A short tale of the Candy Stripe dress

Found in the dressing up box and displayed at the Camden Green Fair...
Explored with alternative shaping options...
Styled and altered with many ribbons by a 4 year old visitor to the Fair...

Then upcycled by Jo...

The Colour Me In Dress

To encourage collaborative work within a short space of time throughout the afternoon at the Green Fair I used a toile from a previous project and some fabric pens to create the 'Colour-Me-In' Dress.

Ethical Fashion attendees were invited to choose their favourite colour pen and to draw,doodle, colour in or write on the garment whatever and wherever they liked.

The resulting surface design was a lovely montage of childlike sketches - mainly flowers and hearts in pinks and purple. I was thinking that perhaps I would be able to wear the dress after the colour-me-in collaboration...however I think it would be best suited to a younger girl than me (!)

Ethical Fashion @ Camden Green Fayre 2010

Yesterday Regents Park in London, was home to the annual Camden Green Fair and Bikefest. Included in the festival were food stalls, green living and healthy lifestyle stalls and marquees with lots of hands on activities for the many adults and children seeking a fun day out to learn more about green lifestyle choices.

My fellow coursemates and I were running the Ethical Fashion workshop tent and Fashion Show and ShopShop marquee.Zoe was in charge of the knitting and pom pom making workshop which was a brilliant success and many people throughout the day sat and spent time with the needles and wool to make their own unique creation as a reminder of the day...
Beth was selling amazing and very yummy home made cakes to raise money towards her bike ride from London to Paris for the charity the Environmental Justice Foundation.
I was running the customising area which was mostly popular with the children attending the Green Fair. Their imagination and excitement at the thought of transforming clothes from the dressing up box to fit them was a joy to see and work with for the day.










We also had a SwapShop running all afternoon for people to swap those unwanted items for ones they will love. The swapshop ran in the fashion tent until 5pm when the fashion show began. Labels such as Annie Greenabelle, Komodo, Monkee Jeans and Nancy Dee were worn by stunning models and watched by large crowds of people who had gathered throughout the day.

Blue Scraps Dress

After volunteering for TRAID at the UK Aware event last month I began making a dress from scraps of blue, white and grey knitwear samples

Stitching this material together was quite tricky, but I recently finished sewing all the pieces together to create a summer dress - just in time for the sunshine!

Leila Hafzi + Livia Firth + Oxfam + Ebay = MY NEW DRESS!!

As documented in a previous post on my blog, the wife of Colin Firth, Livia, set herself the challenge of sourcing ethical and sustainable outfits to wear to all the red carpet events and premiers throughout awards season 2010. Her blog was published on vogue.com and I loved reading about her search for the perfect outfit for each event. She sourced amazing items, concluding with a wonderful black dress for the Oscars custom made by From Somewhere. However, my favourite dress was the one she wore for the BAFTAS - a yellow Leila Hafzi.
I recently visited the Oxfam Curiosity Shop at Selfridges and as well as buying a lovely little summer dress (as shown in a previous post) I realised that many celebrities had donated garments to sell at the pop up shop in Selfridges and also on the Oxfam EBay site. To my delight when I checked out the site Livia Firth had donated three of her Green Carpet Challenge Dresses to Oxfam - INCLUDING THE YELLOW ONE!!

I have been bidding on it for a few days and today I was successfully the highest bidder!! It will arrive in a couple of days and I can't wait. So, thank you Leila Hafzi, Livia Firth, Oxfam and Ebay for making me the very happy owner of a beautiful new dress that I will love and keep forever. - Yellow Dress Blog Post

Emilie's Prom Dress

When asked to make a prom dress for my friends sister of course I said yes! I set myself the challenge of making the dress to her design specifications entirely from reclaimed materials. I used an old purple dress of mine, a large silk chiffon scarf that was my Mums and never worn combined with my fabric box remnants and some gold lace pinched from another dress. We had a fitting last week (she loves it!)so I thought i'd put a few images together of the process of making and the journey so far...and two weeks later...Emilie will go to the prom!!!

Dress Making Workshops

These are four of the most commonly referred to businesses that provide workshops for garment making and alterations. They range in prices and availability but guarantee a fun social event, and you can also book in for private parties!

The Make Lounge

The Papered Parlour

Sew Much Fun

Fabrications

Repair and Alteration centres

For my MA project I will look further into the successes and failures of local clothing repair and alteration shops. Primary research will help me gain an insight into these businesses, as they are often associated with dry cleaners or tailors and common on many high streets.

They are a common feature within many communities and I am intruiged to find out more about these places that play such a vital role in restoring the clothing we wear out.

How successful are such places? How creative are the alterations they perform? What prices do they charge for alterations? Have they seen a change in business since the recession?

EFF Social at EJF Pop Up Shop

April Ethical Fashion Forum Social at the EJF pop up shop on Carnaby street. Speakers from Forum for the Future, EJF, and Think Act Vote brought everyone up to date with their latest projects and initiatives. After the presentations the attendees were encouraged to try on the clothes in the upstairs boutique from labels such as From Somewhere, Goodone, Lowie and Monkee Jeans. Think Act Vote t-shirts that had been redesigned and customised by other designers such as Ciel and TRAID:remade were also available to try on.

It was a fun night and really interesting to hear the speakers from different areas of the industry speak so passionately about the major issues related to environmental and ethical concerns that effect the fashion industry.

SwapShop article in the Guardian

Following the UAL Swapshop in March, I spoke with a journalist for the Guardian who was researching an article about organising 'swishing' and clothes swapping parties in your place of work.

The link went live recently, click here to read the article, although the comments left by guardian readers below were not as enthusiastic as I am about clothes swapping with their colleagues. I guess the key to swapping clothes is to find the community who best fits your style!

EJF Pop Up Shop at Carnaby Street

Today I visited the Environmental Justice Foundation pop up shop at Carnaby Street (opposite end to Liberty). I love pop up shops and think they are a great way to get the message across to lots of shoppers about the issues surrounding the clothing we buy and making us aware of the values we need to consider when buying garments.

Raising awareness of their brilliant campaigns, check out their website here

The shop is selling great clothing brands such as:

Monkee Jeans, From Somewhere, Junky Styling, Goodone and Pants to Poverty, plus the collection of EJF designer organic and fair trade t-shirts.

The EJF pop up shop will also be the venue for the next EFF Social, on Thursday 29th April.

Fabric Scraps: Destination Unknown

I work at a lovely fabric shop, Ian Mankin selling fabric woven in the UK for interiors (but I also love using some of them for fashion too!)

We always have swatches and remnants left over from out of stock fabrics, one off designs that they decided not to continue and small cut offs from when we cut samples of fabric.

Yesterday I had a sort out through 2 large bags of remnants that had been kept although we could not sell them in the shop. This type of fabric waste must be produced by many other fabric shops, but what do they do with it?

I am happy to know that at the fabric shop we throw no fabric 'away', but we have lots of small scraps in store.

If anyone reading this vounteers for community sewing projects, runs a sewing class or works in a school with a textile department who are always on the look out for scraps of fabric to practice on through stitching, patchworking or quilting, etc. these small swatches are perfect and are lovely fabrics to work with.


Send me an email if you are interested as we have lots in store and are happy to see them sent to a happy home and used!

A Weekend Workshop at Home

Family, Clothes, Sewing Machine...Good Times!

Food Workshop @ Hackney City Farm

At a Food Workshop with fellow Hackney City Farm Green Ambassadors this afternoon, three of the main points the group focused on were also strongly linked to those that continuously appear within the debates and discussions around our sustainable fashion industry. With particular focus on these issues it was interesting to see that people pioneering and promoting sustainable lifestyles in whatever industry face recurring themes.

1) Value: Realising and appreciating the real cost.

FOOD - this was of particular importance in terms of understanding and appreciating the nutritional value of fresh produce, and also the effects our food can have on our environment, directly on our bodies and health and the health of those that farm it. The value of cooking a meal and having food readily available is something that many people take for granted when they have no connection to the farming, harvesting and distribution processes.

FASHION - understanding the value of clothing also can rely on the connections we have to our clothing and wether or not we feel connected to the process of manufacture. Appreciating the value of clothes often ensures a long use phase as they are less likely to be seen as disposable if regarded as a valued item.

VALUE= It is only when people see something as important or understand the value of something that they will change lifestyles. If you want to do something, if you regard it as important, you will incorporate it into your lifestyle long term.

2) Availability - Working only with what is available at certain times of the year.

FOOD - Growing, buying and cooking only seasonal produce is a great sustainable aim, and along the way promotes local produce, a respect for the environment and a necessary education of the way our food grows. Learning about what is in season shouldn't be seen as limiting, but as a natural approach to cooking and developing different recipies as the seasons come and go.

FASHION - One of the main elements within upcycling, is working with what is available. Although this cannot be controlled in the same way as the seasonal growing of food, the vast volume of unwanted and slightly damaged clothing sourced for upcycled garments inspires the design, working with what is available at certain times...letting the materials and garments available inspire what you create is one of the most exciting and unique elements of upcycling...

"The Artists, Craftsmen and Designers now suffer from the tyranny of absolute choice. When everything becomes possible, when all the limitations are gone, design and art can easily become a never ending search for novelty, until newness becomes the only measure."#

Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World. p.42

AVAILABILITY= This sould not be seen as limiting, but acknowledged as an element out of our control, and used to inspire creativity.

3 - Community and Learning - Involvement

FOOD - One of the great memories many people associate with food is the social environment in which it is eaten and shared. Cooking with family or friends, cooking for family and friends and eating with a group of people is something that should be harnessed to promote sustainable attitudes to food. Food communities, Growing Communitues, shared food boxes and community allotments are ways of bringing people together through the growing, cooking and eating of food, and through sharing these experiences we can learn a great deal.

FASHION - Feeling connected to and involved with the process of garment creation and learning through working in a group is something that also applies to many fashion initiatves. Stitch and Bitch, Garment Workshops and Clothes Swap parties bring people together to create or exchange clothing. When the process of learning, sharing and making is combined with a social event it is a great way for people to feel connected to the garments involved, which also linked to the previously mentioned topic of value.

COMMUNITY= Being involved in a community initiative promotes learning and action that when undertaken as part of a group makes you feel involved, responsible and more empowered as you help others to achieve a goal.

My Fashion Junkie

my fashion junkie