Centre for Sustainable Fashion

Season's Greetings

From all the team at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion we wish you a most joyful season and happy New Year!

The Centre will be closed over Christmas from 22nd December to 10th January

Holly Berry

Holly Berry is one of the designers on our Business Support Programme. Holly makes woven accessories and blankets that provide warmth, colour and individuality with an appreciation for contemporary design and craft. Traditionally made in the UK supporting British manufacture and hand weaving.

Look out for  the special Cashmere and Merino blankets arriving to brighten up the year, available in early January, reminding us of the important things in life with their Morse Coded message! Plus a new batch of hand-woven skinny scarves soon to come off the loom!

Aura Herbal Wear Fabrics

Aura Herbal Wear- a supplier on our Shared Talent India sourcing toolkit website- have a 10% discount sale on their herbal dyed/printed GOTs certified organic fabrics

For more info email: inquiry@auraherbalwear.com

Creative Collective – Opportunity for Sustainable Designers

 Slaves of the Extraordinary are a team of highly skilled creatives joining forces to  take you to the heights of forward thinking, imagination and creativity. Our talent, passion and creative integrity set us apart from the everyday.

 We value the environment and believe people should be treated ethically  and fairly at every level within the  design industry. Escape from normality and join us for what will be an  explosion of creative energy, no short of extraordinary some would say….

 The slaves are on the lookout for new and unexposed  talent. We are currently seeking 2-3 highly skilled, experimental and creative Fashion/Costume Designers who have an interest in  Sustainability. Designers will be briefed with a theme and will produce 1-3 looks for a photo-shoot for Slaves of the Extraordinary. 60% of the look needs to be created using sustainable materials and resources.

  These challenges are designed to push boundaries, create forward  thinking visual imagery and showcase the Designers work. They would like  anyone interested to submit their work by the 14th of January 2011.

  For more information please contact Lauren Solomon  lauren@slavesoftheextraordinary.com

Brazil: Party dresses to hire

The party season has almost been and gone before I’ve had time to figure out whether my trusty old spangles can do the rounds again. While being mindful of the pennies and of course, shunning wasteful thoughts about getting a new outfit for every party I can’t help thinking that the Brazilians are on to something…

Hire a dress for the party season

The number of dress hire outlets here is impressive. Dotted along a six-lane, noisy road the window displays change weekly. Venture inside and rows, racks and rails of colour cordinated frocks help recollect memories of dressing up games and fun. Hiring a dress is something of a military style operation. Questionaires about function, style, location, colour and a host of measurements later and the trying on can begin.

Of course, if you want, you can browse the rainbow rails or you can relax in a plush changing room with a coffee and Cinderella pretensions until the dresses flow in your direction. The rest is simple, go to the ball and when midnight comes return the dress and let someone else wear it to a different ball.

Styling and Brand Visualisation Workshop with Tamara Cincik

Last week we held a Business Support Programme Workshop with stylist Tamara Cincik. It was a fascinating session and insightful exploration of styling and brand visualisation. Here’s a snippet from Tamara’s blog post:

Alex McIntosh, who works there, agreed with me in our chats beforehand, that my take on sustainable fashion: ie that it needs to be as good as its unethical competitors, while maintaining it’s credentials, is the right way to see sustainable fashion’s future and this then was the starting block for my lecture.  Our opinion was endorsed coincidentally (great minds think alike!), by New Gen winner, designer Christopher Raeburn, at the Esthetica talk hosted the day before at Somerset House.

There had been a phenomenal response, something like 30 designers came to the event.  So after a quick breakdown of my own career – which I tried to glide past(!), I discussed celebrity endorsement and the importance of visual imagery and consistent iconography for brand identity: breaking this down from the highest of high end, such as Chanel and Dior, how it has worked with my celebrity clients and then how this translates to these designers own developing labels.  Fascinating, when you break down marketing a strategy and see how this effects each of us: from me the stylist, through to designer, advertising exec, art director, consumer et al, it is really simply fascinating.  Especially when you translate that to the power of good, creating innovative sustainable fashion: ie guilt-free consumerism, which doesn’t rest on it’s eco-credentials, but really is a product of good design.

I worked through the designer’s own collections: their lookbook imagery and concepts; spending time with quick-fire responses to their individual strategy and vision for their company, mentoring each of them with different questions, answers and responses to their work, as each is a different designer, with a different style/collection/aim/idea of who their brand is aimed at.  I came back to them with game-plans, ideas and I hope some good advice!  I loved it, I really realised how much I enjoyed mentoring them, when I realised 4 hours had gone by and I would happily have stayed for 4 more!

Studio Space

Choolips is one of the labels on our Business Support Programme which aims to help existing and emerging London based fashion businesses. They have space available in their loft:

We have a gorgeous space and there are two more desk spaces available. This will suit either two individuals, a small company of two or people keen to desk share. The location itself is charming & ideal to host small shoots for photographers & film makers. It also makes a great space to host workshops & maybe a Pilates class?

We are 5min walk from Brick Lane/2min from Whitechapel Station. The wireless broadband & bills are included/heating is pay as go. Meeting area and access to a private meeting room. Free carpark/safe bike storage

Rent: 1 x Desk Space £280
Small company of two £500/month
Hot Desking £15/day

If you are interested please get in touch with Annegret: annegret@choolips.com

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Vassilisa Profile Live

Vassilisa’s Profile has gone live in the Profiling Business section of the CSF website.

Vassilisa is one of the labels on our Business Support Programme which aims to help existing and emerging London based fashion businesses. The next Programme is due to start in February 2011. Find out more and register your interest

Vassilisa

Vassilisa is a luxury fashion label named after the classic Russian fairytale heroine “Vassilisa the Beautiful”, who encompasses the beauty, magic and femininity that lay at the heart of the brands aesthetic concept.

Vassilisa brings clients a newfound fairytale beauty. Vassilisa plays on heritage and folklore through stunning and inspiring women’s collections of clothes and accessories.

Unique style is based on meticulous research and modern interpretation of myth, history, art and symbolism.

Vassilisa is a darling of “those in the know” editors and buyers: Vassilisa appearing in Vogue (UK, Russia), Elle (USA), Tatler (UK, Russia) and on the cover of Women’s Wear Daily, with orders from some of the world’s most high-end stores including: CoutureLab (London), Tearose (Milan), Satine (LA) and LVMH LeBonMarche (Paris).

Twice a year, Vassilisa supplies an international elite clientele with bespoke designs and limited edition pieces: fine silk chiffon dresses, feminine skirts and signature caftans. Pure silk scarves have quickly become bestsellers, their success determined by the special quality of the materials and finishing, as well as by highly individual authentic prints. The design process based on a sketchbook method includes research of Russian iconography, cinema, modern art and architecture, producing original limited edition prints with distinctive animalistic, floral and geometric motifs.

Nadja Solovieva, the designer behind the brand, graduated from St Martin’s BA (Hons) in fashion design and trained in Vivienne Westwood’s and Alexander McQueen’s studios. Nadja believes in “Slow Fashion” – the concept that recognizes individual design of artistic quality over mass-market production, focused approach and personal relationships with people involved in the process of creation. Nadja serves exclusive clientele with beauty that sustains through the changes of season and trend.

“The program clarified many things for me and my business and helped me to understand myself better. I clearly saw that I have an interest in luxury and the sustainability aspect of luxury, rather than trend and fashion as such. I have always tended to use materials as efficiently as possible, and make sizes which make use of fabric most efficiently, rather than traditional sizes, which generate cut off waste. I am passionate about working with old world/ European smaller manufacturers and having a personal relationship. I discovered I belong to a slow fashion movement.  I believe in meaning and depth in design.”

• Visit Vassilisa

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Jump[er] for Joy by Kelly Bowerbank

We are delighted to welcome a guest post from Kelly Bowerbank of Gaudion Bowerbank on this month’s subject of joy:

My long suffering boyfriend, will testify fervently to the joy I find in fashion. Frequently he throws his arms in the air and fixes me with a look of seriousness only previously mastered by Zoolander, before exclaiming, “you must agree, Kelly. We have to get to a point where we can store all of your clothes and accessories in the wardrobes. NOT in suitcases, on clothes horses, in washing baskets, the floor and NOT on the spare bed! Please don’t buy anything else!”. It may not surprise you to hear, dear reader, that I do not concur with his crazy logic.

To give some perspective, I do find joy in other things too: the crunch of snow underfoot, the caramelised bits of cheese on the side of an Eat tuna melt, the ninja cat. But fashion is my fail-safe happiness fix.  I can find much merriment in the folds of silk and crepe and wool, and ridiculous delight in a well cut trouser with the seemingly magic ability to diminish my pot-belly. And, is there anything more amusing then discovering the little idiosyncrasies of our clothes that can only be revealed through wear? We all have them, a skirt that swivels around your waist as you walk, or, a blouse with buttons intent on their mission to unleash your breasts on an unsuspecting world. 

For as long as I can remember, my style mantra has been to wear at least one thing everyday that makes me (and hopefully others) smile. Spread the love. It doesn’t have to be an in-your-face guffaw reaction (although occasionally that happens), just a curl of the lip brought on by something as seemingly inconsequential as hosiery. A flash of primary colour in the form of a sock against the backdrop of an all black ensemble will do the trick. 

When I was younger, raising this sartorial smile was much easier, back then pretty much anything fashion adjacent could goad a grin. Even a £2 smock top covered in footprints from the legions of like-minded fast-fashionistas trampling their way to the tills. Now, with a few years behind me, I’m not so easy to please. I do find myself asking those questions: How have they got this to the shop floor for that price? Who made it? In what conditions? 

Where is the joy in that?

At first I hated the voice in my head raising those queries. She was ruining my lunch time shopping expeditions. How could I indulge in a £8 hand embellished skirt if the likely-hood was that someone had been exploited in order to produce it? I loathed that bitch. But it was her, that righteous skank, in part at least, that spurred me on to establish Gaudion Bowerbank, with my friend, Claire. 

We sell contemporary jewellery and accessories, acting as a platform for emerging talent. We pride ourselves on only working with people who manufacture their pieces locally and fairly. Each of our designers give an insight into production processes on our site, a behind-the-scenes window onto the inspiration and the materials of their designs, or how and where they are made.

A few months into the business, to my surprise, I found that knowing the why, who, how and where an item was made, gave me a bigger thrill than bagging two vests for a quid. Who would have thunk it? A colleague complimented my ring, and I was able to respond with more than the usual pleasantries. It was made by Simone Brewster. It is ebony wood. It was constructed using the traditional craft of turning and finished by hand. The design was inspired by architecture! I was drunk, people. Not on alcohol, not on power, but on knowledge! It felt good. 

Since then, my forays in cheap fast-fashion have been few and far between. I still have the occasional slip (non descript t-shirt from Toppie anyone?), but the buzz isn’t the same. I get my enjoyment these days from wearing something that someone actually enjoyed making.

Of course, there will always be room in my life for ethical fashion purchases without an accompanying narrative, despite grunts informing me of the contrary right now. In fact, as I type this I’m perusing Net-a-Porter. Wait, what’s this? Why hello, gold stud-sprayed light-gray cotton-blend Stella McCartney jumper! Do you long for me like I for you? You’re making me smile, I think we could be very happy cutting the Christmas turkey together… *Add to shopping bag*. 

 His arms rise above my laptop, and he secures missile lock with eyes set to glare. I sense the speech is coming, but I’m bursting with joy. “Sorry, darling. Best make some room on the spare bed!”