Tag Archives: fast fashion

Resources // NPR’s Planet Money Makes a ‘Simple’ T-shirt

Planet Money showing just how little the industry has changed.

Planet Money showing just how little the industry has changed.

 

Planet Money:

What would you like the people who buy this t-shirt to know about you?

Doris Restrepo, Garment Worker, Medellín, Colombia:

What is behind the T-shirt: It’s a world.

NPR’s Planet Money has released a five chapter series on the production of a conventional t-shirt. This series is an excellent educational resource and is perfect for ‘flipping’ into a short course on our international fashion system. The videos and accompanying articles would also make a fantastic addition to any of SA’s educational resources, particularly the SAGE module where we traced the international production of a hypothetical t-shirt from the farm to the landfill and beyond into it’s second-hand life.

Introducing: Planet Money Makes A T-Shirt from NPR on Vimeo.

Inspired by Pietra Rivoli‘s The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade, Planet Money actually hired the Georgetown Professor as an advisor for this series. Needless to say, I highly recommend the The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy as further reading to help gain even deeper insight into the value chain of a ‘simple’ t-shirt. 

This series is an absolute must for anyone interested in the fashion supply chain as a whole and the political, economic, and social issues that surround the production of clothing.

Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt: The world behind a simple shirt, in five chapters

WATCH // Handprint, a short film to change wearer perceptions on fashion systems

 

Handprint – Behind the Scenes is a beautiful short film directed by Mary Nighy, commissioned by Livia Firth, Founder and Creative Director of the Green Carpet Challenge.

A learning tool, the film is a great way to generate in class/studio discussions surrounding the individuals working within each stage of garment supply/value chains.

“Many people’s hands touch our clothes before we wear them. If we could see or speak to those people, we might think about them and our clothes quite differently. Handprint […] imagines what it would be like if we could connect to the people who make our clothes, and encourages us to remember them.” (Mary Nighy)

 

Click here for details

Winners Announced! Fashioning the Future

Miriam Rhida

Miriam Rhida

I’ve got some exciting news to share with you! On November 25th I won the “Systems for a Sustainable Future Award” in the Fashioning the Future international student competition. This competition is run through the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion. There were 5 winners in total, each representing five separate categories, with forty finalists over all. I’m excited to have had the opportunity to showcase and share my graduate research, and this website.

 

Emma Rigby

Emma Rigby

Zoe Fletcher won the Enterprise & Communication Initiative for a Future Fashion Industry Award (Highly Commended: Ruby Hoette and Julia Crew)

Varun Gambhir won the Role of Materials in a Sustainable Fashion Industry Award (Highly Commended: Karina Micheal)

Mary Hanlon won the Systems for a Sustainable Fashion Industry Award

Miriam Rhida won the Design for a Thriving Fashion Industry Award (Highly Commended: Eleanor Dorrien-Smith and On Ying Lai)

Emma Rigby won the Water – The Right for All Citizens of this Planet Award (Highly Commended: Anne Prahl).

 

 

International competitions such as the Fashioning the Future awards offer students the chance not only to showcase their work, but to benchmark themselves against other students in their field at the international level.

Please visit the Centre for Sustainable Fashion to check out the details of the competition, and the full list of finalists! For more images, check out this photo gallery from The Guardian.

On Ying

On Ying

Also, if you are in London, be sure to stop by London’s City Hall and London College of Fashion to check out the highlights from the 2009 awards. Here are the details:

FASHIONING THE FUTURE AT CITY HALL, 19 November – 4 December 2009
Highlights of the 2009 awards to be showcased at London’s City Hall, with thanks to the London Sustainable Development Commission.
Open to the public, free of charge.
Greater London Authority, City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA

FASHIONING THE FUTURE AT FASHION SPACE GALLERY, 16 November – 11 December 2009
Highlights of the 2009 awards to be showcased at London College of Fashion.
Open to the public, free of charge.
London College of Fashion, 20 John Princes Street, London W1G 0BJ

 Congratulations everyone! And thank you for your support!

 

Images via The Guardian