Is it a production or consumption problem?

I attended an event held in the LSAD campus yesterday for a panel discussion and workshop about sustainable textiles & garment manufacturing. This will be my overview of the event and what I have personally learnt and taken away from the speakers.

Our day began with an online talk by the CEO Ana Tavares of RDD Textiles (Valerius) who owns the business over in Portugal. The main focus of the speech was to open our eyes to abroad methods of sustainable fashion, and Ana took us through that by showing us different and new manufacturing methods that I haven’t ever heard of.

• First on the list was their partnership with Colorfix – the first company to use a biological process to deposit and fix pigments onto textiles.

• Along it was Reycrom, who are a company with a revolutionary sustainable dyeing solution made of 100% recycled clothing, fibrous material and textile scrap.

• She mentioned Bioblack TX, who use processing wood waste into dark black pigments, and along it was a similar business called Hemp Black who use black algae ink to achieve dark bold colours – and a negative carbon footprint.

• Lastly, she talked of her own internal recycling centre of RDD – Valerius 360, where amongst others they produce spinning waste paper which is 100% cotton waste.

What I found more amazing than the list of companies with impressive and sustainable practices was the partnership amongst all of them. Some of the companies wouldn’t be as impactful without another one helping it out – showing it’s true potential. Right after Ana we were introduced to Jonathan Neilly who is part of a family-owned Irish Linen business. He touched on the topic of green-washing, something I discussed back a few weeks ago in my Contemporary Design Culture series – and how there isn’t a lot of infrastructure put in place to prevent green-washing in general. How ‘Natural’ doesn’t always mean good and ‘Chemical’ doesn’t always mean bad things. I think the most impactful thing that he mentioned about his brand was how the company didn’t just look at start of life and the end of life, but rather the in-use part of the process when the customer has ownership.

Our next speaker was Blatnaid Gallagher – Co-Founder at Galway Wool. She was an incredible speaker and a strong woman who has continuously tried to market Irish wool to consumers over the past three years. Their main issue being the quality of the wool that is not next to skin fabric – unlike the Marino wool imported into Ireland every year. “The sheep farmers are not represented…20 million waste is shipped out of Ireland every year”. It was a really touching and heartfelt speech that made me want to get up off my chair and do something. The Irish sheep are out there, there is wool and workers – but no market? “Provenance is key – when people come to Ireland all they see is sheep, in every single county.” This is a huge opportunity for someone out there, as a few decades ago before the importation of marino wool Irish farming was a success.

Next I want to talk about Alboin Cycling – a Northern Irish based business. The points that resonated with me the most was the companies key motto of clothes being ‘more like a bike’. Implying that our attire should be of more value to us. An event hosted by Albion Cycling on Black Friday underlines just this, where instead of selling clothes for cheaper they offered 100% of garments to be repaired from any brand. The speaker went on to say that the customer receives a story from their garment being repaired, which in turn makes it more valuable and attractive. I think that I could definitely take this strategy and apply it to something else I design. Another point he made was that sometimes – Sustainability can be a colour. Something that doesn’t go out of fashion and is kept for longer.

A few other honourable mentions are the company Magee – a Weaving & Tailoring company and the initiative of Primark Cares, that focus on developing a new product standard – where “A circular economy begins with good design”.

In the afternoon we headed down to Confirm – Smart manufacturing that is a part of University Of Limerick. We got a quick tour and lunch, along with a workshop on future trends for the fashion industry and our expectations. While I felt like I didn’t relate to this a lot (mainly because of not having the experience, and my own business) I’m glad I stayed until the very end where we had a really nice discussion. Someone spoke out about how today was informative and really useful but it’s the first time in seven years that they have experienced something like this – and the resources have been longed gate-kept by those of the Hire-ups. While someone else presented her with their own business that links up company with manufacture sites this information was not advertised to her at all. The next half an hour led up to a discussion on the communication between designer and manufacturer in this industry. Something especially interesting to hear was when a fashion teacher in the area spoke out saying that people who go into a fashion design focused degree don’t ever think of going into manufacturing garments when they graduate – In the same way that graphic designers don’t want to become a printer when they finish their degree. But is this not a fault of the education system? (Something I will not be getting into today).

What I learnt most from today is that there is a lot of really good business and manufacturers but not enough places and things for them to get connected – something that’s already been done in Portugal by RDD Textiles. It was a very informative day and I look forward to using my new-found knowledge (Hopefully you learnt something too!) in the future.