Shared Talent India
Shared Talent, a unique initiative from the CSF, encourages fashion designers to exchange expertise with other protagonists across the supply chain, transcending traditional divisions, be they linguistic, geographic, or discipline based.
2009’s Shared Talent India brought together a diverse group of likeminded designers to share their ideas about fashion, challenge their motivations as designers and question how they create collections. Equipped with research carried out by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, their collaborative concepts were realised with beautiful results.
Through partnership between the Defra led Sustainable Clothing Roadmap and the Indian Government under the UK:India Sustainable Development Dialogue, the Shared Talent India explored and shared knowledge on sustainable design practice. Those involved include twelve designers, based in both the UK and India, suppliers of Indian textiles, buyers and undergraduates from London College of Fashion, Pearl Academy of Fashion Delhi and Amsterdam Fashion Institute. The initiative aims to innovate towards improved ecological, ethical and cultural criteria in selecting and creating collections and to connect designers and buyers to more sustainable textiles in India.
Shared Talent India brought the Centre for Sustainable Fashion into contact with a variety of forward thinking textile suppliers. We want UK fashion businesses to benefit from all of our contacts and research. With this in mind we will be launching an Indian Sourcing Toolkit online to help UK based fashion businesses develop productive relationships with Indian suppliers and successfully source sustainable textiles (to be launched early 2010).
Learn more about Defra’s Sustainable Clothing Action Plan
Photography by Kerry Dean
Styling by Katie Felstead
Location Eagle House Hotel, Hastings
The Shared Talent India team were:
Bevan Ofosu Agyemang (London College of Fashion), Nitin Bal Chauhan, Samant Chauhan, Saurabh Chauhan, (Pearl Academy), Kritika Dawar (Pearl Academy), Eleanor Feddon, Dhairya Gautam (Pearl Academy), Katharina Grube (Amsterdam Fashion Institute), Gaurav Gupta (AKAARO), Varun Gupta, Sahil Jaisingh, (Pearl Academy), Anjana Janardhan, Jattinn Kochhar, Juanita Koerts, (Amsterdam Fashion Institute), Padmaja Krishnan, Gunjan Kumar (Pearl Academy), Pratyush Kumar (Pearl Academy), Ester Miles (London College of Fashion), Charlotte Moore (London College of Fashion), Jaisheel Nishad (Pearl Academy), Anne Prahl, Holly Pressdee, Nieves Ruiz Ramos, Shazia Saleem, Monalisa Saran (Pearl Academy) Annemaria Ven Der Van (Amsterdam Fashion Insitute), Ruta Zabraskaite (London College of Fashion)
Download Shared Talent India team biographies (pdf)
The Indian textile suppliers working on Shared Talent India were:
Akaaro Textiles
Alps Industries
Aura Herbal Textiles
Bankhandi Handloom Co-Operative Ind, New Delhi
BVT Silks, Bangalore
Conserve India
Fair Trade Forum India
Harpar Textile
Imagination
Jharcraft
Khadi and Village Industries Commission
Kullu Karishma
Panchachuli
Pratibha Syntex
Pushpanjali
Samant Chauhan
Tara Projects
Zameen
[...] Rigby is working on a solution that will require less cleaning, but will likely face huge opposition from detergent makers that push the message that things are only clean if they are washed often and sparkling white. This is the same kind of misleading message that similar companies have sent in brainwashing folks to think that only soaps that foam clean. So, what can you do on a regular basis? Click here for winners of the Sustainable Fashion Awards at the London College of Fashion. The two aforementioned women are both students at the London College of Fashion, whose Center for Sustainable Fashion has launched an international initiative that will launch in early 2010, enabling Western designers to get in touch with Indian suppliers of sustainable materials and textiles. Led by the Indian government and the UK Government Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) run Sustainable Clothing Roadmap, those involved include Indian textile suppliers, buyers, and undergraduates from London College of Fashion, Pearl Academy of Fashion Delhi and Amsterdam Fashion Institute. Shared Talent India will also feature an “Indian Sourcing Toolkit” to help connect deisgners with suppliers in India. For more information on these and other similar programs, click here. [...]