Green is the new black: UK’s pioneering sustainable fashion role

Alongside New York, Milan and Paris, LFW is firmly established as one of highlights on the industry calendar.

London Fashion Week, organised by the British Fashion Council, is an exciting showcase for some of the UK’s most vibrant and creative designers, brands and design businesses. Across the course of five days, new and established fashion talent will demonstrate their craft in front of international buyers, industry professionals and the press, reinforcing the UK’s reputation as a global fashion leader.

Over the years, the UK has produced the world’s most innovative designers, from Katharine Hamnett to Stella McCartney. In the retail sector, meanwhile, Bond Street, Sloane Street, Regent Street, Selfridges and Harrods are recognised as essential locations for leading fashion brands.

Increasingly, the UK fashion industry has come to recognise the importance of sustainability issues. Clothing has a significant environmental and ethical impact, ranging from increased carbon emissions, waste, water usage and pollution to child labour and unfair trading conditions.

estethica

This is why estethica - the British Fashion Council’s eco-sustainable fashion initiative - has become a central and popular part of the London Fashion Week schedule. Estethica, sponsored by Monsoon, puts the concept of sustainable fashion on a global stage and has grown year upon year.

Its purpose is to highlight a number of “cutting edge designers working in an eco sustainable way”, such as Amana - a hit at a previous estethica - a fair-trade co-operative whose clothes are made by women artisans in Morocco. For 2010, estethica features a stable of 28 names.

Nike is pleased to have joined this multi-stakeholder partnership driven by Defra and focused on establishing a road map for sustainability in the clothing industry.

Lorrie Vogel

General Manager of Nike

Sustainability in fashion has also filtered down to the UK high street, and many big name retailers – such as Tescos, Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s – have signed up to the government’s Sustainable Clothing Action Plan, launched in 2009 by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). This initiative has brought together over 300 organisations - from retailers, to designers and textile manufacturers – “to battle the environmental impacts of ‘throw away fashion’”.

Through the Action Plan, some of the biggest names in the industry have pledged to make a significant difference to the environmental footprint and social inequalities which blight some of the production and retail processes of consumer fashion. German-based Adidas and US giant Nike are massive global brands operating in the UK – and both are signatories of the Action Plan.

Global brands

At the Action Plan launch, Lorrie Vogel, General Manager of Nike, said: “Nike is pleased to have joined this multi-stakeholder partnership driven by Defra and focused on establishing a road map for sustainability in the clothing industry. It’s this type of progressive action and collaboration that leads to new growth opportunities, industry and consumer commitment to a sustainable future.”

Other big fashion and clothing names operating in the UK include Terra Plana (specialising in sustainable footwear) which has six stores in the UK; People Tree (operating in Japan and UK) and Continental Clothing. PUMA, the German sports lifestyle brand, operates the PUMAVision sustainability report, its own focus on environmental and corporate social responsibility issues.

Centre for sustainable fashion

In 2007, the world-renowned London College of Fashion established the Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) to promote sustainable practices within the industry. CSF worked closely with Defra on the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan.

Nina Stevenson, a founding member and Project Coordinator of CSF, says: “Broadly, the Centre for Sustainable Fashion is concerned with the environmental, social and cultural impact of the fashion industry at different points along the supply chain.

“This is a global industry – and there isn’t one solution which produces an end product called ‘sustainable fashion’; but we do encourage designers, retailers and producers to work in a more sustainable way.

Over the next five years we’d like to see the industry increasingly produce fashion that is both beautiful and meaningful, because it has been created in an environmentally responsible way.

Nina Stevenson

Project Coordinator of CSF

“We want to challenge the whole system and ask why we operate, design and produce in the way we do, and push for high-level innovation. We are here to provoke and challenge the status quo, whether it’s working with graduates, small designers or big retailers.”

Nina Stevenson believes that the UK has become a sustainable fashion trailblazer. “From a research and education point of view, we are leading the way,” she says. “The average British consumer is more aware of sustainable fashion now and there are exciting things happening in many different areas.”

For example, the CSF runs an MA in fashion and environment – the first post-graduate degree of its kind. It operates a unique international student competition highlighting emerging global talent, and it offers a business support programme. It has also fostered many partnerships with worldwide fashion colleges and universities, including California College of the Arts (CCA) in the USA and the Istanbul Moda Academy (IMA) in Turkey; plus it has recently completed a project with Pearl Academy in India, and is about to embark on another with a university in Bangladesh.

Says Nina: “At the CSF, we don’t want to separate ‘sustainable fashion’ from ‘fashion’. We want to work with fashion brands across the board to make working practices better.

“Over the next five years we’d like to see the industry increasingly produce fashion that is both beautiful and meaningful, because it has been created in an environmentally responsible way.”