Celebrating fifteen years of the MA Fashion and the Environment / MA Fashion Futures at London College of Fashion, this ‘sustainability social’ from Centre for Sustainable Fashion reflected on years of changemaking within the fashion system.

Ahead of a four-day Imagining Possibilities festival hosted at The Lab E20 in Stratford’s new East Bank, this evening of conversation considered where we started and where we’re at. As one of the original MA students — of the second year this Masters degree ran — it was beneficial to catch up with my fellow cohort, and reflect on how I fit in this world (if at all).

The main discussion was led by Professor Dilys Williams, with guests Clare Press – sustainability communicator who’d just launched another book, Wear Next; Julia Crew — Course Leader for MA Fashion Futures and one of the very first graduates from the 2008 cohort; and recent course graduate Kaja Grujic — a film maker and creative storyteller.

Images: 1. The Imagining Possibilities exhibition room at The Lab E20 with designer Christopher Raeburn’s signature reclaimed parachute material hanging from the ceiling; 2. The panel discussion with from L-R: Dilys Williams, Julia Crew, Clare Press and Kaja Grujic.

Fifteen more years.

I joined the MA Fashion and the Environment course in its second year. I’d been accepted on the MA Womenswear course too, and was considering whether guidance in sustainability issues would be more useful over forging my own path. At the time, in 2011, “sustainability” was still very much a buzzword. It was incredibly niche with a particular aesthetic. There were folk trying to shift this, but it was also difficult to do so when the industry was simply not set up to be helpful. So my concern was whether I’d be able to introduce sustainability into a womenswear course anyway, or if I’d need the support. I chose the specific course, accepting that the point of an Masters degree was to explore and learn. I don’t believe I received any support, or at the very least no environment where I felt comfortable asking, but there were opportunities opened to us that I wouldn’t have been granted on a non sustainability-driven course.

Looking back, I was incredibly green and naïve. But then again, so was everyone else in that realm. We were all trying to find a pathway to somewhere that didn’t exist. So with this opening query to the evening’s discussion regarding what the fashion system could look like in another 15 years, well, frankly, it gripped me with concern. The pathways are there, but they’re no less easy to travel than all that time ago. Perhaps they’re even more so confusing and convoluted — partly because we know more, and partly because we’ve realised we can’t just consider the one system. Pathways criss-cross, so sustainabilty in fashion needs to regard much more than just itself.

Dilys explained that before the course was launched, 300 people convened to discuss the fashion system and what it should look like — i.e. how to design a course curriculum if you weren’t aware concretely of what holistically to explore or change. I wonder what the brainstorms from that discussion included. I don’t remember the specifics of our projects, though do recall that it was the first interdisciplinary education I’d had; for that I’m grateful. Rather than focussing on fashion — on the clothing — we considered less-traversed areas, such as perfume and footwear. It helped us to consider the broader impact of the fashion industry.

Clare brought up that the fashion media is there to highlight the zeitgeist. Trend reports and journalism focus attention on what’s going on, so there’s this infinite loop of real people influencing trends and then trends (supposedly) influencing people. During our degree, we visited Trend Union in Paris, the trend forecasting agency founded by Lidewij Edelkoort, who speaks to social change as a means of shifting fashion production and consumption — over this conventional model of brands calling the shots. [The Anti_Fashion Manifesto is a great starting point to hear Li Edelkoort’s thoughts on the broken fashion system].

The Centre for Sustainable Fashion was founded alongside the course, developing as a research and knowledge exchange centre. One of their most recent projects was called Fashioned From Nature, led in conjunction with the V&A Museum (who were launching a curated exhibition of that title) where students considered four future scenarios, and how fashion fit into them. As with trend research, this holistic foresight can be used to create, converse and engage with the fashion system (and others) by pinpointing where you are now, and where you want to go — or perhaps, where you’re heading if you decide not to do anything.

Relationships to nature.

Kaja introduced her short film — Entangled — explaining how it considered themes of environmental feminism and deep ecology. Dancers were asked the question, “What is your relationship to nature?” and filmed, reframing the conversation around the body as active participant. A query about the importance of courses such as this was brought up; students engage in critical thinking and are given the opportunities to communicate, assessing their own risks and parameters alongside those of their fellows. As with the fashion industry’s many sectors, and as with the body, we can’t address issues in the same place each time because these risks and parameters shift. It is not binary or linear, there is no right or wrong.

Yas (?) of The Lab E20 made a pertinent point here; that idealogically we’re mostly the same, but have a communication problem with various language barriers to cut through. Nature is an immediate relationship, though it isn’t considered as such; our people and stuff relationships take precendent, with us being separate from nature rather than a part of it. So how can we address our relationship to nature if we’re not even addressing that we have one in the first place? I do think we were having these conversations fifteen years ago as curious students on a higher degree program that regarded sustainability, but we for sure were not using terms such as “environmental feminism” and “deep ecology”. We weren’t discussing regeneration, even. Kaja did use the phrase “cryptonaturalist”, however, and then I was completely lost; that does read like a trend report.

Reframing growth.

In order to reframe growth — in particular growth of the economic kind — there needs to be a reframing of the opposite, i.e. less. Does producing and having less even slow or reduce or mitigate growth? For wealthier nations that don’t lack access to more, or have no qualms about owning stuff, then for sure there needs to be an addressing of growth in terms of how to keep a stable economy without overproduction and overconsumption. For less wealthy nations where there should be access to stuff, particularly when it comes to subsistence and self-sufficiency, then the notion of slowing growth isn’t right. Degrowth is an umbrella term, though if we look at concepts such as Doughnut Economics, then there is an ability to balance out our production and our consumption and our waste, making it socially and environmentally equitable.

A suggestion was made that creativity is a tool for reframing “less”, and indeed if we look to methods of low waste pattern cutting or utilising reclaimed materials, then you can only design and make within certain constraints. You have to problem solve much more in this scenario than if you have materials and resources on tap. This is where regeneration comes in; ok, so we can’t necessarily prevent certain shopping behaviours and we can’t pull the plug on all brands, therefore production and consumption will continue (and in fact why do we want this to stop, because we like designing and making and shopping, and this does enable economies). However, we can amend the system so that the problem solving interconnects and we regenerate more than extract.

This 'fair consumption space’ was covered in public interest think tank Hot Or Cool’s report ‘Unfit, Unfair, Unfashionable: Resizing Fashion for a Fair Consumption Space’, which found inequalities in carbon emission and levels of fashion consumption across different income groups within the G20 countries. To achieve a fair and just transition to climate neutrality, then lifestyle options need to shift enabling certain countries to improve their ‘sufficiency fashion consumption’ and others to lower it. One statistic from the report states: “While the richest 20% in the UK emit 83% above the 1.5-target [Paris Agreement], 74% of people in Indonesia live below sufficiency consumption levels of fashion”.

Reparations.

This aptly led onto an audience question about reparations to cultures, peoples and wisdom trashed by the fashion system. How to repair when we’re the damagers? Who’ll pay for the transition? These were not necessarily queries fifteen years ago. “Ethical fashion” was a term, and there were considerations towards garment workers, though I don’t feel that there was directives around waste colonialism, or appropriation. It very much felt a segregation between those working on people ethics, on animal ethics, and on environmental ethics.

In some respects this is still ongoing, though connections between the issues are more apparent; for one instance, if we look to wool, we’re now considering the impact on soil health and nutrient cycling, which affects animal health, which affects product, which affects income, which affects livelihoods and then how that all feeds back in to itself. The offshoots are considered, such as microplastic pollution if we instead use synthetics, or the wastewater management of wool scouring. We are at the talking point of regeneration now, not sustainability. And yet a lot of this remains in a backwards motion, because it’s seemingly too complex to fix, so holism is swept aside as an arbitrary consideration.

It’s how the argument is maintained of negative economical affect to garment workers if we suddenly stop producing, negating how living wages, safe working conditions, appropriate handling of waste export, and overall better design can impact them positively in terms of income and health. And ultimately have positive knock-on effects elsewhere.

Materials.

Disconnect with materials then came up, and actually was the first instance in this discussion that the term “regenerative” was used, coming from Amanda Johnston, founder of textiles showcase The Sustainable Angle. They were one of the first to make sourcing sustainable and ethical textiles for fashion apparel more accessible, scrutinising supplier information to better inform and educate designers and brands. When they launched in 2011, I’d already been on my own journey of textile sourcing, attempting to understand fibres more intuitively and deeply while also studying for a commercial fashion design degree. The Sustainable Angle’s showcase and materials library allowed students to get to grips with how sourcing worked, and opened their eyes to the frustration of minimum order quantities.

But you had to go searching. You had to already have the mindset to know you wanted to hunt for the “more” sustainable and ethical materials. You had to be willing to ask questions again and again, even when dejected by suppliers. It is more straightforward these days to find collections within collections, or even separate stands from specific mills, so the conversations come easier. And yet, there is still an intense lack of knowledge and awareness, mostly due to the effort of cutting through greenwashing and miscommunications. Though my MA course was interdisciplinary and introduced critical thinking, it didn’t actually teach. Everything I learnt was off my own back; doing an additional internship or attending a “design camp”. All of the knowledge regarding materials should’ve come beforehand through prior studies; Masters degrees are about research and disseminating ideas, building on what you already know (or think you know), not about studying.

However, we are expecting students (and designers and brands) to know it all in order to solve it all. If the opportunities don’t exist to learn, and no motivation from tutors to enquire, and existing information is all skewed, then how can anyone putting themselves in a vulnerable position of development actually develop? Frankly I do believe that more objective education around materials and textiles can support many industries, and it can be engrained without people needing to go on the hunt alone. Connecting the dots at this base level ensures connection at deeper levels.

Perhaps that is why we’re still buying plastic clothing, as one query pertained to. On the one hand it was argued that journalists are to blame for spurring desire for such materials and clothing, but I (quietly) argued that it’s all personal. There are some synthetic clothes that I really just want for certain purposes, even when I know they’re inherently extractive and costly environmentally and socially. I’m educated, as it were, on materials though I still choose on occasion to go for something destructive. The connections need to be all-encompassed if we are to make informed decisions; it’s not simply about connecting conventional cotton cultivation to soil health degradation, but too the dominoes that are set in motion if that method is chosen. You can’t rock up and immediately understand what “regenerative fibres” are, if you don’t understand the norm.

Images: Exhibitors showing as part of the Imagining Possibilities festival at The Lab E20 — 1. Fibre information and board with ‘global fibre demand’ pie chart from The Sustainable Angle; 2. Natural fibre garments dyed with local plants from Dr. Mila Burcikova; 3. Material exploration of flax fibre from CQ Studio.

Commodification.

It was commented that “sustainability” was only of interest fifteen years ago, and then it became commodified. Something to market and profiteer on. The research centre and the Masters courses were and are intended to allow opportunity and space for students to deconstruct the fashion system, while realigning why fashion matters — in the grander scheme of things, and for themselves. I finished my degree totally disheartened by the creation of stuff, and rather than going into design or leading my own brand as I had thought would be the case when I applied, I moved towards textiles to create conversations instead.

Why do we make? Why do we like certain materials? Why do we dress the way we do? And then more deeply into, who made the textiles and why? It was an extension of my final project — Everything Is Familiar Up Close — that sought to uncover if we have a greater attachment to our clothing when something about it speaks to our innate personality and needs. Not necessarily a sentimentality, but a sensation evoked that affected how we connected. Sustainability was contextual. It wasn’t binary or linear: that this is better than something else, but considered relative to another in that particular time and place.

I’d written in my notes from the evening the phrase“retaining integrity”, and I’m unsure if that’s in regards to students on a course, or the fashion industry as a whole, and whether it’s past or future. But it fits within this consideration of commodification. We cannot escape a need to create money from creation; trading is how capitalism works, and it doesn’t look like we’ll forego this. Plus, fashion is a massive industry. Even if we refer to it as clothing rather than “fashion”, it’s still a human requirement isn’t it, to be clothed. So, it’s not that fashion shouldn’t profit from the ideas and stories it sets out into the world, but that it should retain integrity with what it creates. After all, there is space for non-profits and social enterprises; money is obtained, though it circles differently. Sustainability has been commodified, but that transaction can be an optimistic conversation between maker and user, seller and buyer.

Clare’s closing words were, “I’m doing this thing is powerful indeed”. Every small action has a part to play. We should “make space intentionally for optimism” so that we’re not bogged down with how fifteen years on from “sustainability” being a new word on people’s tongues, it’s still just as buzzy. Things need to rapidly shift, that’s undeniable. The extraction is sickening, the exploitation is unfathomable, the disconnect is discouraging. And yet, stuff has moved on. Through uncertainty there has been enlightenment. Research has been conducted, reports have shed light, debates have occurred, the digital space has improved and grown — and while it increases how much we feel we still need to know, don’t forget that we do have more awareness. We just need to act. I guess, we need to imagine possibilities, ey.

Images: More photos from The Lab E20 exhibit — 1. A participatory board asking visitors to answer on post-it notes “What might you need from a supportive fashion community to continue to develop your fashion practice for earth and equity?”; 2. The Centre For Sustainable Fashion’s manifesto; 3. ‘The Future of Fashion: Imagining Possibilities’ exhibit entrance board with dress from Christopher Raeburn made from a reclaimed parachute.

I’m always a little disheartened when I’m in a room of folk with similar mindsets who are talking about shifting a system. Especially when fifteen years on we’re still doing the same, and generally, still talking about the same. While I’ve tried to be optimistic here about the scenario we’re in and the actions we may need to take, it does ultimately feel like snail’s pace when we need a seismic shift. I existed there in that space wondering what I was myself really doing; I write and I chat, attempting to communicate the need for interconnection, or I storytell through workshops and one-off products. It’s not like I’m doing anything dramatic.

I guess at least here I was amongst fellow friends of my cohort who have all gone into various areas of the industry, or are not in it at all, instead watching from the sidelines. Rather than just a pack of designers all vying for consumer attention, this was in fact a room of people pushing boundaries in their own niche. Not necessarily grassroots, but uncommon enough that the small fragments can eventually interconnect. When people are doing different things, the conversations are wider and allow for queries and learning. That’s the beauty of interdisciplinary courses, and that’s also why separate industries need to collaborate.

You may also like to read:

Citizen Fashion Policy Workshop.

Books: Slow + Fast Fashion.

A manifesto for the Fashion Revolution.