It must seem like little is going on at the L-L-B Studio judging from the date of the last post. Not to worry, there is a lot going on. For instance, I was asked to design fabric dolls for the local UNICEF commitee, UNICEF Côte d'Or.
UNICEF France has a tradition of inviting the public, schools and fashion designers to create "Frimousses" as a voluntary contribution to raise funds for its cause. For each doll sold, at least one child in Darfur gets vaccinated.
And so I made this litt couple, Lutetita and Eudes, from left-over fabric from the SHELTERED S/S collection.
L-L-B participated for the first time in a fashion trade show, Ecoluxe London, getting great response and having an awesome time.
Here are a few photos from the stand:
The Ecoluxe pop-up shop featured a few L-L-B items, amongst others, these LP Purses, a collaboration with Scarlet Matias who makes these fun bags, this time out of L-L-B fabrics.
The Norwegian National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO) has made a very interesting report on user habits and why we throw away clothing. Hearing some of the findings in today's seminar and seing the exhibition at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KhiO) was very inspiring for me as a designer wanting to make sustainable clothing and prevent waste.
It was sadly not very surprising to be told that the people taking part in the surveys did not know how often they actually buy clothing (and that they buy much more than they think). The reasons why they threw away clothing were more uplifting; the top four reasons seem to be something to do with the quality of the garment, before the demands of style/fashion and the fit/cut of the garment. Also, 59 % of the people asked in the surveys dont buy or get used clothing!
During the project NICE fashion played a role as a communicator and students from Chelsea School of Art & Design, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and the Swedish School of Textiles were involved. They students produced some great designs inspired by this project.
I really liked these prints by Chelsea-graduate Charlotte Juin, who has a very conceptual approach to textile design.
Another example of Charlotte Juin's "Unity and Fragment" - project.
Jenny Nix, also a Chelsea-graduate, "Smocked Reconstruction", out of old shirts.
More of Jenny Nix's collection.
"Case Deluxe" underlines the value of the object by making a tailored case for the object from pre-comsumer waste. Projet by the Swedish School of Textiles students Daniel Bendzovski, Charlotta Brorsson, Karin Ringström and Sara Andersson.
Marthe Næstby, graduated from Oslo National Academy of the Arts this spring uses eccentric people as an inspiration to make unique pieces and outfits according to her own personal sense of style.
The journal
for the Norwegian textile business, Tekstilforum, have for some time been
following the green development in the fashion business and especially they've
been looking at H&M, the giant from our neighbour country.
As many may know, H&M have for some time been producing clothes with an
eco-label, with the first completely ecological collection spring 2010. And
they've according to Tekstilforum committed themselves to be using only
ecological cotton by 2020. But this doesn't mean that they've been playing nice
all the time. There have been questions about their ecological cotton, which
apparently has been partly OGM.
Furthermore, Tekstilforum reported a few months ago that Greenpeace had tested H&M merchandise and found NFEs (nonylphenol
ethoxylates- a substance that disrupts the natural balance of hormones in affected organisms and that is
forbidden in textile production in the European Union) in 4 of 6 garments.
The journal continues to follow this Greenpeace campaign for a greener textile
industry, and reports in September that, following Adidas, Puma and Nike, who
have also been under pressure from Greenpeace, H&M decides to eliminate the
use of dangerous substances in their production chain within 2020.
I am very much hoping that they will take this engagement seriously, and that
it will not only encourage others, but make it easier to produce sustainable
clothing.
Anyway, a believe Greenpeace is doing important work with their Detox-campaign.
