Evidently as sustainable fashion is such a vast topic it was impossible to cover the whole field in depth in just one short project, so this evaluation aims to point out the gaps in my research. Since I already knew what I wanted my final outcome to be, I concentrated on research which reflected this. I decided early on in my project that I wanted to create a product to sell in a fast fashion store. I chose to collaborate with Tk Maxx because as a brand their concept of selling clothes at a discounted price from past seasons is eco-friendly. However, TK Maxx have received bad press for not having any sustainable policies in place within their company.

Firstly, the main gap in my research was that I didn’t find out facts and figures on sustainable fashion before I began creating my campaign media pack. I feel that this could have been useful as shock tactics. It also would have been beneficial if I were able to take photos of the poor conditions in the sweat shops wear many clothes are made and also interview the people who worked there, unfortunately this was not accessible for me.

Secondly, I feel that my research was more broad than deep. It would have been more beneficial to look deeply into one campaign than briefly into several. I will ensure that in ‘Part 2’ I visit exhibitions and have extremely deep research into particular areas. I feel that this will enable me to think more in a more abstract way about my dissertation.

However, I am really pleased with the many new skills I have taught myself this project. Firstly, way I have used my blog this project as a tool to note down any research that I do, as well as a full sketchbook of research. I also feel that I have been able to learn a lot of new skills on indesign, illustrator and photoshop during this project. I was able to do this by presenting my media pack on inDesign. Also, I styled and photographed the bag that i sewed out of recycled denim, using the photo studio for the first time.

In January 2018 Denim for Decades, in partnership with Tk Maxx, will be releasing a 100% sustainable shopping bag. We ask the public to think more deeply about the life of their clothes by doing something as simple as donating your old denim to Tk Maxx, we want to give your old denim a second chance of a new life, as a bag that you can purchase in your local TK Maxx branch and use time and time again.

Denim For Decades is a project that sets out to challenge our perceptions of value. We will be collaborating with Tk Maxx to ask: how can we kick start a move from being a fashion throw away culture to a fashion preservation culture?

The catalytic jeans exhibited below show the findings of Tony Ryan and Helen Storey, who discovered that when denim is covered with tiny nano-particles of titanium dioxide, it reacts with air and light to break down harmful emissions in the air; working in the same way as catalytic converters in cars.   Pollutants most often produced by traffic and factories, such as Nitrogen Oxide are then neutralised and simply washed away when the garment is laundered.

Denim For Decades

A manifesto for sustainable fashion within TK Maxx

The relationship we have with our clothes has changed greatly over the last century, we have entered into an era of extreme production and consumption, many of us falling into a mindless cycle of acquiring and discarding garments instead of taking the time to truly value and use them.

But does anybody actually take the time to remember that somebody designed and constructed all the garments that are mindlessly discarded time and time again.

Denim For Decades is a project that sets out to challenge our perceptions of value. We will be collaborating with Tk Maxx to ask: how can we kick start a move from being a fashion throw away culture to a fashion preservation culture?

We ask the public to think more deeply about the life of their clothes by doing something as simple as donating your old denim to Tk Maxx, we want to give our old denim a second chance of a new life, as a bag we can use time and time again.

We want to ‘make it personal’; every bag will have the name of who made it embroidered onto the bag. This should really hit home about the fact somebody made every item of clothes you chuck away.

Disobedient Objects

From a Suffragette tea service to protest robots, this exhibition was the first to examine the powerful role of objects in movements for social change. It demonstrated how political activism drives a wealth of design ingenuity and collective creativity that defy standard definitions of art and design. Disobedient Objects focussed on the period from the late 1970s to now, a time that has brought new technologies and political challenges. On display were arts of rebellion from around the world that illuminate the role of making in grassroots movements for social change: finely woven banners; defaced currency; changing designs for barricades and blockades; political video games; an inflatable general assembly to facilitate consensus decision-making; experimental activist-bicycles; and textiles bearing witness to political murders.

DECONSTRUCTION

Deconstruction Fashion: The making of the unfinished, decomposing and re- assembled clothes by Alison Gill

• “Unfinished, coming apart, recycled, transparent”
• “Analysis/ critique – the undoing of an argument”
• “Amy Spindler (1993) announced “deconstruction” as a rebellion against the 1980’s, the undoing of fashion as we know it, or the “coming apart” of fashions heritage, as it moved into the last decade of the twentieth century”

  

• “Martin Margiela sells linings extracted from vintage dresses, giving these linings a chance of a new old life “on the outside”. A labour stitched these inside as the secrets of a finished garment, Margiela simply brings these secrets to the surface.”

Australia has the knitting nannas who protest about environmental issues by holding “knit ins”.

Their “nannafesto”

Peacefully & productively protest against the destruction of our land, air, and water by corporations and/or individuals who seek profit and personal gain from the short-sighted and greedy plunder of our natural resources.

We support energy generation from renewable sources, and sustainable use of our other natural resources.

We sit, knit, plot, have a yarn and a cuppa, and bear witness to the war against those who try to rape our land and divide our communities.

We want to leave this land better than we found it, for our children, grandchildren and future generations.  They deserve to have a future with a clean and healthy environment, natural beauty and biodiversity.

KNAG’s aims are to bring attention to the issues surrounding unsustainable resource exploitation; to show the people, the media, the politicians and the exploiters just how far from radical the “extremists” who oppose their practices are; to entertain and inform the public, and bring new supporters to the movement.

We aim to make protests and blockades safe, to support people assert their right to protest.  We want to make sure that our servants, the politicians, represent our democratic wishes and know they are accountable – to us.  We are very happy to remind them of this – often.

We represent many who cannot make it out to protests – the elderly, the ill, the infirm, people with young children and workers.