London Fashion Week Brings New Eco-Friendly Materials

Monday, March 05, 2012

The London Fashion Week is a world-wide event, but this year, sustainable designers took matters into their own hands to raise awareness of ethical fashion.

The London Fashion Show is a highly regarded event in the industry, but this year it had less eco-friendly collections submitted to the show than ever. This was surprising until it was soon discovered that most of the sustainable designers took matters into their own hands and joined together to raise awareness of ethical fashion for their own show called "The Good Fashion Show." This exhibition was free, open to the public and turned out to be the largest off-schedule event of London Fashion Week. 

For the first time the University of East Angila (UEA) hosted a green fashion event in conjunction with London Fashion Week. Scientists, branding experts, environmentalists and designers all came together in an effort to exchange ideas on the future of fashion as well as discuss suggestions on how the fashion industry can overall reduce its carbon footprint. According to industry reports, over one million tons of fabric are thrown away every year, 25 percent of which are recycled. 

Liliya Serazetdinova from InCrops (one of the eco companies sponsoring the event) said:

Designs have the power to reduce the carbon footprint of products through material selection, development of energy-efficient processing, and improved end-of-life options, and to develop prototypes for using natural materials in mainstream products.

The goal of the event was to showcase new materials that can be used for making eco-friendly goods such as shoes, accessories, clothes, home and car interiors. Examples are a pair of stiletto heels made completely of pistachio nuts and coffee beans or fabrics made of wood and orange peel. To find out more information on The Good Fashion Show visit www.thegoodfashionshow.org

Here are some of the designers seen at the show:

 Hetty Rose: re-using and re-working gorgeous vintage materials to make sustainable, well-fitting shoes.

Joanna Cave: Recycled silver and ethically sourced pearls.

NV London Calcutta: Handmade and Sustainable designs from Indian culture.

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Update from the Road: Retablos and Ceramic Artisans

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

An update from Peru from Emily

This week I got to go visit a cooperative of ceramists and retableros in the outskirts of Lima. 

Understanding the Culture

One "taller" or workshop I went to visit was from a group of artesanos who are all originally from Ayacucho. When terrorism from the Sendero Luminoso or "The Shining Path" struck the region many people moved to Lima to have a safer life. This group of Ayacuchanos stuck together after they moved and created a small artesano village where they still practice the traditional techniques from the region such as the "retablos". The spanish word retablo translates to "behind the table or altar" in Latin and are regularly used as portable altars. They are formed in wooden boxes and the clay sculptures inside the box depict a scene that holds religious, historical or everyday significance to the people of the the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands. They were brought over by the Spanish to teach the indigenous people of Peru about Catholicism. Much like the other many socially significant rituals and traditions that the Spanish brought over, Peruvians, in a very syncretic fashion, starting fusing their culture and depicted everyday life instead of focusing just on the Catholic religion. I was super impressed by the retablo below depicting Noah's Ark. The person showing me this told me that it was this particular artisan's social commentary on how we are polluting our Earth.

 Encouraging Good Luck

I couldn't resist buying an adorable Ekeko from the co-op. Ekeko is the god of abundance and joy, and figurines are known for bringing good luck. A tradition is to place cigarettes in the Ekeko's mouth once a year. Our Ekeko is already up to a pack a day, so we think we are going to have tons of luck. The Ekeko is traditionally depicted as a man with a mustache wearing traditional Andean clothes and completely loaded with bags and baskets with food, household objects and currency bills. He is commonly found as a little statue to be put some place special in the house, in this case, our new office in Lima. 

The legend of the Ekeko tells about an Indian girl working in Bolivia who was in love with Isidoro Choquewanca. She left the town where they both grew up and in an attempt to protect his love, Isidoro gave her a small statue known as an Ekeko. Isidoro enrolled in the indigenous army and was briefly reunited with the girl. He left food near the statue every week, but no one knew it was him. As the story goes, during a siege on the town, it was believed that the Ekeko provided food in hard times and helped people survive.

Writing this blog entry, I started to explore the idea of emiLime being a pioneer in syncretic fashion. As I meet more talented artisans everyday, I immediately start to design and think of how I can take their amazing skills and adapt them into a product that I would want to wear or display in my home. Is syncretism a bad thing? If the merging of cultures and people inevitably happen, should artistic traditions stay isolated and in their original form? I believe everything is fluid, especially human beings and our thoughts and feelings which are at the root of creativity, so I like the idea of very traditional techniques retaining their essence, but being able to adapt. I think this is best way to keep these traditions alive.  For me, bringing my culture and my perception of beauty and fashion and blending it with the amazing materials and skills that I come across in Peru is pure fashion syncretism.

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