Centre for Sustainable Fashion

Alternative Fashion Week

April 21, 2009 by amucklow

Get yourself down to Spitalfields Market today, tomorrow and Thursday to see the very best in alternative fashion.

Alternative Fashion Week is unlike any other fashion week. Open to everyone and free to the designers to participate, the energy and atmosphere are palpable. Running for a full week with 15 shows a day, attracting audiences of over 10,000 and with a vibrant fashion market of wild and wonderful accessories, this event is a prime example of how imagination and resourcefulness can overcome a mountain of economic obstacles and promote sustainability.

In 1993 Spitalfields was a deserted, run down area with a huge empty market building. Today it is probably the most exciting cultural quarter in London with its markets, art galleries, shops, restaurants and bars attracting millions of visitors every year. Alternative Fashion Week has played its part in regenerating the area, raising its profile to a global audience and promoting hundreds of new designers.

This is fashion on the edge, risky, experimental, fashion for the future. It’s not about money or material success but inspiration and ideology, how to have designer fashion in the current financial climate, credit crunch couture, offering a world of real opportunities. Alternative Fashion Week provides that vital stepping stone between the graduate shows and the mainstream fashion industry.

Alternative Fashion Week is concerned to raise environmental awareness and actively supports recycling and ethical sourcing. Each year a growing number of collections supports these themes.

Every year Alternative Arts has to raise the funds to produce Alternative Fashion Week. This year we are supported by Rescue Cream, Hammerson and the Spitalfields Estate. We are also supporting a local charity the Spitalfields Crypt Trust who will be taking up a collection at each show.