Session Write Up/Further Thoughts

Today’s session was more of a practical set of activities which looked at creating and brainstorming Fashion Futures. We, as a team were given a mind map to create a fashion economy. We were given a core topic which was Meaningful Relationships – looking at design relationships of use, lifetime of product and continued journey of being passed on. The three micro economies we were given were repair/mend, remanufacturing and charity. Our task was to come up with a concept whereby we include all three micro-economies to come up with a potential new fashion future.

Our idea consisted of creating a charity whereby we educate people (such as the homeless) and teach them invaluable skills which will create jobs. The charity could also expand and look at having a programme to educate children on basic sewing skills etc. Then we take in large amounts of deadstock/clothing that would end up in landfill and remanufacturing the pieces into something new. These reworks would then be sold to people with a guarantee – potentially where repairs become a currency or are linked with perks/a donation for example to extend the longevity of the garment.

This was a really interesting activity as I feel we could really build upon our initial idea as time goes along and potentially come back to this method of working. We discussed all of our ideas with the class and gained a lot of insight into the different ways diverting clothes from landfill there were. One idea that I thought was particularly interesting was the idea of reinventing the charity shop by making it a more personal, inclusive experience rather than just donating through buying. I feel with our idea we could expand on this concept and include some of the initial ideas of a consultancy too – really rewriting the concept of the charity shop through a collaborative community. I think that we could also expand on this idea from a social conscience perspective and incorporate activism for the communities/people that we help.

After some further research into sustainable brands such as TOAST and Bethany Williams I noticed that the themes of curated manufacturing/longevity/community and social conscience really ran throughout. These I think are elements that we should really think about for our idea.

Fig 1.Bethany Williams Website outlining process and ethos – found on Bethany Williams Website.

 

Fig 2. Bethany Williams Awards and ethos towards thoughtful fashion systems. Found on Bethany Williams Website.

Fig 3. The core values of TOAST, found on TOAST Website.

 

 

Amy Saville