FASHION REVOLUTION WEEK 2021 April 19-25
Fashion Open Studio, the global fashion showcasing and mentoring initiative of Fashion Revolution, is delighted to announce the 2021 cohort of international designers who will be opening up their studios and their practice to the public and sharing their solutions to the urgent challenges facing the fashion industry.
This year over 50 designers from 21 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia and South America will share a single showcasing platform which will highlight sustainable innovation, indigenous craftsmanship, local cultural heritage, regenerative and equitable business models and new technology.
Image: Fashion Open Studio
From A2ByMatin’s ‘Punk Islam’ which bridges the textile heritage between Italy and Iran, to solutions for zero waste creation by Yefikir in Addis Ababa, Fashion Open Studio is a unique space for designers with different geographical and cultural challenges to share their solutions with the community and the wider industry.
Image: Fashion Open Studio
Fashion Open Studio celebrates the designers, both emerging and established who are proudly building businesses with values that align with Fashion Revolution’s theme for 2021: Rights, Relationships and Revolution. Human rights and the rights of nature are interconnected and interdependent; we are part of the wider living world and our right to a healthy environment depends on the health of our planet.
The designers will show not just who made your clothes but how they are made, and the materials they use. In response to Fashion Revolution’s new hashtag for 2021, #WhoMadeMyFabric, many of these designers have the answers because they are involved not just in weaving the cloth, but growing and spinning the raw fibre too with events including a short history of hemp with specialist Mohsin Sajid, and our ongoing look at the material world with The Sustainable Angle.
Image: Fashion Open Studio
Because of continuing restrictions due to Covid-19, the majority of the events will be digital again this year giving a global audience to designers who have aspirations to grow their brands only as far as their resources will allow them.
We are witnessing a new generation of designers who no longer set their sights on working for an internationally recognised brand but on building their businesses sustainably, and with authenticity. They are building small brands with local markets and renewable supply chains. They are exploring new materials grown and woven in labs. They are looking to another dimension altogether, where virtual reality eliminates the need for materials altogether.
Designers taking part include About a Worker, a radical design studio based in Paris, giving workers from around the world the opportunity to become designers; Oshadi Studio in Erode, India, on their collaboration with Christy Dawn for a regenerative cotton collection that starts from the cotton seed in the field; Kampala based IGC Fashion and London based NUBA discussing their use of barkcloth; Raeburn, GAIA, and Olivia Rubens demonstrating how circularity and regeneration works within their practice. Of the emerging talents who are leading the conversation on so many of these issues we are excited to welcome Emma Bruschi, prize winner of the 35th Festival of Fashion Hyeres who will show her farm to collection approach.
Image: Fashion Open Studio
We will highlight the importance of relationships in the supply chain as well as with our clothes: BLOKE in Lagos, dedicated to the preservation of long established local artisanal practices, small communities of knitters, and textile artists. We will explore brands who actively pursue business models that stay small but generate enough revenue to support their communities.
As well as exploring the textile cultural heritage and indigenous raw materials being preserved and protected by many of the designers, there are some explorations of the designers who are transforming the future landscape of fashion. We rethink the whole idea of #WhoMadeYourFabric with a dive into the biomaterial experiments and research of Modern Synthesis and a collective of researchers including Elissa Brunati and Chiara Tommencioni Pisapia. And we take you away from the material world too, on a journey into cyberspace to see what happens when fashion becomes virtual with digital couture creators Auroboros.
Tamsin Blanchard, Fashion Open Studio Curator said: “The whole landscape of fashion has changed. We are seeing a new generation of designers around the world who are connected by the desire to challenge the entire fashion system, from cotton seed to repair station. I am excited by the diverse and far reaching possibilities proposed by this year’s designers and look forward to giving them the exposure to share their innovative ideas and have their voices heard.”
Orsola de Castro, Global Creative Director, Fashion Revolution, and creative director, Fashion Open Studio said: “Fashion Open Studio is a microcosm of brilliance, courage and resilience, bringing together committed individuals, creative souls and relentless changemakers all who use their creativity for the good of many. We challenge the mainstream and champion the radicals.”
The full schedule of global events is available on www.fashionopenstudio.com with updates and story takeovers on Instagram @fashionopenstudio
Register today :)
About Fashion Open Studio
Now in its fifth year, Fashion Open Studio is a Fashion Revolution initiative. As an alternative showcasing and mentoring platform, the purpose is to shine a spotlight on best practice and innovation being led by fashion and textile designers, biotech start-ups and retail disruptors. As well as radical new start-ups, FOS has attracted some of the industry's biggest names to collaborate, including Vivienne Westwood, Bethany Williams and Christopher Raeburn. The designers are selected for their commitment to a clearly defined criteria of responsible design and systemic innovation. During Fashion Revolution Week, 19-25 April 2021, designers share best practice in a transparent and open manner, in a way that offers access and stimulates discussion and questions.
About Fashion Revolution
Fashion Revolution is the world’s largest fashion activism movement, formed after the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013 which killed over 1,100 people. Fashion Revolution campaigns for a clean, safe, fair, transparent and accountable fashion industry through research, education, collaboration, mobilisation and advocating for policy change. Fashion Revolution is a global movement with country offices and voluntary teams in 90 countries. Fashion Revolution believes in a global fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people over growth and profit. In order to achieve this goal, the organisation conducts research that shines a light on the fashion industry’s practices and impacts, highlights where brands and retailers are moving too slowly and incentivises and promotes transparency and accountability across the supply chain.
