Fashion and Sustainability - a Journey of Discovery

My eco professor, Lynda Grose, spoke at the De Young yesterday about fashion and sustainability - and what designers around the world are doing. Those who attended were intrigued. Wanted to listen. Wanted to learn. Felt passionately. Wanted to participate and share. I sat in my seat, smiling - in disbelief that this is my life. I get to be a part of this. I get to be her student. I'm feeling better about my previous discomfort.

There are tons of good design solutions that don't rape our world of precious resources. A few of us wore some of these solutions - I wore a yellow dress (pictured below) that used to be stained from Strawberry juice that was dropped onto it at a wedding. In order to be able to continue wearing the dress & to deter it from going to a landfill [where it won't decompose ...], an embroiderer embroidered the names of the married couple and their wedding date onto the dress, covering the stain. Super subtle. Other solutions were a dress that was designed to be dirty - you can stain it, wipe your hands on it - it's part of the design to prevent overwashing. And another dress was made up of tons of panels with snaps - you can change the neckline, hemline or the color simply by shift the snaps to allow the wearer some variety.

Here are a few pics: