Essay about Local Colours by M. Randin

Manon Randin

Manon Randin

Admission Assignment Fashion Masters 2015 Master Fashion Design and Master Fashion Strategy

Slow Fashion Movement in Switzerland Case study of ‘Local Colours’ The definition of fashion resides in its high speed and constant search for novelty, innovation and icons.

This exploration of permanent change and newness calls for everlasting production, leading some of the most well-known low and high price fashion brands to forever new invention. ‘Cruise Collections’ and new items coming every two weeks in the shops, beat by far the fashion ‘seasons’- half a year in normal-speak. Aesthetically pleasing, cheaply produced garments are annihilating environmental and social rights. Workers in big fashion industries (mostly in Bangladesh (Katalin Fekete; 2014)) are in everyday contact with highly toxic chemicals in order to give pleasant taints to the clothes. Along with the colors they add, these dyes lead the fabric’s employees to contract skin and lunges diseases and destroy the life cycles present in the rivers that are chemically saturated by the dyes released (Maarit Aakko; 2013).

These facts are even enhanced by the following numbers. 40% of the manufactured garments produced in these huge scale fashion companies end up in the trash can (José Teunissen; 2013) which represents an average of 30 kilos per person per year in the UK (Alison Gwilt & Timo Rissanen; 2010). This unfortunate production pace is leading to concern of environmental and social sweeps that established an opposite way of thinking and producing. The high concern brought by such facts has been the starting point of the Slow Fashion Movement, a movement that the designers of the 21st century are numerous to embrace in order to avoid these numbers to engrave.

The term ‘Slow Fashion’ appeared in 2007 through Fletcher’s texts and is one alternative to the fashion overconsumption that researchers, author, consultant and design activist Kate Fletcher describes as ‘Bulimia’. It contrasts with ‘Fast Fashion’ and its high production speed that is no longer sustainable neither for the environment nor for the human conditions. “Slow fashion also emphasizes the origin and habitat of the product, in which the story behind the product, the heritage of a brand and the culture of the place where it is made are all very crucial.” (José Teunissen; 2013) This new approach towards fashion responds to a tangible saturation occurring on the fashion market and on the after-use market.

The Slow Fashion Movement as such can be introduced and applied in different ways. The main leading points stay the value of local resources, a transparent production linking the producer to the consumer, the use of sustainable products, the will to create a special relation between the garments and the consumer as well as the search for authenticity (Clark; 2008). Many fashion designers already respond to such characteristics on the market. Bruno Pieters’ Honest By (http://www.honestby.com/) is a leader in the transparency within its supply chain; Hussein Chalayan (http://chalayan.com/) is a pioneer when it comes to recycle fabrics and Rei Kawabuko (http://www.comme-des-garcons.com/) leads to consume in a different and closer way the pieces she designs.

The local production sector well explained and exemplified by Clark (2008) in her article entitled ‘Slow + Fashion - an Oxymoron or a Promise for the Future…?’ is a leading project for the Slow Fashion undertaking. The local/global approach goes along the lines of ‘think globally and act locally’ (Clark, 2008) and expresses a need to go back to the origin of the creator as well as the one of the consumer. Brands such as Rosa Chà (http://rosacha.com.br/) or Alexandre Herchcovitch (http://herchcovitch.uol.com.br/) that draw into their Brazilian cultural background to inspire and produce their collections exemplify

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the movement. With the local/global approach, the local culture is a leading point for the company and works as a line linking producer to consumer through their common roots. In that conception, the designer is no longer a secret and unknown artist, but is visible and exposes him/herself, his/her origin and journey to his/her consumers.

Leftovers of an onion and a pomegranate lying on fabric dyed by leftover fruits and vegetables

Local Colours Local Colours by Caroline Fourré (2015) (http://local-colours.tumblr.com/) exemplifies the local/global tendency in Switzerland. Both a Swiss cultural background of ‘Swiss Quality’ and the country’s endeavors in recycling has inspired the conception and development of Local Colours, a textiles dyeing innovator. It all begun with Caroline Fourré’s kitchen compost. By looking at it and the numerous amount of colors confined in the waste, she envisioned it as the dyes it could produce. Some researches later, she found out that garments could be dyed by staying in compost for several months. Yet, this procedure had the inconvenience of its long lasting process and its ‘hippy approach and results’ as the designer puts it. Here is when the food industry rejections came to her mind. And some kitchen dye experiments later she came up with her own procedure that combines water, salt with fruits and vegetables waste. Local Colours dyes clothes naturally using waste coming from the food

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industry. Red cabbage leaves from the farmers, avocado stones from Mexican restaurants, pomegranate peels from the supermarket pre-packet fruits salads are the ingredients used in the process. Every product listed above come from the Zurich area and consequently responds to a locally handmade demand that points out the en vogue concept of authenticity while being applicable on a global scale, concept introduced by Clark in her Slow + Fashion article (Clark, 2008).

Even if some Swiss companies are leaders on several markets such as the watches one with companies combining the so-called ‘Swiss Quality’, aesthetics and luxury with locally, handmade skills such as Patek Philippe (https://www.patek.com/fr/accueil), they are far from reaching such standards on the fashion market. Most of the Swiss fashion labels respond to some extend to a green production with brands like Freitag (http://www.freitag.ch/) that just launched a collection of garments made out of compostable fabric produced altogether 2500 kilometers in the surroundings of Zurich or Switcher (http://www. switcher.com/b2c_eu_de/) that only works with fabrics respectable of the human work conditions and environment. Both these brands are made in Switzerland and respond to the ‘Swiss Quality’ but are absent on the side of the aesthetically pleasing market. This lack is of great importance given that, when it comes to clothes, the thoughts about human and nature respect tends to fade away when buyers are confronted to aesthetically attractive clothes. (Joy, Sherry, Alladi, Wang & Chan; 2012) The idea developed by Local Colours is simple. Instead of inventing another clothing brand, it adds an aesthetical touch to already existing items. This addition aims at giving a twist to items offered by brands such as Freitag or Switcher, thus placing them on the visually attractive market. The first collection (Spring/Summer 2015) created by Local Colours is a collaborative one combining its dyes with several Swiss Clothing Brands. On the long run, Caroline Fourré’s attempt is to propose collaborations with specific - naturally Swiss - brands that would add Local Colours’ label to theirs. The designer does not envision the selling of her dyes alone; it is her entire concept as a collaboration that she offers.

As a fact, the same dyeing practice can be applied in any country using the same local principle of used food from the home-grown food industry performed on nearby produced garments. According to Caroline Fourré, this dyeing process is conceivable in any country since food is part of every community and has a deep history and implication in every society. This fact leads to another principle of the Slow Fashion Movement which is the link existing between the consumer and the product. Food being part - and often being a predominant part - of the consumer’s life, the use of derived food items to dye can have a linking skill between the consumer and the garments. Knowing where, with which products, by who and in which circumstances, a product is manufactured removes the ‘unanonymity’ of the product. This special narrative (José Teunissen, 2013) brought by the food and its deep significance in our societies builds a stronger link between the wearer and the item, which then became less likely to finish in the trashcan. In the same range of ideas, the transparent supply chain offered by the locally made dyes label leads towards a democratization of fashion ‘not by offering more people access to clothes by

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lowering prices but by offering these same people more control over institutions and technologies that affect their lives.’ (JosÊ Teunissen; 2014) Local Colours and its natural dyes that plays around with the transparency of its supply chain, the local legacy of its country and an overall respect of humans and environment goes in the same direction as Rubia (http://www.rubia-pflanzenfaerberei.de/), a German company working with natural pigments, and the French designer Rosa Tapioca (http://www.rosatapioca.com/) who releases garments dyed from vegetal products such as coffee and flowers. Even though they do exist, these three alternatives look like a terribly small aggregate in comparison to the amount of items chemically dyed and internationally worn. When taking in account the environmental impact dying a basic t-shirt takes: 28 liters of water, 2.8 kg of CO2 released and 52.000 Joules spent it sounds unrealistic that no sustainable solution has been found in order to ecologically mass-dye garments.

Local Colours is a company launched a few months ago. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how many companies will change their dyeing practices to embrace the non-harming one suggested and already established by the Swiss dyeing label. The Swiss market is a small one, generally eco-friendly oriented and, significant fact, that can afford Slow Fashion items. In that regard, the future of Local Colours, the companies that will ensure a collaboration with it, the number of items dyed and for which period of time are some prospective facts and analyzes that would definitely enhance this case study. How and how far is the Swiss society able to join on it self praised eco ideal with the fashion reality?

Lookbook image of Local Colours Spring Summer 2015 collection

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References _ J. TEUNISSEN, The search for new values and practices, in fahsion, in: josé Teunissen & Jan Brand (ed), Fashion Odyssey, Arnhem: ArtEZ Press, 2013. _ J. TEUNISSEN, The Future of Fashion is now, in: José Teunissen & Jan Brand (ed), The Future of Fashion is Now, Arnhem, Boijmans, 2014. _ T-M. CHOI, Fast Fashion Systems : Theories and Applications, New York, CRC Press, 2014. _ H. CLARK, Slow + Fashion - an Oxymoron - or a Promise for the Future … ? , Fashion Theory volume 12, issue 4, pp.427-446, 2008. _ GWILT & T.RISSANEN, Shaping sustainable fashion- changing the way we make and use clothes, New York, Earthbscan, 2011. _ E. JOHANSSON, Slow Fashion- the answer for a sustainable fashion industry ?, 2010 nd the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands, Fashion Theory, 16 :3, 2012. _ J. FARLWY GORDON & C. HILL, Sustainable Fashion ; Past, Present and Future, Bloomnsbury _ K. FLTECHER, Slow Fashion . An Invitation for System change, Fashion Practice : The Journal of Design, Creative process & the Fashion Industry, 2 :2, pp. 259-265, 2010. _ K. FETCHER, Sustainable Fashion and Textiles- Design Journeys, second edition, New York, Routledge, 2014. _ K. NIIMINAKI, Fashion : new approaches, the authors and AaltoUniversity, Helsinki, 2013 _ http://www.tink.ch/ti-neu/article/2015/06/03/la-tavolozza-del-compostaggio/#.VW_4CDVUaL4.facebook _ http://www.honestby.com/ _ file:///Users/randinmanon/Downloads/greenbuzz-event-snapshot_costs-of-cotton_apr_20151%20(1).pdf _ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7266364.stm _ http://chalayan.com/ _ http://www.comme-des-garcons.com/ _ http://rosacha.com.br/ _ http://herchcovitch.uol.com.br/ _ http://local-colours.tumblr.com/ _ http://www.swissrecycling.ch/fr/ _ https://www.patek.com/fr/accueil _ http://www.freitag.ch/ _ http://www.switcher.com/b2c_eu_de/ _ http://www.rubia-pflanzenfaerberei.de/ _ http://www.rosatapioca.com/