the main intention of her site is to “inspire readers toward a healthier, more sustainable life (which we think means a happier life too). That includes slowing down, unplugging, getting out, going in, making mistakes and moving on, being choosy, doing research, and growing every day. Rest and relaxation are real and important, and so is time with friends and family. We love local food, farmer’s markets, independent designers, handmade everything, and connecting with where our stuff comes from and who makes it. We especially love inspiring women who keep us on our toes and asking questions.”

Her site covers all aspects of the fashion industry and Starre is a known girl about town on the streets of New York City when it comes to getting the scoop on eco-fashion. If you’re where she is, you’re in the right place.

Magnifeco

Magnifeco is an eco-fashion blog currently based in Tokyo by founder Kate Black and features fair-trade, sustainable, organic, recycled, vintage and vegan brands in a place where ethics meet aesthetics. From earth friendly fabrics, to sustainable manufacturing processes and fairtrade practices, the site features conscious designers and products for the conscious consumer.

Market Publique

Market Publique is an eclectic marketplace dedicated to vintage fashion “committed to bringing the community together so we can all have a place to buy, sell and discuss vintage in a positive and focused environment.”
The Brooklyn based company started when the founders realized there was a lack of options for quality vintage sellers online.

We are obsessed with how great the styling is and are always inspired to grab a piece to add to our own wardrobes or to simply wear clothes differently after we leave the site.

Holly McQuillan

Holy McQuillan, Yield Curator, designer and lecturer in the fashion design program at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts in Wellington, New Zealand says since completing her Masters of Design, which explored the presentation of cultural memory through garment design, her work has focused on exploring the possibilities that arise when garment design is restrained by one goal – zero-waste.

Peruse her site or get in touch with her with some of your own zero waste design questions. She will get you rethinking fashion for sure.

Organic Girly

Organic Girly founder Jennifer Barckley is not only one of the nicest people we’ve ever met, she’s also a fantastic resource. Utilize her “Ask me anything,” button and she will get back to you quickly. Check her site for periodic updates on vegan and sustainable fashion forays that sometimes even lead her to chicken sitting.

Social Alterations

Mary Hanlon’s Social Alterations was “developed with fashion and textile design educators in mind, it also acts to create a platform for design educators to benchmark themselves against other educators not only within their own field, but across various design disciplines. In order to create real lasting change, designers of all disciplines must work together to foster transformation.”

A wonderful venue for timely fashion news regarding everything from Fast Fashion to CSR.

Image: Shandi-lee

The post From Eco to Vintage to DIY, 20 Fashion Sites We Can’t Live Without appeared first on EcoSalon.

In a perfect world, we would use everything we have.

David Quilty, founder of The Good Human, recently wrote a story on being an ‘eco-sinner’. He writes: “We drive cars, we eat unsustainable food, we shop at big box stores, we use computers, we watch TV. Many of the eco-sins we commit are unavoidable in the modern world, and as much as I try to live a sustainable life, the fact is that none of us live a truly ‘green’ existence. It’s simply impossible.”

Agreed.

He touches on a lot of good points but there are a number of people counter-acting their so-called eco “sins” with tickets to a proverbial heaven where the pastures are a lot greener. Here are five stories we think stand out when it comes to being less wasteful.

Last week in New York City, EcoSalon had the opportunity to stop by the Textile Arts Center’s Yield Exhibit Making Fashion Without Waste. Is zero-waste something all designers can achieve? Does it simply take a lot of practice, like any art, to improve? We caught up with Yield curator Holly McQuillan to get some answers in EcoSalon at NYFW: Yield’s Zero Waste Exhibit.

Truth: In Britain, the amount of yearly food waste can fill London’s Wembley Stadium. Our very own Brit writer, Mike Sowden, says “We’re so careless with our groceries that we throw away around a third of them each year – at a total cost of $20 billion. Appalling, dreadful and…unreal.” In What Does $20 Billion In Wasted Food Look Like? we look at food waste as a horrific challenge that must be addressed.

Gone are the days of the McMansions representing anything but excessive waste. In their places have blossomed houses of purpose that cater to everything we need them to do and at a fraction of the size. Downsizing is noble and a challenge so we ask what it’s like to consider an even smaller, more drastic downscale. When it comes to tiny living, have we gone too far where our psychological health is being compromised living in such little spaces? In The Incredible Shrinking House, we take a look at the repercussions of little waste from so little a space in the context of mental health.

“Why must everything come in packaging that’s seemingly ready-made for nuclear meltdown?” asks writer Luanne Bradley – and who are the people who are putting our safety after their fears of product theft? In The Packaging of Our Lives, we give you solutions to all your over-packaged problems.

What six lifestyle choices endow the much-celebrated French women with their ageless beauty, trim figures, and je ne sais quoi? Well, it’s true they don’t eat much and when they do, it’s exceptionally good food and drink. They choose versatile and classic pieces for their wardrobes, and they walk, a lot. Waste not, want not – and leave it to the French to look so damn good while doing what they do. In Sex by Numbers: French Women Don’t Get Fat we take a look at these sensibly indulgent femme fatales.

The post The Friday 5: Waste Not, Want Not Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.