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  • Geoffrey B. Small
    Senior Member
    • Nov 2007
    • 618

    #16
    .

    I said my piece on the subject in the book's foreword.




    .

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    • sassbrown
      Junior Member
      • Oct 2010
      • 14

      #17
      Eco Fashion talk at FIT 26th Oct 6pm

      Thank you for signing up for the talk and book signing - rather intrigued to see how many people show up - its always such an unknown! Agreed about Walmart, not exactly my favorite company, never the less they do indeed have enormous lobbying power as you state below.

      Say hi after the talk, would be nice to put a face to the name!

      Sass

      Originally posted by Faust View Post
      Dear Ms. Brown,

      Thank you for your replies (and for compliment on the Oscar Wilde quote - it is an awesome one indeed).

      My apprehension about companies like Walmart is that because of their awesome lobbying power, whenever they get involved into an industry it often leads to loosening up of the standards. But, hopefully this won't be the case here. And, of course, I agree that the current fast-fashion model is responsible for an incredible amount of waste.

      In any case, I signed up for your talk at FIT, and I encourage other New York members to do the same.

      Eco Fashion - Sass Brown
      Tuesday, October 26, 6-8 pm
      Katie Murphy Amphitheatre
      Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Center, first floor

      Sass Brown, FIT faculty member, presents her new book, Eco Fashion, a comprehensive look at the environmentally conscious designers who are changing the fashion industry. By promoting recycling, redesign, reuse, sustainability, fair trade, and community development, these artists combine concern for the planet with love for exceptional fashion. A signing of the book will follow.

      Comment

      • sassbrown
        Junior Member
        • Oct 2010
        • 14

        #18
        Hi Geoffrey, good to hear from you! Great to see your foreword posted here! Did you get your copy of the book yet? It should be with you any day now if you haven't! Cant wait for you to get a copy!
        Sass

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        • Faust
          kitsch killer
          • Sep 2006
          • 37852

          #19
          Originally posted by sassbrown View Post
          Thank you for signing up for the talk and book signing - rather intrigued to see how many people show up - its always such an unknown! Agreed about Walmart, not exactly my favorite company, never the less they do indeed have enormous lobbying power as you state below.

          Say hi after the talk, would be nice to put a face to the name!

          Sass
          Will do!
          Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

          StyleZeitgeist Magazine

          Comment

          • kirkmitchell
            Junior Member
            • Apr 2009
            • 20

            #20
            I tend approach the subject of eco-design of any type from an industrial design perspective. Faust's point about the limited availability of natural materials, though sustainable at a certain consumption level far below our present one, is right on target. It is one of the single most compelling arguments for the development and production of synthetic materials. The mythology of a neo-luddite agrarian ecotopia is a model of scarcity that only functions with several billion less individuals on the planet.

            Which is absolutely not to be interpreted as being part of some anti-environmentalist screed. The looming environmental crisis, and all the volatile economic and social drivers that shuffle along with it, is the single most important concern we have this century. But much of the sustainability movement ultimately relies upon the notion that there is some amount of industrial activity that is "just enough," and we won't have to fundamentally change anything, or that we can attain an idealized Walden-esque state of equilibrium that really only would have worked a couple hundred years ago.

            A more effective strategy is to shift our notion of design from one of cradle-to-grave; an object with a linear lifetime from production to consumption to being discarded, to one of cradle-to-cradle; objects designed with the notion that they will never become waste, objects as part of an infinite cycle modeled off the flow of nutrients through an organic system: everything is re-absorbed, and waste equals food. A sort of "law of conservation of particles" for industrial design.

            The best part about this shift in design methodology is that it in no way sacrifices the quality of life proffered by industrialized civilization, while offering both greater environmental and health benefits (the model scales everywhere from energy systems, architecture, chemistry, to consumer products like shoes, books and carpet.) Its a step away from a world of scarcity and towards a world of abundance.

            Creating one-off designs made from recycled materials scrounged from rubbish bins are often very beautiful, but contribute little to nothing to the ultimate goal of creating a world that is healthy and safe for human habitation. There are fibres that are infinitely recyclable, with no materials loss, only the energy expended. Use factories that run off solar power. Design things like the Howies hand-me-downs, where the product is partially reconfigured as a service and enough materials for the repair and refurbishment of the item for ten years is set aside. If by nature it is disposable, make it compostable. I would love to see the very first fashion house that operates out of a site fabricated and maintained by the system being designed by Open Source Ecology. Resilient, off grid fashion.

            Some of this might seem beyond the scope of fashion design itself, but like Ms. Brown noted about the work Zara is doing, a great deal of the footprint is on the back-end of the business.

            Even a cheeseburger has a footprint. (Actually, Jamais has a lot of very interesting articles up there that are well worth checking out)

            Anyways, looking forward to checking out the book! It looks exhaustively researched, and I'm very encouraged to hear about the growing concern for eco-conscious design!

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