Eye: London Launches Commonwealth Fashion Exchange For Sustainability | Kering Offers Online Course On Sustainable Design

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

"We're not talking anymore; we're doing," said Livia Firth in describing the Buckingham Palace celebration of the Commonwealth Fashion Exchange. Firth has long championed the human potential of fashion to make positive impacts on the lives of people -- especially women -- while reforming the damage wreaked on the environment by fashion. Baroness Patricia Scotland, the Commonwealth secretary-general, joined Firth in launching what Vogue calls "perhaps the biggest set of collaborations in history."

“At Eco-Age, we have so many conversations about how to get people to understand the negative effects of fast fashion. We thought this was a real opportunity to demonstrate the handprint, not the footprint, of fashion," said Firth about the Queen's State Rooms,  "lined with more than 30 sustainably produced, handcrafted ball gowns, representing the cultures, identities, and creative skills of 52 countries, from the large—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Britain—to the tiniest of islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean."

The overarching point, said Baroness Scotland, “Is about engaging young people and using fashion as a thread that connects everyone.” She quoted staggering statistics: A third of the Commonwealth’s 2.4 billion citizens are under the age of 30—a vast generation primed to be interested in fashion and involved in it as workers. “It is the second-largest employer of women in developing countries.”

The Countess of Wessex, right, with model Adwoah Aboah, left, and chief executive of the British Fashion Council Caroline Rush, centre (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Artisan-produced products and materials are steadily gaining status and consumer demand explained Firth. Craft methods are by nature, less damaging to the planet. “Artisans have a shorter supply chain [when they are] using hand-looming and not working with artificial fibers.” A vital partner involved in the quest was Nest, an NGO dedicated to improving women’s well-being and preserving cultural traditions, reaching isolated homeworkers to empower them to know their rights and establish fair-trade practices. “We researched every single country and every supply chain. We help them by applying 10 principles of production—and from all this, we have built an amazing database, which is going to be available for everyone to access on the Google Arts & Culture platform.”

Selected design talent includes major names such as Karen Walker representing New Zealand, Bibi Russell representing Bangladesh and Burberry and Stella McCartney representing the UK. Participating designers and artisans will collectively represent all 53 commonwealth member countries in a major new initiative ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London this April. 

Livia Firth and Hamish Bowles, the curator of the exhibition (Peter Nicholls/PA)

Business supporters helping fund the Commonwealth Fashion Exchange include Swarovski, The Woolmark Company and MATCHESFASHION.COM, who is set to launch an edited collection in September 2018.

Also at the event were Anna Wintour and Vogue's Hamish Bowles, British Vogue's Edward Enninful, Adwoa Aboah, British Fashion Council's chief executiveCaroline Rush and Naomi Campbell. The Commonwealth Fashion Exchange moved to Australia House for the two week public exhibition, where Livia and Colin Firth, Noella Coursaris Musunska, Nadja Swarovski, Nigel Gosse and Ulric Jerome hosted an event Thursday evening.

Kering Launches Online Course On Sustainable Design

Four years ago, Kering -- parent company of Gucci and Bottega Veneta -- and the London College of Fashion, "the prestigious constituent college of the University of the Arts London", embarked on a joint project to create resources for brands and designers determined to reduce their environmental footprint. 

As part of their March 2018 'Design the Future' issue, guest-edited by Emma Watson, Vogue Australia shares news of an 18-hour online course titled 'Fashion & Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World', launching on April 9.

 “We couldn’t be everywhere at once,” Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability officer and head of international institutional affairs at Kering, tells Vogue of the demand her office saw for appearances, speeches and trainings on the subject. As a result, they decided to make the materials of their courses with LCF widely available and free through a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

The new platform was presented by François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering, at an event during London Fashion Week, highlighting the opportunity that sustainability and innovation provides not just for the world, but businesses and consumers too.

“We believe that to change the business model of the fashion industry to include sustainability you need also to know how to do it,” says Daveu. “With this MOOC we give guidelines and how to manage them, everything from material dimensions and sourcing for luxury fashion, to how to measure your environmental footprint. Everytime we speak about an issue - for example climate change, biodiversity, resource scarcity - we give concrete tools and solutions to determine what, as a young designer, you have to do. So it is theoretical as well as operational.”

The course, for which registration is now open, is divided into six modules, presented through videos, podcasts, activities and discussions that participants can undertake at their leisure. Plans for a translations, namely in Chinese, are underway, as well as as an abridged version that all new Kering hires can undertake. “This course is not a revolution, and I’m not saying that after it everything will be perfect,” says Daveu, “but I am convinced that it will concretely change the way designers and the fashion industry can do their job. You can’t say that one thing will cause a revolution, but step by step, stone by stone, we will make a change.”