RAW Sustainable Fashion Parade

I was fortunate enough to get tickets to the RAW Sustainable Fashion Parade before they sold out. It was on Friday night. Ellie stayed with the grandparents while Tim and I trekked out to the Docklands, which, may I say, is quite confusing to navigate when your maps are old, given that it's newly developed.

A lovely lady approached Tim and I while we were figuring out directions with an 'Are you heading to the fashion parade?' Given that we were still a 15 minute walk away from the venue, we were quite chuffed that she thought we were fashionable individuals. Of course, she might have just seen us rushing and figured that we must both be running late to the same thing. But I'll just pretend that we looked good for the sake of gloating.

The parade showcased clothing and accessories made from recycled or organic materials. I really enjoyed the show, apart from me feeling like I was going to faint halfway through and needing to sit down. Wonderful Tim took photos for me though.

What I didn't consider was that my phone is not the ideal picture taking machine I thought (hoped) it might be, because I didn't want to lug the proper camera around.

Here are a few of my favourites for which the photos weren't a blurry mess (Photoshop couldn't fix them completely, I'm afraid).


Reconstructed shirt by Mucke. I think this was my favourite. The way it draped was just beautiful. I loved that the ties at the back actually looked like shirt sleeves, but weren't bulky at all.


Dress made from vintage kimono/obi fabric by Fourth Daughter. Love love love the colour combo and cut.


Made from reclaimed materials by Rachael Cassar. The leggings look significantly better on the model than those girls from Southland but I'm still not a fan of wearing them as pants. But this top and dress are just divine. Miss Cassar defines her style as 'transeasonal' which I do appreciate.

A fun and inspiring night. I would love to be involved in this next year!

Ethical shopping workshop in Melbourne

I stumbled across this event while looking for web pages about the RAW Sustainable Fashion Parade that I attended last night, which I'll make a post about later. Melbournians, check it out:

Ethical Shopping workshop

"Come along and hear about sustainable and ethical purchasing practices for the everyday consumer. This workshop may well change your purchasing habits by providing information on products, companies, issues and alternatives to assist in making better choices. A trip to the local supermarket will be part of this workshop followed by a light meal from the purchases."

Sounds good to me. It's so great that this kind of thing is available. I'll be attending. Another great thing is that the workshop is FREE.

Link

When
29/11/2008
2:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Where
Kensington Neighbourhood House
89 McCracken Street
Kensington 3031

Candy Suckled

Just put this dress, 'Candy Suckled', up on Etsy. I haven't been listing as many new things as I would like because I'm working on a wholesale order. Once that's finished I'll have a shiny new stockist and I'll be able to make more exclusively for Etsy! Stay tuned.

Fast fashion findings

An article I found recently brought up some interesting points about garment ethics: Analysis: Do consumer concerns threaten fast fashion?

1. "In countries like Vietnam or China, worker exploitation isn't hard-wired into how business is conducted. Some businesses might well exploit their workers if they think they can get away with it - but so might businesses in the US or Sweden."
   
   Absolutely. This makes it even more difficult to know whether a garment is made by an exploited worker or not. Even garments made in Australia may be made by workers who don't receive adequate pay and conditions, usually homeworkers.
   
   
   (image source)
   
   
   
2. "Last-minute changes of mind, or delayed decisions, rarely translate into extended delivery dates: factories are expected to get garments out in time to meet a ship, however often the buyer might have changed the brief. And with greater pressure on time comes pressure on workers, and pressure to use unvetted subcontractors."
   
   This indicates that the fault may lie mostly with the buyers rather than the factories. I hadn't thought of this before. Factories may feel backed into corners by buyers, just as the workers feel backed into corners by the factories. The reason that buyers change their minds so often is probably due to the nature of fast fashion - a fad trend is discarded just as fast as it was introduced.
   
   
3. "So it's easy to assume that the further a garment travels while being made, the more carbon gets emitted... Cambridge University's Institute for Manufacturing published some serious analysis of carbon emissions in apparel manufacturing in late 2006 [1]. It showed that - even for a T-shirt made in China from American cotton, transport to Europe accounted for only 10% of the carbon emissions produced during the garment's life.

   How the consumer washed and dried the T-shirt mattered most; and manufacturing the T-shirt emitted three times as much carbon as transporting it round the world.

   But here's what Cambridge didn't look at. A factory that's heated in winter, air-conditioned in summer, highly automated and operated by people who commute to it by car must dump more carbon than a factory that's properly ventilated, is highly labour-intensive and where workers walk, cycle or get a (very overcrowded) bus to work.

   On this basis a factory in Bangladesh must be better for the planet than a factory in France or South Carolina."
   
   Something I'll definitely be thinking about. Obviously working conditions should be considered to look at the bigger ethical picture, but from a purely environmental standpoint, this is an interesting theory.