Thursday 2 October 2014

Future Fabrics


Last Sunday saw the opening day of Fashion SVP Autumn 2014 at London Olympia, which we managed to get ourselves across to Kensington for and check out. The main pull for Holoholo was the Future Fabric Expo hosted by The Sustainable Angle - an amazing organisation put together to provide a resource for designers and brands to be able to search and source a large range of sustainable materials, as well as network and share information with one another.

The expo featured a vast variety of sustainable fabrics from a number of different suppliers and manufacturers, spanning from organic cottons through hemps, linens and tencels to a selection of progressive materials including a closed-loop processed nylon and a new fabric known as sea wool, made from recycled post-consumer-use oyster shells. Brilliant stuff.


We then attended a seminar on building sustainability into the supply chain, hosted by Sarah Ditty of Ethical Fashion Forum and featuring Christopher Stopes from GOTS, Mara Milanesi of Sedex Global, Richard Anstead from Fairtrade Foundation and Amanda Johnston of The Sustainable Angle.

It was great to hear from a successful group of professionals working in different areas of sustainable practice, and the seminar gave a real feeling of community with lots of other fashion start-ups also there to gain information on responsibly sourcing materials for their businesses. The talks highlighted the dangers of "green-wash", the importance of clear communication within all areas of the supply chain, and the sheer range of materials available now and in the future. The fact that a bio-polyester will be available in 2020 is pretty exciting!



Overall it was an extremely worthwhile event to attend, and has given us lots to research into and think about, as well as the encouragement to focus on a specific area of sustainability to begin with, and later branch out into other areas when that becomes more feasible.

Big thank you to Fashion SVP and The Sustainable Angle for putting on a fantastic expo!

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