Better Fashion Week 2012

Better Fashion Week 2012

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Or at least better. Better Fashion Week is the kind of fashion initiative that restores your faith that there is a change coming for the, eh, better within the (Irish) fashion industry.

I firmly believe that ethical fashion is the future. Not in the hippyish, hemp clothes gross way, but in a more informed and best practice kind of way. When done right, ethical fashion isn’t preachy, it merely highlights ways to do things better, and showcases local producers. The 5^th annual Better Fashion Week will take place at No. 6 Castle Market Street Dublin 2 from the 23^rd  – 30^th April and will highlight the issue of sustainable fashion through a series of pop-up shops, exhibitions, installations, events and industry talks with fashion heavy weights like the incredible Artist/Designer Helen Steele*, and ethical fashion writers Tasmin Lejeune and Dr. Kate Fletcher taking part. The Castle Market street space will also have a pop up shop featuring the ethical-but-you-wouldn’t-know-by-looking-at-it work of Emma Manley, Sinead Doyle, Lisa Shawgi, Red Dog (Shop) and The Irish Design Shop, among others. It is the kind of event that any fashionista with even a quarter of a brain or indeed a heart needs to attend.

As an incentive, I have a pair of VIP tickets to give away to one lucky reader so you and your mate can head along and hear what the fashion pioneers have to say for themselves. All you have to do is send me an email – noisyshoesblog[at]gmail.com – and tell me what you are most looking forward to on the lineup, EASY! I’ll announce the winner on the 20th here on the blog.

Check out the www.betterfashionweek.com website and the facebook.com/redressbetterfashion page for more information and to pick up tickets to all the events. Do it now!!!! Or I’ll be cross! And here’s a lil peek at what I mean by good ethical fashion…..

Manley A/W 11

Manley A/W 11

Helen Steele SS12

i cannot express how much i want this outfit.

Helen Steele SS12

and this one

*I am embarrassed that I didn’t really know about Helen Steele til now, expect many more posts on how amazing she is in the near future.

Eva Zingoni. Or – Reasons Buying Cheap Shit on the High Street is Pointless.

This weekend I went shopping. Actually, that’s a total lie, this weekend I went looking at things that I would hypothetically buy or not buy, if I had any money. Which I don’t. But I digress. What I ascertained was that even if I had a bunch of money, I would still not have bought anything on my little browsing escapade. Everything I saw was cheap looking, cheap feeling and generally uninspiring. It reinforced my increasing belief that low-end highstreet stuff isn’t worth the samey-outfit-post Lookbook space it is ad nauseum posted on.

Basically, I have expensive taste. I don’t like mass-produced, generic, soulless crap. I don’t like things that are made to be thrown away. I like craftsmanship, and care, and design and beauty. I like things to be weighty and feel like they are going to last. In a lot of ways, and totally unintentionally, I have very ethical and eco taste.

Ethical and eco means different things to different people. I am by no means a paragon of virtue when it comes to sustainable fashion, but I am conscious of my choices and I do my best, and if every consumer could say the same then we would have a very different fashion industry.

Eva Zingoni @ Esthetica, LFW SS12

We also need designers that make sustainable choices easy for consumers, by providing ethical and sustainable choices that align with logical fashion choices. We need more people like Eva Zingoni, whom I came across at the Esthetica section of London Fashion Week, dedicated to sustainable fashion. Zingoni creates limited-edition garments using prestigious textiles. So far, so generic upper-end fashion. She uses prestigious textiles that have been salvaged from other famous fashion houses. Now you’re talking. The end result is extremely limited edition, couture-inspired, recycled fashion garments for everyday people. Having spent 6 years at Balenciaga customising their couture for celebrities and uber-editors, she has clearly picked up on the attractiveness of scarcity. However this type of scarcity is in terms of production quantity given the inherent limitations of materials, as opposed to than price, which is remarkably affordable. Well, it would be, if I had any money. Sigh………

Eva Zingoni @ Esthetica LFW SS12

So, to sum up:

1. Quality is always better than quantity.

2. Making better, slower fashion choices is good for your pocket AND the environment. Mostly your pocket, but that’s still an eco plus, OK.

3. Eva Zingoni makes really really cool clothes. Hence recycling is cool. Q.E.D.

3a. Check out her website, I do rather like it.

4. I am broke. As per usual.

From Kenya with Love

Suno make vibrant, wearable clothes. The prints often form the main focal point and that is what initially caught my attention. However, when you start reading the story behind the brand, it gets better. The aforementioned prints are based on founder Max Osterweis’ collection of Kenyan textiles collected over the years which explains the overriding African craft vibe from the collections. However, even better is the fact that Suno is dedicated to sustainability and ethical treatment of workers (which are by no means the same thing), and produce more than 70% of their stuff locally in Kenya. Now, to be upfront, I know Kenya is pretty huge, and I don’t know the name of one city, so I have no idea what local means in this context, but the company seems to be very focused on using indigenous talent and upskilling people to create a better local (there’s that word again) economy and providing skills and commerce to areas that are often overlooked. Which is never a bad thing.

What I especially like about Suno is that they are a fashion company first. Their ethos is built into their designs, but not on the surface of them, if you get me. I believe in working towards a more sustainable fashion industry that works along more ethical guidelines, but I think one of the main reasons that puts people off buying from companies who are heavily involved in sustainability is that design comes after their beliefs. And with the exception of slogan tshirts, very few people want to wear their beliefs so literally. I think to really enact change, companies like Suno are the way forwards, where what they are trying to do just IS. It’s almost a given, and then they focus on creating garments that the vast majority of people want to wear. By selling them as fashion, instead of a social conscience, they are giving people what they want. Just in a more responsible way on the back end of things. If bigger companies just WERE socially conscious, I imagine consumers would be massively supportive. People are lazy. I’m lazy. And I am aware of the problem far more than most. I don’t believe that people purposely buy things to spite workers or the environment, but too often the greener alternative is too difficult to access (in comparison to highstreet stuff), or the design quality just isn’t there.

So, before I rant on all day, here’s to Suno and their company and what they stand for. Great clothes, that is.

all images via sunony.com

If you want to learn more about what you can do to make a difference, no matter how small, go to re-dress.ie. The girls that run it are great, and run courses and talks and loads of good stuff, as well as providing information.