Our friends over at Re-dress in Ireland have been BUSY!

In less than one month, Re-dress will present FASHION EVOLUTION, Ireland’s 3rd ethical fashion week:

“Fashion Evolution aims to re-vitalise the spirit of the Irish fashion industry, with a schedule of exciting events catering for consumers, producers, retailers and supporters of fashion alike.” (Re-dress)

“Our mission is to provide the Irish fashion sector with the tools needed to make more sustainable fashion choices.” (Re-dress)

We don’t think they’ll have any trouble accomplishing this goal–just take a look at what they have planned!

What: Re-dress ETHICAL FASHION CALENDAR LAUNCH
When: Tuesday 4th April
Where: Online www.re-dress.ie
Cost: Free

What: FASHION MENTORING SESSIONS
When: Wednesday 5th 6-8pm
Where: Sugar Club, Upper Leeson Street, Dublin
Cost: 15 Euros BOOK NOW!

What: FASHION ENTREPRENEURSHIP; EVENING LECTURE AND NETWORKING SESSION WITH KATHARINE HAMNETT
When: Wednesday 5th 8.30-10pm
Where: Sugar Club, Upper Leeson Street, Dubin
Cost: 10 Euros BOOK NOW!

What: IRISH FASHION INDUSTRY CONFERENCE
When: Thursday 6th 9am-2pm
Where: Fallon and Byrne
Cost: 40 Euros (students and unemployed 20 euros) BOOK NOW!!

What: CLEAN CLOTHES CAMPAIGN – GENERAL MEETING
When: Thursday 6th Time TBC
Where: TBC
Cost: TBC BOOK NOW!

What: FREE PUBLIC FILM NIGHT
When: Friday 7th 7pm
Where: Smock Alley Café
Cost: FREE BOOK NOW!

What: EJF Cotton T-shirt exhibit
When: Tuesday 4th-Saturday 8th 10am-5pm daily
Where: The Greenhouse
Cost: FREE

Title: FASHION EVOLUTION
Location: Ireland
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2010-05-04
End Date: 2010-05-08

“The fashion industry faces major challenges in both resources and labor, but designers featured in the Eco Chic exhibition strive to change the general attitude of fashion and consumption.” (Scandinavian House, on Eco Chic)

Will you be in New York sometime this year? If so, you are in luck with so many exhibits, instillations, seminars and talks surrounding responsible design in the fashion industry, including a lecture by Matilda Tham on “Metadesigning Fashion – Scenarios for Sustainable Fashion Futures” (see below). You may remember we have spoken on Matilda Tham before on SA, as she and Nadira presented their research alongside each other at this years FEI conference, back in early March. Click here for more information on her presentation and to visit the FEI conference site.

The Swedish Institute’s Eco Chic exhibition has scheduled New York as its first American stop. This traveling exhibit has been on tour since the winter of 2008, and has already visited Minsk, Kiev, Riga, Istanbul, and most recently Berlin.

“The ecological and ethical production of clothing begins with the design of a garment, and continues right through to the finished product, including the transparency of fashion companies about their production processes and materials.” (Scandinavian House, on EcoChic)

“Eco Chic – Towards Sustainable Swedish Fashion opens at Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America, May 5, 2010 and showcases Swedish fashion designers who take an environmentally-friendly and ethical approach to their work, without sacrificing style. On view through August 21, this exhibition illuminates high-fashion alternatives to much of today’s environmentally harmful clothing.”

Designers featured included: Anja Hynynen; Bergman’s; Camilla Norrback; Dem Collective; Johanna Hofring (also linked here: www.ekovaruhuset.se); Julian Red; Nudie; Pia Anjou; Reflective Circle; Righteous Fashion; Swedish Hasbeens; and Zion.

Eco Chic – Towards Sustainable Swedish Fashion will run from May 5th through until August 21st.

Gallery Hours: Open Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 6 pm
Gallery Admission: FREE

Source: Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America

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Eco Chic-related Programs @ Scandinavia House

Symposium – Towards Sustainable Fashion
Directly followed by the Opening Party for Eco Chic in Volvo Hall

Tuesday, May 4, 2010, 6:30 pm, Victor Borge Hall
RSVP required. Please respond by Thursday, April 29 to malin@amscan.org

A symposium, in conjunction with the opening of the exhibit Eco Chic – Towards Sustainable Fashion, with fashion designers who take an environmentally-friendly and ethical approach to their work, without sacrificing style. The panel of speakers includes designers and fashion experts from Sweden and The United States – Marcus Bergman, Karin Stenmar, Sass Brown and Eviana Hartman, and is moderated by Hazel Clark, Dean of the School of Art and Design and Theory, Parsons: The New School for Design.

The symposium is followed by a party celebrating the opening of the exhibit Eco Chic – Towards Sustainable Fashion at Scandinavia House. The exhibit will be open until 9:30 pm.

Source: Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America

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Eco-Fashion Programs @ The Museum at FIT

Talk and Walk
Eco-Fashion Going Green & Eco Chic – Towards Sustainable Swedish Fashion

Wednesday, June 9, 10:30 am
FREE, but registration is required
Registration for this event will open in May

Join us for a walk through New York City visiting two exhibitions that highlight sustainability in fashion. First have a tour with curator Jennifer Farley of The Museum at FIT’s Eco-Fashion: Going Green and then visit Eco Chic – Towards Sustainable Swedish Fashion at Scandinavia House.

Meeting point: The Museum at FIT, 10:30 am, 7th Avenue (@ 27th Street), continuing to Scandinavia House

This event is organized in collaboration with The Museum at FIT. For information, visit www.fitnyc.edu.

Source: Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America

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Eco-Fashion: Going Green

Fashion & Textile History Gallery
Exhibit on view at The Museum at FIT May 25 – November 26, 2010

Location: 7th Avenue (@ 27th Street), NYC 10001-5992

Information: www.fitnyc.edu/museum

Source: Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America

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Metadesigning Fashion – Scenarios for Sustainable Fashion Futures
Lecture with Mathilda Tham

Thursday, June 17, 6 pm
FREE
Registration for this event will open in May

Location: 7th Avenue (@ 27th Street), NYC 10001-5992

Source: Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America

Not to be confused with the Pratt exhibit, that runs until the 20^th of February, the graduate students of the MA in Fashion and the Environment over at the London College of Fashion will host “[a]n informal evening called Ethics+Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion, [...] on Friday 12th February at the HUB” for Go Green Week 2010, along with other awareness campaigns such as a fashion swapshop and workshops.

Here is message from the MA Fashion and the Environment students via the Centre for Sustainable Fashion with all of the details:

“Fashion is saving the world this week at the University of the Arts! The first UAL Go Green Week of 2010 at The University of the Arts is fast approaching, held the week of the 8th until the 12th February, and the students from the LCF course MA Fashion and the Environment, who are advocates of an ethical and sustainable fashion industry; based at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, are raising awareness throughout the University of the exciting and innovative developments of sustainable design within the fashion and textile industries.

We have a couple of, what promise to be, exciting and informative events organised for Go Green week, in order to increase public consciousness of environmental issues that are becoming increasingly prominent of late in the industry. Over the course of the week, the Fashion and the Environment students are out to spread the word about what you and I can do to make our wardrobes greener, so to speak! Green is the new black, darling!

A Fashion Swapshop is organised for Thursday the 11th Feb, at the HUB, at the Davies Street between 6pm and 9pm. We are invited to search our wardrobes for garments we never wear, bring them along, and swap them for ones we will wear and love. The Swapshop is not the only focus of the evening, as it will also include speakers from textile recycling company TRAID who aim to protect the environment by diverting clothes from landfill, clothing customising workshops, and, for one night only in London, a vintage clothing stall all the way from Italy–Mercatino Michela.

An informal evening called Ethics+Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion, will be held on Friday 12th February at the HUB, at the Davies Street between 7pm and 9pm (the bar will be open) introducing and exploring the diverse and innovative areas of sustainability within the Fashion and Textile Industry. This event will be personally hosted by MA Fashion and the Environment students from LCF in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion. Open to all students from around the university , we are invited to come along to learn more and find out why this is such a vitally important area of contemporary design, ask questions and even get advice regarding sustainable design for our own projects. This evening promises a scintillating line up of from ethical clothing companies such as: People Tree, Ethical Fashion Forum and, Environmental Justice Foundation (also selling their t-shirts) who will be discussing the work they do to play an important role in a changing industry. The evening will also include a short film made by the MA Fashion and the Environment students, showcasing the variety of work and unique individual talents all working towards securing a more sustainable fashion future.”

More info at SU Arts University Student Union.

Source: CSF

Source: Puff and Flock and Create10

In Personnes, Boltanski asserts that relics have become “vestiges of anonymous people, traces of strangers, with which it seems to be a question of communicating.” He cites Rolland Barthes, in the context of photography to support this question: ““A photo is literally an emanation from the referent. From a real body which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being will touch me like the delayed rays of a star.” What “happens” therefore escapes any rational reduction: it is a matter of structuring the vanished body and eternal presence around a certain idea of the exhibition, a way of making manifest which opens the door to emotion.”

I stumbled upon this exhibit via Style Bubble. Here is what fashion blogger Susie Bubble had to say: “I’m simultaneously bemused and slightly saddened though that the next time I’m in the Grand Palais in March, all of this will be gone and in its place will be whatever runway setup Chanel decides upon for their A/W 10-11 show…”

Allan Chochinov at Core77 is often quoted for this statement: “Designers think they are in the artifact business, but they’re not; they’re in the consequence business.” (You can read more on responsible design in Chochinov’s Manifesto, found in the SA Reading section.) Although for me, obviously subjective in the SA context, Personnes reminds me of both artifact and consequence. It has me asking “What is the relationship between artifact and consequence in Boltanski’s work?” Seen through the lens of social, cultural and environmental responsibility, the exhibit is perhaps even more striking—more appalling (again, subjectively speaking). So I’m interested readers, what are your thoughts?

Image Source: Flickr via Style Bubble

“As part of SHIFT from 29 January – 1 February the Centre for Sustainable Fashion will present:

The first ever graduate showcase from London College of Fashion’s MA Fashion & the Environment
The work on display will explore a range of opportunities and design challenges where ingenuity and resourcefulness are inspired through living within nature’s limits, putting human wellbeing at the heart of creativity and questioning the current status quo.
On Monday 1 February we are inviting industry representatives, press and prospective students to hear presentations from the students on their work. Contact us if you would like to attend.
More on MA Fashion & the Environment

Highlights from Fashioning the Future 2009 – The international student awards for sustainability in fashion
Fashioning the Future brings together a global community of creative thinkers and doers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs with many different skills, locations and perspectives on the many facets of fashion. The winners of the 2009 awards will be profiled alongside information on how to apply for the 2010 awards.
More on Fashioning the Future

Local Wisdom by Kate Fletcher
Local Wisdom seeks to recognise and honour sustainability activities in fashion that exist at the level of the user. This project captures and celebrates personal stories relating to garments, giving fashion a platform to flourish and inspire. Reader in Sustainable Fashion Kate Fletcher will be leading a live session on 30 January from 12.00 – 17.00 where members of the public are invited to share the story of their clothes with the project team and be photographed wearing them.
More on Local Wisdom” (CSF)

Title: SHIFT
Location: London
Link out: Click here

Friday 29 January 17.00 – 22.30
Saturday 30 January 12.00 – 22.30
Sunday 31 January 12.00 – 22.30
Monday 1 February 12.00 – 17.00

Start Date: 2010-01-29
End Date: 2010-02-01

If you find yourself in New York sometime between May 14, 2010–January 11, 2011, be sure to check out “Why Design Now” at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

“Inaugurated in 2000, the Triennial program seeks out and presents the most innovative designs at the center of contemporary culture. In this fourth exhibition in the series, the National Design Triennial will explore the work of designers addressing human and environmental problems across many fields of the design practice, from architecture and products to fashion, graphics, new media, and landscapes. Cooper-Hewitt curators Ellen Lupton, Cara McCarty, Matilda McQuaid, and Cynthia Smith will present the experimental projects and emerging ideas for the period between 2006 and 2009.” (Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum)

Title: National Design Triennial: Why Design Now?
Location: New York
Link out: Click here
Description: On view May 14, 2010–January 11, 2011