Eco Fashion World

Last Friday afternoon, London Fashion Week kicked off with a champagne reception to introduce the seventh season of Estethica. A British council-supported initiative, Estethica is in its sixth season and is showcasing designs from the Shared Talent Project, a collaboration with London College of Fashion and Pearl Academy India that experiments with new eco fabrics. Part of their "LOVE" (living our values and ethics) campaign, this will exhibit their green finger origins first beginning in 1973 with clothes made in Indian villages from hand woven cotton and vegetable dyes.

This year's Estethica preview showcased the Spring/Summer 2010 collections of 29 sustainable designer businesses, and was a vibrant mix of ethical fashion brands and labels that covered a diverse range of products from fabrics, garments and accessories to recycled clothes, deconstruction and bags. This included designer Ada Zanditon, who EFW recently interviewed, showing off her new collection consisting of solid colored ensembles made of organdie and cotton lycra that were beautifully draped and constructed. The shredded trend that EFW reported on this month was also evident within the featured designs of Ajna, and was innovatively incorporated with organic cotton and layers of knitted fabrics.

Anatomy featured its signature tailoring, the classic Tuxedo collection, which played with organic hemp cotton, soy, bamboo and linen sourced from the United States. The blue stripes and red trimmings seemed to embody the colors of the two national flags. The collection has a whimsical 30’s feel and was inspired by the romanticism of the pre- Raphaelites and the decoration of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Juxtaposing to the heavily tailored collection was a soft feminine one by Beautiful Soul entitled "Miss Butterfly" (inspired by Giacomo Puccini’s Madam Butterfly), featuring beautiful origami kimono tops and dresses. It was produced from Japanese vintage kimonos and saris, peace silk, Fair Trade organic Jacquard and satin.

One of the most inspirational recycling products were the outerwear collection of Christopher Raeburn. He has constructed high end innovative street wear from re-developed military fabrics, which have been redesigned to create ethically intelligent garments for the contemporary city dweller.

From Somewhere is classified as one of the oldest and first sustainable labels to emerge from the Green London scene. It had a new collection of shirt dresses made out of recycled and waste organic silks. They are also venturing into more color and trying to explore more options aside from their trademark black and white collections

GLOBE HOPE

The Finnish Recycling brand Globe Hope also had some very interesting deconstructed products to offer. My favourites were the “seat belt laptop bag” and the Military jacket fabric bag.

But when it comes to the best of deconstructed fashion, Junky Styling provides unlimited options for remade suit transformations. The pieces are timeless, re-cut and completely transformed clothing, each piece being one of a kind.

Another interesting collection in the field of sustainable and reconstructive fashion was that of designer Mark Liu. The "Zero Waste Fashion" collection, which uses a way of creating garments where the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and leave no waste, is a visually stimulating piece of beauty. The solid colored felt collection is femininely constructed ensuring no loss of design during the jig-saw puzzle settlement of the waste fabrics that the designer picked up from the production floor. The two whites and electric blue are personal favourites, as they also give one a sense of origami style.

Estethica also saw a good deal of knitwear innovation from brands such as Makepiece, Minna, Lowie and North Circular. All four brands have their own sheep rearing farms in and around Scotland and specialize in circular machine knitted garments, custom hand knitted garments, delicate lace knitting’s and regular jersey knitting, respectively.

But of course, as we all know, a fashion preview is never complete without some chic accessories.

Beyond Skin featured some beautiful, stylish footwear that is non-exploitative to humans, animals and whenever possible the wider environment. The vibrant colors and textile prints used made them eye catchy and a must on our highly recommended list.

The spring/summer 2010 collection from Fifi Bijoux is based on ‘Two Hearts Colliding’ and is composed of delicately worked mat gold pieces, including pendants and earrings. It is designed in an unfinished way to emphasise the hard labor that goes into mining gold. Their jewellery is made using gold, silver, and diamonds, all from fair trading small scale mining co-operatives. Panchacuti also had some elegant hats to offer in their latest collection titled “Panama Hats” which is inspired by the painters and sculptors of St. Ives in Cornwall.

ROCIO CLUTCH

Lastly, though certainly not least, Rocio housed some fabulously cut and intricately made clutches and handbags of Acacia wood (sustainable, recyclable and light). The stylish yet royal look made it another of my favorite stalls to visit, and the superbly finished glazed wood bags made them an instant hit with buyers, as each bag makes a bold individual statement of its own.

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