We were thrilled to have a presence at the 2023 Future Fabrics Expo, which took place during the final week of June at the Magazine London in Greenwich. The three-day expo invited people from across the world to network, feel fabrics, and hear relevant discussions about the materials changing fashion and preventing pollution.
We were based in the Knowledge Hub, right by the main stage, besides other platforms with missions to share information in new ways – Hole and Corner, Bio Fabricate, Swim XYZ, Fairly Made and DIRT Charity.
Our stand stood next to the Waterstones book table which displayed authors we admire, from Orsola de Castro, Seetal Solanski, Rebecca Burgess (whom have all contributed towards our upcoming print journal) as well as Mathilda Tham, Aja Barber and Sofi Thanhauser – the Colèchi bookshelf is now very full!
We partnered with FibreLab to print business cards and excerpts of our journal titled Agreenculture, onto papertex – paper made from textile waste shredded locally in Hackney. Alongside samples of our printed guides including our popular no-nonsense Vegan Leather Guide; and Clean Fashion Guide with examples of brands that interact with fashion in new ways.
The main purpose of us exhibiting at the expo though was to promote the upcoming release of our journal Agreenculture, which explores the connection between fashion and farming through articles, essays, and interviews. The response from everyone we met was positive, and it was pleasure spreading the word about Colèchi, acknowledging our successes, and promoting our future endeavours.
In between mingling with people, we visited other booths and saw a dress made from fabric that you would find on the inside of diapers at Canopy’s booth (which was a non-woven fabric made of 100% sero™ a linen/hemp blend that replaces synthetic fibres) as well as a rack of organically dyed t-shirts at the Ficus Innovations booth.
It was great to see inventions from our community including a large test-tube with bubbling sage liquid demonstrating photosynthetic microbial pigments as part of Post Carbon Lab’s carbon-efficient colourfication technology – essentially a better and natural way to dye clothing, demonstrated with a tiny rail of baby clothing that used the technology.
Non-mined gem-stones resembling hard sweet candy in berry, grape and lime-green colours by CQ Studio; and a visual demonstration of how Earth Keepers by Raeburn in collaboration with Timberland are deconstructed to ease the process of recycling into separate streams, the trainer can be cut of one seam, separating the rubber sole from the trainers. Speaking of trainers, crowds gathered around footwear designer Helen Kirkum, who made an appearance on Wednesday and showed samples to everyone.
The seminars were also insightful, with the experience being similar to a silent disco as everyone in the audience was instructed to wear wireless headphones. The panellists ranged from our friend Orsola (founder of Fashion Revolution), who spoke poetically about upcycling and advised everyone in the audience to “wear your principles as you wear your right size” to Jenny Holloway (founder of Fashion Enter), who emphasised the importance of “proximity sourcing” and that fashion should be “response and action”.
The highlight of the expo was the seminar on ‘The Future of Sustainable Luxury and Why Gen Z is Ready to Act’, which featured our very own Tina Wetshi as a panellist. The moderator Clare Press – a writer & podcaster in sustainable fashion – argued that every generation pigeonhole young people and that Gen Z are a more pragmatic generation because of global movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. She mentioned that this decade was ‘the age of realism’ as people are less trusting of marketing and campaigns.
Tina mentioned that brands are eager to market to young people and expressed that instead of seeing Gen Z as the solution, brands should be willing to collaborate with them. She brought up our knitting club YKWU (You can Knit With Us) as an example of bringing different generations together to share ideas with each other, work on projects, and learn about the labour-intensive process of actually making clothes. Tina also described Colèchi as “anti-hierarchal” unlike organisations created in the past, and that everyone involved has agency to express themselves as opposed to having a heavy top-down approach. She summed up her points by saying that “fashion should be wholesome so that everyone’s involved and has a seat at the table”.
Also on the panel was climate activist Saad Amer who joined via Zoom and said that “fashion has been designed to be disposable” and brainwashes young people to always have a “new look”. He concluded his points by saying that “fashion should be an expression”.
