It’s difficult to have a conversation about sustainable fashion without mentioning Frances Corner. The long-time activist has led the charge when it comes to making the industry more environmentally friendly. And she's starting from the ground up, teaching students at the London College of Fashion how to create clothing and build a business that operates within its boundaries.
Corner encourages her students to remember the people behind the garments. ‘We’ve woken up to the issue of having an emotional connection with clothes. There are more people in the world in slavery than when it was repealed 2OO years ago,’ she says. ‘Sustainability is about considering plastic, water, pesticides, pollution and the energy it takes to transport those materials. But it's also about the people making the clothes. We shouldn’t want to put something on that somebody has suffered making.’
For ELLE's September issue, we met with those pushing for ethical production and practice. Here are the faces of fashion's sustainable future.
1) Sarojini Nallathamby
London College of Fashion I specialise in...
Fashion Futures. This sustainability-centred design course aims to create a more viable future by expanding the boundaries of fashion to include eco, social, and technological considerations.
I am currently working on...
Different design projects, including collaborative projects for the ‘Fashioned from Nature’ exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and an immersive-technology based project at LCF’s Digital Anthropology Lab. I have also worked on a few speculative design projects for my course work, focusing on understanding the broader impact of design on the environment, ethics and society.
2) Joana Monteiro Gobbi
At London College of Fashion I specialise in...
Pattern cutting, a very technical discipline, specific to fashion, and social design which is design “to support positive social change” (MICA Social Design, 2018).
I am currently working on...
Within the course MA Pattern and Garment Technology at LCF, I learnt and experimented with a range of digital and manufacturing technologies and conventional and creative pattern techniques that cover all aspects of making a garment. Working collaboratively with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion and the group Kering on innovative sustainable solutions deepened my understanding about the social issues within the fashion supply chain and how to approach them. This allows me to research and develop more sustainable techniques.
3) Amarah Imamdin
At London College of Fashion I specialise in...
Mdes (Master in design) international fashion production management course. I specialise in the sustainability aspect of the production of garments, whether the choice of materials or findings ways to be more socially responsible. I also specialise in finding new ways of the fashion industry to recycle the waste we generate, to tackle these issues - I started a brand (Rukyah Dinn) which specialises in upcycling second hand denim that’s shipped into Malawi as part of their clothing industry, this disrupts the countries own clothing and textile industry and has taken away jobs from tailors.
I am currently working on...
Our solution is to create beautiful garments in Malawi made from the waste generated from western countries that’s being recycled in 3rd world countries and shipping these products back to the west! All while providing the artisans and makers a living wage. I will be moving to Malawi for a year, in a month’s time (October) to focus on training staff and to find women in rural areas to empower by providing them with work on parts of our production and through our literacy programs.
4) Aniela Fidler-Wieruszewska
At London College of Fashion I specialise in...
During my studies I was trying to challenge our bizarre social construct of waste which doesn’t exist in objective reality. Everything has intrinsic value, and there is no such thing in nature. Through my graduation project design called ‘Tondo’ I explored textile recycling and ways of minimizing the amount of scrap material during production. My aspiration was to prove that waste can become a viable asset and source for not only substitutes but also equivalents to commonly used materials. I have also founded Community of Sustainable Practice at Golden Lane campus inspiring a bit of change within University.
I am currently working on...
Creative Manufacturing is what makes me tick. I’m passionate about traditional skills which are at risk of dying out as demand for them falls gradually. My work explores possibilities within manufacturing, and I find craft production to be one of the most inspiring processes to look at. Craft is almost designed for disruptive collaboration, it makes small-scale experimentation easily possible and can lead to breakthroughs in innovation. My mission is to support, preserve and put these skills in the new use.
5) Pippa Smart
At London College of Fashion I specialise in...
Fashion Futures, specialising in Sustainability in Fashion. My specialist interest is in manufacturing and craft, how through making processes we can create cultural, community and environmental value as well as a financially profitable products. My thesis and practical work explores these principles and how manufacturers might apply and transition to them. I come from a design and craft background so a lot of my knowledge and experience stems from other design disciplines.
I am currently working on...
I co-founded a podcast The Drop, @thedrop_online, with Amy- Foster Taylor, Bronwyn Seier and Claire Weiss.
Thanks to the amazing initiatives at LCF and the CSF, I’ve been lucky to make a video for the V&A Fashioned from Nature exhibition. Jewellery and I film I made, were a winning entry in the UN x LCF Orange Label Project Frances Corner established, raising awareness around Violence against Women and Girls. I was a finalist in the Kering Award, volunteered for Processions, a series of banner making workshops at a Prison, a collaboration between Artist Lucy Orta and the women there.
cargocollective.com/pippasmart
This article appears in the September 2018 edition of ELLE UK. Subscribe here to make sure you never miss an issue.
For more information on London College of Fashion's sustainable initiative, visit the Centre For Sustainable Fashion.
