Eco Fashion World

Ireland's economic growth evolved around the linen industry in the 19th century. During the Troubles the last few decades, the country suffered tremendously and the linen industry declined in a rapid pace. While there used to be buildings full of seamstresses who could manufacture small quantities, these businesses disappeared. The result is that young fashion designers have great difficulty to produce their designs nowadays. One of the aims of Re-Dress is to regenerate the Irish textile industry as to sustain local talent both in design and production.

Personally, for me, Paris is the city of flowers. This idea was confirmed last weekend when I visited the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris for trend research. Visionair Isabelle Quéhé, founder and Art Director of Ethical Fashion Show, presented this important eco fashion event for the sixth time in the heart of Paris. Talented participating designers surprised me with three kinds of floral looks: nostalgic vintage, refined textile decorations and trash couture plastics.

'And you know what, D&G - no not Dolce & Gabbana as you might think - need to work together. Only through collaboration they can really transform the industry'. This was the hypothesis I had a month ago, before I had spoken to Goliaths like C&A or H&M and to Davids such as Bibico and Veja. After reading academic literature (e.g. Wüstenhagen & Hockerts, 2009) on the interplay between small entrepreneurs and big companies, I wanted to explore in how far this happens in the ethical fashion movement. These are some of my findings that show a different picture from what has been published so far:

'We need to sell the process through the product and not the product through the process'. This is the sentence I woke up with this morning after three dynamic days of interviewing at Ethical Fashion Show in Paris. Veja is a company that does this right from the start. François Morillion, one of the two founders, told me on Friday that they started Veja out of an obsession with sneakers. Their first collection was made fair-trade and from organic cotton, but they presented it at a regular trade fair. In a plain installation displaying the few sample models that they had, they simply talked about their sneakers. And sold them. Veja is now one of the more successful companies within the ethical fashion landscape and that's not because they help their organic farmers in the North of Brazil to get certification. Or because they fly their Parisian employees to Brazil to meet the shoemakers and the rubber tappers in the Amazon in person. 'It's because we love our product and we do everything to make it better'.

Please close your eyes, inhale deeply and imagine where you want us to be in ten years from now. What is your dreamed image of the future of organic textiles? Can you connect a word or symbol to that projection? What would it be?

This is how we opened the WCOC last Tuesday to create a common understanding that the future is us. During the week, I had conversations with people throughout the supply chain about their future vision of organic.

Want to be an ethical fashionista? Don't buy any clothes! This provocative statement shows the creative tension between ethics and the fashion industry as a consumer-driven business. I look forward sharing ideas on this double-bind I often find myself in with colleagues from around the world. My workshop this week during the World Congress on Organic Cotton, will be a great platform to discuss it. I hereby proudly introduce the people I have invited to give input on how to boost ethical consumerism.

People often ask me what I wear and if it's really all ethical. Confession: it's not. Or at least: not yet for maybe 5% of my wardrobe. Since I started working in ethical fashion five years ago, I promised myself to only buy green. So today I had a close look at my wardrobe to share what I actually wear.

Price only plays a secondary role when purchasing clothes and consumers are willing to pay a premium for ethical fashion. This is one of the outcomes of a recent study conducted by Karin Schreier from the University of St. Gallen and myself. The Facebook survey amongst 350 students from three Swiss universities, further revealed that consumers weigh social considerations heavier than environmental concerns when buying clothing. But above all, style color and quality are critical and will be looked at first in the decision making process. These outcomes are similar to findings of other studies in the UK, Germany and the US.