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To re-think fashion: an extra/ordinary project is an artistic fashion accessories project exploring tangible sustainable solutions, making a call for greater industry accountability on social change and global climate issues. By collaborating with small engaged european businesses, the project intends to push the boundaries of how the fashion industry operates proposing a new and open framework which intends to avoid the systemic errors from the past and to meet environmental and social goals.
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
The global economy has little time to avoid irreversible climate change and an urgent duty to deliver on global sustainable development goals. Moreover, the pandemic has pushed further the necessity to ensure better social practices and labour rights, leading to a growing public awareness on these topics and provoking a clear change on their consumption habits.
Fashion has a significant role to play in solving these challenges because of its global scale impact, its economic and cultural influence. However, the 21st century has defined a turning point for this industry, which has increasingly become a hostage of shareholder interests, marketing rules and financial institutions, losing its ability to promote new social values, cultural reflections and forward-thinking collective movements. Since 2020 when this project was finished, the interest in the word “sustainability” has exponentially increased and fashion companies are responding with ambitious commitments on eco-collections and social justice. But their actions do not always live up to their words.
To re-think fashion: an extra/ordinary project is an artistic fashion accessories project which explores tangible sustainable solutions and makes a call for a greater industry accountability on these issues. The project focus in one product category that has increasingly become an essential item for the industry due to its commercial potential: BAGS. The project developed a set of bags styles as a case study on to finding answers to the big challenges facing this industry.
By collaborating with small engaged european businesses whose focus are to rehabilitate traditional craft, social inclusion, innovative and sustainable materials, this project intends to push the boundaries of how the fashion industry operates proposing a practical case for a new business model framework in which the systemic errors from the past are avoided and help to meet the necessary environmental and social changes.
Key objectives for sustainability
To re-think fashion: ... project goal is to inspire change, to re-question the fashion’ industry business model scale, its marketing practices and the irrevocable status of certain materials and processes. It aims to prove sustainable solutions can be affordable and simple to obtain, that substantial investment and innovation are not always required to create a circular economy. To achieve this the project target 6 key objectives*:
Design relevancy. Go beyond the mainstream creation process, choosing a very unexpected and emotional approach to design and allowing a huge amount of formal and function artistic exploration.
Small production scale. Promoting the comeback of couture techniques and manufacturing as a major benefit. Its exclusive handmade beauty allows artistic and technical exploration, small scale production and made to measure orders responding specifically to customer needs.
Sustainable and circular materials sourcing. Transition away from fashion’s current extractive sourcing to a transformative one, actively looking for a sourcing opportunity to have a net positive impact, improving environmental and social outcomes.
Reduced use of resources and low impact pollution. Adopting a simple and transparent business model in which small scale production allows to control manufacturing processes, reduce or eliminate pollution.
Worker’s welfare. Take a high engagement with local companies, small suppliers and manufactures whose living wages and purchasing practices showed transparency, a robust and meaningful relationship with organized labour within its own operations.
Waste management. Believing that old products and materials can be recycled into new ones in a virtuous loop that detaches the industry from a purely extractive, linear business model and enables it to be more sustainable.
* Please note that the 6 key objectives proposed here respond to the 6 key issues detailed bellow on the box entitled “… global challenges the project addressed...
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
To re-think fashion: an extra/ordinary project aesthetics main goal is to go beyond fashion industry’ seasonality and commercial design processes – which is mostly and purely based on market trends and competitors benchmarks - and punch well above their height to affirm a passion for arts, crafts, innovation and unexpected ideas, an attempt to express a veneer of contemporary society’ feelings and values.
Like many other industries, fashion is now old fashioned and it's in fact conflicting with its own stated values of virtuosity, diversity, creativity, critical perspective, and social change. The constant race for the “new” does not allow enough time to reflect on real people’ needs or engage on culture, collective movements or social change.
It would be false to pretend society needs all this amount of fashion products. What we need to create is an artistic and emotional point of view and a revolutionary vision of beauty and function, which promotes experience and collective inspired dialogue.
Going further into this reflection, To re-think fashion: an extra/ordinary project started in 2019 and evolved until 2020 – just before the Covid pandemic started – on designing a small scale fashion bags collection whose purpose was to free fashion from questioning the designer's expressiveness or the craftsman's skills in the service of a global project, the fruit of meetings and exchanges.
The idea was to promote a multidisciplinary solution by integrating crafts, sustainable materials and processes in a critical context in which we can find a new relevance to fashion, daring to establish a conversation between idiosyncratic and pragmatism, individuality and collectivity, ephemeral and longevity.
The collection of bags presents unexpected and bold, adventurous and romantic designs whose purpose is to appeal to the eye, to the imagination, to the conscience and to the heart, engaging and uplifting the spectator and the user.
Key objectives for inclusion
The project did focus on 4 key inclusion objectives:
Co- design. Go beyond the linear mainstream creation process, the project intended that all collaborators were integrated in the design process, each one providing one own expertise through exchanging back and forth during the whole design and craft process.
Affordable and accessible materials sourcing. To prove that sustainability, quality and affordability are compatible, the set of bags proposed – even if it was only developed until the sample stage – were between 250€ - 450€ retail price, range relatively affordable if compared with the industry average for the category.
Inclusion, equality, and horizontal hierarchy. Equal opportunities were given to every person on the chain of development of this project. Open discussions and exchange did dominate the process.
Madam Gauthrot, whose atelier did collaborate in the manufacturing of the bags; Ali Rakib, whose company mediated de development of the Wild Silk, a low impact textile designed in collaboration with an Uzbekistani craftsmanship cooperative where each worker participates actively in the organization; La Réserve des Arts team enthusiastic about the project, leading to the acquisition of two different cotton textiles, found among two fashion conglomerated dead stocks.
Transmission. There was a lot of knowledge and skills transmission onto developing the project between all parties. Madam Gauthrot, whose atelier is open to student and designers to learn craft techniques, enabling them to watch the evolution of the project; ForWavers, which did collaborate with craftswomen in a small village that no longer need to abandon their family to work on big city manufactures, staying in their own communities to assure the transmission to the new generations their traditional crafts; La Réserve des Arts, which hire citizen in precarious conditions, collaborating with young creative professionals but as well with schools to educate on circular practices.
Results in relation to category
Corresponding to the chosen category, the project presented the following results:
Design.
Aiming to create a collective experience by designing an unexpected, artistic and bold series of objects (bags) in opposition to the purely market based and commercial fashion’s industry creative process.
Remind fashion is a cultural, social and an economic player, whose role is not to spit out tones of products per season, but to promote forward thinking concepts, formulate new artistic postures and engage into new forms of collective movement.
Create an intemporal and original designs in opposition to fashion industry normalization.
Materials.
The use of circular materials, by using dead stock textiles from fashion conglomerates instead of buying new materials.
The use of natural waste, by transforming silk moth’ already broken cocoons to create pain-free wild silk textile, giving value to resources that normally are discarded; by transforming wood leftovers in a natural “textile” in replacement to leather.
The deliberate exclusion pollutant textiles and materials as per example nylon, polyester, or leather.
The choice of sourcing mainly from small local suppliers, whose sustainable values are robust.
Promoting social inclusion, by working with associations that team up with vernacular craftsmanship, both supporting these communities in their way to independency and assure the continuity of their culture and craft techniques.
Manufacturing.
The choice of manufacturing the samples in collaboration with a small local atelier, be able to produce made to order et personalized quantities.
The adoption of traditional or hand-crafted manufacturing techniques in opposition to mainstream industrialized industrial manufacturing.
Consciously working towards the best quality materials and manufacturing, to offer long a lasting series of bag’ samples.
The deliberate exclusion of toxic components in the manufacturing process, as plastic materials or petroleum-based glues.
How Citizens benefit
At To re-think fashion: an extra/ordinary project implementation phase there hasn’t been any direct involvement of civil society, although it was completely motivated buy it. This project believes citizens are vital to upscale a more circular business models - fashion rentals, second-hand resale and post-sale repair services - that could enable the industry to cut its impact enormously. At the expansion step of this project, the participation of civil society would be necessary for the following 4 key phases:
Product Design phase. Based on exchange with citizens, promote a new product visual language based on the concepts of mending, “do-it-yourself” (DIY), upcycling vintage clothes and objects, repairing, customization. Promote these techniques as unique products and accessible than mainstream products. To work with citizens as partners to incorporate pre-consumer textile scraps and damaged products into the design process. Propose repairs and design alterations to reduce product returns and extend product lifetime.
Product acquisition phase. Educate citizens in how to act in their sustainability intentions. Civil society must play their part in driving industry decarbonization efforts through their purchasing decisions. With the right information, consumers may prefer products and services with lower emissions footprints, as per example rental, second-hand, upcycled or repaired products or services.
Product use phase. Establish dialogue with citizens in order they embrace circular business models to extend the life of products, by adopting sustainable usage behaviors, such as taking better care of products, reducing washing, and adopting open-air drying, repairing, and customizing.
Product after-use phase. Dialogue with citizens in order they play a role in recycling products, which can reduce incineration and landfill, through actions like trading products through circular business models, bringing products to post-consumer collectors and recyclers.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
While the industry is starting to recover from the pandemic, it must also address the climate crisis.
This project intends to propose practical case study on sustainability, in opposition to the mainstream industry’ argument that time and large investments are necessary to implement a more circular and responsible business model. The mission of this project is to hack the fashion system inaction, by proposing a reflection on existent, affordable and simple solutions that can be taken now. This is a small-scale case study with the ambition to expand and diversify its impact.
This project recognizes the inherent contradiction between the current fashion industry that thrives off newness and consumption, and the concept of sustainability. But this project did explore a possible honest solution by introducing upcycled materials, organic, natural dyed and recycled fabrics.
This project believes the future relies on people. This project aimed to have positive impact on everyone that collaborated with it, assuring each person involved in this project did earn a fair wage and was recognized and valued equally.
We built open and collaborative relationships with our collaborators and took the time to understand the complexities and the cultural and social contexts of our sourcing region.
We did assure our project had a positive impact in this communities.
As previously detailed, the project target six key sustainable objectives****: Design relevancy, small production scale, Sustainable and circular materials sourcing, Reduced use of resources and low impact pollution, Worker’ welfare and Waste management.
*** (Please check more details of the small business profiles that did contribute to this project in achieving the detail goals on the box entitled “…additional documentation …”)
****(Please note that the 6 key sustainable objectives proposed by this project are detailed above on the box entitled “… key objectives of your project in terms of sustainability...")
Learning transferred to other parties
This is a small project whose learnings could be a subject to analysis on its scalability and transferability potential. At this stage of lactation, this the project target 4 key objectives in how it could be transferred to other parties and to different contexts:
Educating for sustainable development. Using the project learnings to educate citizens of all ages, cultures and backgrounds with the knowledge, skills, values, and alternative attitudes to address the global challenges we are facing, including climate change, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, poverty and inequality. The project would like to inspire a fresh mindset by encouraging lifestyles that doesn’t impact our current routines, while using the planet’s resources in moderation.
Sustainable collaboration and information with police makers. This project would like to inspire policy makers to help to drive decarbonization across the industry, by laying out more ambitious policy framework to support sustainable products, services and business models that reduce waste production, including levers such as landfill and incineration taxes, banning on the destruction of unsold goods.
Sustainable collaboration and information with brands and retailers. Inspired by the learnings of this project, brands and retailers could prioritize transparency and analyze their own specific actions to define key levers for lower their climate impact. Brands could drive sustainable decision-making at the design stage, by adopting sustainable material usage, minimizing production waste and encouraging end-of-use recycling.
Sustainable collaboration and information with supply chain. This project would like to promote within the supply chain the opportunity to work closely with collaborators and develop equal partnerships, particularly motivated to improve labour conditions and wages, assessing purchasing practices and incentivizing value chain players on sustainable activities.
