What should we wear in the climate emergency era? How will fashion innovate to mitigate its contributions to climate change? Madeleine Crutchley canvasses myriad global and local creative projects responding to the uncomfortable tensions between fashion and climate change.
November 4, 2023.
After three years of intensive study, a class
Among the collections, which showcase a diverse range of design techniques and aesthetics, a theme begins to emerge.
Ella Cook showcases Archival, a collection of garments used to preserve antique momentos and upcycled lace doilies through handcrafting and tailoring. Junde Su’s Cold Fish clothes straight-faced models in butchered denim shining with red drops. Salma Ibrahim-Jerrywo envisions apocalypse with oversized disaster gear for a collection called Chernobyl.
The clothing is commonly reborn, Frankenstein-ed, and the mood is ... well, moody. Existential.
When the final run-through is complete, fellow Viva journalist and AUT alumnus Emma Gleason turns to me and ponders aloud.
“What do you design when the world is ending?”
At that moment in time, there were myriad catastrophes and pressing socio-political issues that might have inspired Emma’s comment. One pressing context that bullies its way into the overall presentation is the climate emergency — illustrated throughout the collections that reimagine scavenged materials, are constructed with low-impact handcrafting techniques and use natural, biodegradable fibres.
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Advertise with NZME.Eight months after this show, and six years since the UN called the fast fashion industry “an environmental emergency”, it’s a perilous context that designers are continuing to face. Locally and abroad, we’re seeing exciting efforts that hold fashion’s harmful emissions to account in a climate era.
Emerging New Zealand designers
As the effects of fashion’s impact become more clear, young designers are encountering sustainability as an urgent and formative design principle.
In the coursework at AUT, similar to other fashion design courses in New Zealand, students hone an understanding of the relationship between clothing and climate change. Senior lecturer Lisa McEwan, who teaches Design for Sustainability and Fashion Design, says the context of climate change is paramount in the study of fashion design.
“It’s something that is embedded in the course right throughout. In the third year, students very much do their own project and some of them take that [focus on] environmental sustainability through. We really encourage them to be critical thinkers about what they’re using.”
This has informed various teaching and student projects across the degree.
At the time of our interview, Lisa mentioned she’d just returned from a trip to Henderson Valley, where students experimented with eco-dyeing, by foraging plant matter and boiling it with clothing in a large cauldron over open fire (a focus on local sourcing to decrease other forms of emissions for fashion, like air miles, is key for students to take in the multi-faceted nature of the problem).
Over the past year, students have also upcycled retired denim jeans and reworked crisp discarded button-ups into more sculptural pieces.
These pieces, though not produced by third-year students, are likely find to a place at this year’s grad show, says Lisa. There’s a sense of urgency to the eco-conscious display.
“We want to be having that conversation with the audience about these types of garments.”
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Advertise with NZME.Creatively, designers showcased similar approaches in the Mindful Fashion Circular Design Awards earlier this year.
Taking on the challenge to repurpose textile waste and create a closed loop for their ensembles, the young designers constructed looks from thrifted bed sheets, furniture blankets and wedding dress silk coloured orange with onion skins.
The designers, whose creations were also brought to life in an editorial by Viva’s fashion and creative director Dan Ahwa, highlighted the innovation potential and showcased that sustainably minded design does not have just one aesthetic.
At the time, Emily Miller-Sharma, general manager at Ruby and judge at the awards, said she was, “struck by the variety of solutions offered by all entrants, and in particular our finalists. From considerations of where they source their materials, to where they would end up, and how each submission connected to the land and to us, the people taking care of it.”
Atacama Fashion Week
Earlier this year, a similarly editorial-focused project also took place — albeit in a much more confronting environment.
The Atacama Desert made headlines in 2023, not for its fame as a stargazing destination, astronomy headquarters or being the driest place on Earth. Instead, the news was captured by an image, taken from a space satellite, in which an enormous pile of fast fashion garments could be seen.
The Guardian reported that at least 39,000 tonnes are dumped in the Atacama desert each year, affecting the communities that surround them, like the municipality of Alto Hospicio (a report from Grist follows local and activist Ángela Astudillo on her fight against the dumping and her experience of a fire that burned black, acrid and plastic-scented smoke in 2022).
The Chilean desert dump, also known by El Paso de La Mula, is an alarming example of the catastrophic impact fast fashion models and overproduction have on climate change.
In an effort to call attention to the devastation, activists and creatives of non-governmental organisations Desierto Vestido and Fashion Revolution Brazil collaborated to produce an industry showcase like no other.
Atacama Fashion Week 2024 took place in May this year. The campaign sees models stalk runways cleared between towering piles of discarded textiles, donning garments constructed from the materials sourced in overwhelming dumping grounds that surround them. Brazilian stylist Maya Ramos designed the collection, lusciously layered and texturally rich, with reference to earth, wind, fire and water.
“It was an experience, it was incredible, but at the same time, I was really horrified to see the sea of fashion garbage that everyone is drowning in,” explained Maya, in a translated panel talk broadcast after the video’s release.
Dudu Bertholini, a Brazilian designer and stylist, also discusses the reality of producing a fashion-focused project to interrogate the impacts of climate change.
“It is really a paradox that we are coming from a place of pain to talk about this project. This urgency, this socio-environmental tragedy that this garbage is. At the same time, it’s so exciting to be here and see the results of this show because it speaks to all the purposes of what we think about when [it comes to] the transformative power fashion has today.”
Dudu communicates a belief in the power of the re-appropriation of clothing to challenge industry and consumers.
“We will always want the powerful and liberating potential that fashion has and fashion’s ability to create desire. This is something that we see as positive. But this generation of desire and creativity is only relevant if it serves as a bridge to a greater transformation.”
Scenes From The Climate Era
Back firmly on the soil of Aotearoa, another artistic project is looking to the power of clothing to create a direction for climate-conscious storytelling.
Scenes From The Climate Era will be presented by Auckland Theatre Company and Silo Theatre over the next few weeks. The piece explores 25 short scenes set in the past, present and future, all focused on conversations, dynamics and events related to the climate emergency.
David Finnigan is the Australian playwright behind the original script and the production premiered at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre last year. The local iteration of the play has been developed and adapted for a context relevant to Aotearoa through collaboration with director Jason Te Kare (who has previously directed Hone Kouka’s influential biographical play I, George Nepia and co-wrote and directed Cellfish).
A crucial part of developing the piece has been the approach to design, across costumes and set. Designer Nati Pereira, working alongside Jane Hakaria and Leon Radojkovic, has steered the production’s approach to costumes.
“We were determined to make the footprint as light as possible. Theatre often struggles with recycling and waste, with many sets and costumes discarded at the end of seasons.”
The nature of the production’s storytelling meant the status quo was no longer acceptable. Instead, Nati and the wider team scoured the extensive archives of Auckland Theatre Company’s costume room and sourced clothing from op-shops — altering and upcycling as they went.
The process raised plenty of questions about what the term “sustainable” actually meant in practice, says Nati.
“I went to op shops and then all of these questions came up, like, I’m driving too much for only one piece that I might not even find. So, I came back here [to the archive]. I really checked every item – those boxes back there have trousers, tops, jackets ... Despite being uncomfortable, I appreciated experiencing it as a creator.”
To craft the ultimate capsule wardrobe, with a utilitarian theatrical flair, Nati has looked for pieces with transformative qualities. Showcasing a similar aesthetic sensibility to Atacama Fashion Week, she’s drawn on an earthy palette, basing her colour scheme on a striped jumper pulled during archival diving.
The use of the clothing in Scenes From The Climate Era goes beyond its usual purpose. Garments will be integrated into the scenes as illustrative objects.
“We are also experimenting with using some of the sourced clothing to create visual storytelling. So far, we’ve experimented with building Lion Rock from a mountain of clothes and repurposing scarves to become eels.”
For Nati, the strict parameters around waste have been challenging but inspiring.
“In terms of what I’ve learned from this show, to put in practice for other shows, it’s how much we can challenge ourselves and our designs so we can tell more with less. I think it’s a great challenge to push those boundaries. How much do we really need to tell something? I think it’s nice using the resources you need to enhance the audience’s own creativity.”
As a call to action, these creative projects showcase both the destructive and transformative potentials of clothing. Their approaches are urgent and instructive — a modelling of hope in the climate era.
Scenes From The Climate Era opens on August 2 and is at Q Theatre until August 24.
Madeleine Crutchley is a multimedia journalist for Viva and premium lifestyle and entertainment at the New Zealand Herald. She covers stories relating to fashion, culture and food and drink, from her hometown of Auckland. Recently, she’s written about vintage fashion, the NZ International Film Festival and sporty street style.
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