Upcoming Ethical Fashion Designers To Watch
With sustainability and climate change becoming increasingly hot topics, it is no surprise that as Graduate Fashion Week continues this week that young fashion designers are integrating ethical and conscious fashion into their fashion statements.
Georgina Wilson-Powell from Pebble Mag identified the top 5 designers she thinks will not only make a mark in the fashion industry but also facilitate the move of conscious fashion even further into the main stream.
Alice Kitching
Fashion 101 always centres around sewing patterns. It is the foundation of creating your piece, getting the shapes just right so that they seamlessly work together to create your vision. However, a consequence of this is that you are left with masses of material that are wasted, awkward shapes that cant be put to much use and are therefore tossed aside into the ‘dispose of’ pile'. By using cleverly crafts cuts and creating interesting shapes and wearable pieces, Alice Kitching aimed to create a zero waste collection. Kitching has utilised materials that may not typically be associated with what may be seen on the average Jane’s or Joe’s clothing rack such as, rolls ends and deadstock materials, to create what she calls sophisticated pieces.
Isabella Salini
Shopping secondhand isn’t a new concept to most of us, with many conscious buyers seeing the value in thrift stores and vintage clothing over buying brand new from mainstream stores. However Salini wants to break these habits into the mainstream by integrating it with the most powerful tool yet, social media. For her final year project she decided to focus on overconsumption especially of young millennials by creating an online swap platform. The platform includes a conceptual video along with three editorial pieces that support three key concepts; recycle+reuse, wash less and source sustainably.
Jogaile Zairyte
we may not realise but a lot of the fashion that we wear is inspired by a tradition or culture somewhere. Whether it was that one summer where kimonos made a huge comeback or when colourfully printed leather bags from Morocco could be found hanging on the back of multiple chairs in your favourite restaurant. The recognition of the important role that traditions and culture play in fashion isn’t lost on Jogaile Zairyte. Inspired by Japanese culture, Zairyte has adopted their their different hand crafted techniques and natural hand dyeing methods. Using materials such as bamboo, peace silk linen and hemp - Zairyte said ‘i want to work in the sustainable fashion industry and create my own sustainable fashion brand. I will continue to research natural dyeing processes and zero waste methods.’
