Considered design at #GFW19

Conscious design, considered fashion and sustainability all made their way into young designers’ creations at the Graduate Fashion Week #GFW19 in London last week!

The annual event brought students, fashion houses, talent spotters, journalists and influencers together over four days.

© Flaunter.com

Sustainability highlights

The Considered Design Award went to student Jainelly Portocarrero Torres for RE-UP, a sustainable womenswear brand that aims to extend the lifecycle of clothing. The brand has an up-cycling service which consumers can use to send their clothes back every three months and have them refreshed.

Mother of Pearl's Amy Powney discussed her ethical approach to design at the London-based luxury brand. To reduce an item's footprint, she starts with its geography rather than its design. Did you know that a typical garment travels to as many as 10 different countries before it reaches you? When sourcing materials she researches which countries provide the most sustainable fabrics - India and Turkey for cotton, for example. She also heavily sources materials from TENCEL, a company that produces fibers from sustainably sourced wood.

A circular economy

The fashion industry is increasingly focusing on cutting waste out at the design stage and making sustainability a priority from the beginning instead of it being an afterthought.

This is the foundation of a circular economy, where the aim is to keep materials in use for as long as possible, obtaining the maximum value from them and recovering and regenerating them at the end of the lifecycle.

#considereddesign #sustainability #circulareconomy