Who’s your favourite responsible Canadian designer?

Fashion Takes Action (FTA) has officially launched Canada’s 1^st annual eco design award, Design Forward.

I had the pleasure of working on this project, and I am so excited that Social Alterations could support this important initiative in Canada,  and I will explain the extent of our participation in an upcoming post, so stay tuned!

Here are the nominees:

• Thieves
• Elladora  
• Elroy
• Paper People Clothing
• Laura Chenoweth
• Revolve Clothing Co.
• Nicole Bridger
• Salts Organic
• Preloved
• Lav & Kush
• deux fm
• Nixxi
• flora&fauna
• We3 (twigg&hottie)

All the information you need has been made available to you, the public, and you are invited to vote online for the designer you believe best represents ‘eco design’ in Canada. Once you have cast your vote, the decision will be left in the hands of the jury, who will select their winning choice from the top three finalists.

The criterion for voting is based on production, material, design, and special features. Take your time getting to know each designer: you only get one vote, so make it count!

Check out the prize, valued at approximately $50,000!

• A free membership in Fashion Takes Action
• A three-month national PR campaign, provided by Third Eye Media
• Feature in EcoSalon – the number one green fashion blog!
• Participation at Nolcha Fashion Week’s Ethical Fashion Preview in NYC in September 2010
• Travel and accommodations for two, provided by Air Miles Reward Program
• 75 meters of eco-friendly fabric, supplied by Telio (to make a sample collection to show in NYC)
• Look book photo shoot with full creative team including photographer, models, hair & makeup and stylist
• Look book graphic design by pencil design
• $1,000 towards Fair trade and Organic certification, provided by Ecocert.

The voting will close @ midnight on Friday, April 16^th.

To all the designers, we wish you luck!

We’re working on developing some ready-to-use curricula for fashion/textile/apparel instructors and designers.

First up, is the Social Alterations “Fibre Analysis: Possible Social and Environmental Impacts.” Data for this document was aggregated from resources you will find in the “Works Cited” section, on the last page of the PDF. This document is licensed and protected through the Creative Commons, which basically means that you can use it wherever/whenever you want, assuming you do so within the guidelines outlined in the Creative Commons licensing for which this document is registered (see below).

This is only the beginning folks; Social Alterations has mandated itself to deliver online curriculum to aid in the development of socially responsible fashion design education.

You can get involved by joining the Social Alterations Forum to share your experience in socially responsible fashion design education.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns or requests please contact us.

Fibre Analysis by Mary Hanlon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.