A Fair Trade Fashionista – London Fashion Week
Click to watch my interview with the Guardian Online.
Saturday 15th September
Set up People Tree stand using brown paper and string with a few designers’ help – amazing what you can do on a shoestring – or a hemp string! Looks O.K.
I’m in a ‘vintage’ People Tree cerise pink hand-woven silk sheath dress, grey alpaca shawl and high-heeled trainers! I look like a fashion statement by default – I whack clothes on each morning!
I’ve got front row tickets to Bora Aksu show and I take Jerome and Natalie, my 14 and 11 year olds – they’re impressed and so am I. Natalie asks pointedly: why do all the models look the same? Wouldn’t they look prettier if they smiled? She’s too pure to see women as clothes horses, no matter how beautiful the clothes, she sees clothes as second to the person always. Her observation colours my experience of London Fashion Week throughout. Bora’s collection is gorgeous though. Bora has designed a beautiful piece for a People Tree designer collaboration for Spring Summer 2008, as have Thakoon and Richard Nicoll.
Bora Aksu and me
Sunday 16th September
London Fashion Week starts – the stand is busy with buyers and media people who are keen to see if we tick the box in terms of DESIGN – they seem happy – phew!
Monday 17th September
Joan Ruddock
Leeyong Soo, Contributing Editor of Vogue Japan and me.
People Tree launches the designer collaboration and celebrates the first anniversary of Estethica with a champagne lunch party with help from Ecover and Ecotricity. Joan Ruddock (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra with responsibility for biodiversity, climate change adaptation, waste and domestic forestry) gives a message of support for sustainable fashion. Leeyong Soo, Contributing Editor from Vogue Japan, talks about how the Vogue/People Tree international designer collaboration put Fair Trade Fashion on the fashion map.
Leeyong Soo beside the SS08 Thakoon organic cotton dress
Leeyong with People Tree's Madeleine King and Arabella Preston
Other friendly faces included Jane Shepherdson, Carol Robb (new head of design at People Tree), Stuart Rose, Bora Aksu, Claire Hamer from Topshop and Rowena Young. Also journalists from T4, New Consumer, American Elle, Red, Cosmopolitan, In-Style, Harper’s Bazaar, Daily Telegraph, Guardian Online, Evening Standard, Tree Hugger and Senken Shimbun, Topshop from Japan. The whole world seems to be here.
Tuesday 18th September
Am getting fed up with images of slender girls who bear little resemblance to real women – the unforgettable box on head image from the Gareth Pugh show haunts my dreams – this is such a scene and I want to scream out loud that the fashion world is taking itself far too seriously. How much do I want to be part of the fashion world? It’s not that I don’t appreciate fashion as an art form, but really the models are farcical – I want real clothes for real women. Duping women and seducing them with expensive imagery – perpetuating a media day dream undermines women’s self-esteem and self-worth – and wastes a lot of money that could go to paying the real social and environmental costs of making clothes. I want to talk fashion agendas – so I meet fellow traveller Katharine Hamnett for an impassioned chat and fag out the back.
Wednesday 19th September
People Tree people are running to shows and after show parties - I literally can’t keep up with it all – looking glam on the outside day in day out is impossible – I’m frazzled on the inside. The piles on my desk have slid off onto piles on the floor! There are too many details to worry about in Fair Trade Fashion – that makes my life so unglamorous, even during London Fashion Week.
A few sweet buyers seem to see the glamorous side of People Tree – the SS08 collection gets rave reviews from some boutique and department store buyers. Jo Hunt, head buyer at ASOS.com commented that “the new People Tree designer collaboration looks beautiful, proving that you can look stylish at the same time as supporting Fair Trade fashion” – so we seem to be heading in the right direction.
Thank you Ecover and Ecotricity for your support of our People Tree Designer Collection 2008 launch and first year anniversary party – great to have friends like you! XX
My kinda London Fashion Week party Swaparama at Favela Chic, Old Street- Swaping clothes saves resources.
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