Fashion: High IQ

HIGH IQ Melissa Lockwood is on a fierce mission: to spark a zero-waste revolution in fashion design. By Alice Teeple

SINCE 2010, Melissa Lockwood has exclusively incorporated discarded sample fabrics from studios, design houses, and fabric recovery stores such as NYC Fabscrap into her clothing designs, for her eponymous company, IQ Test: Melissa Lockwood. Samples, swatches and scraps become exciting jackets, dresses, fabric collages, and eye-catching accents. She works with luxury silks, linens, antique beads, vintage braid, and embroidered pieces, to embellish her designs.

Lockwood’s inspiration for the S/S2020 collection came from a friend at the Environmental Protection Agency tasked with solving the “fast fashion” crisis since the 1990s. The clothing and textile industry—along with the oil industry and the military complex—is one of the largest polluters in the world, and has become a major contributor to environmental devastation. In

Earth Body Show, where her styles were met with acclaim. Her project has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, and Vogue UK. She has taken her ideals straight to the runway, as well. During Global Climate Week, Lockwood took a cue from activist Greta Thunberg and refused to fly or ride on a bus or train, use sets built for disposal, or have models walk on carpet that might be thrown away. She is determined to be an environmentalist first and foremost, with design being part of her mission. She opted to release her collection online, instead. “As the world’s resources change and things become scarcer, we will need to have a road map to follow,” she says.

Her next phase is to create nowaste utilitarian objects such as rugs, pillowcases, and other home décor elements, out of the same materials. iqtest-nyc.com DT

addition to the 20% of global water waste produced by the fashion industry, textile refinery involves poisonous chemicals such as arsenic, lead, and mercury. Tasked with researching new ways to keep “disposable” clothing out of landfills, Lockwood discovered she could create gorgeous fashions using only off-cut waste and reclaimed fabrics. Lockwood’s styles are an intriguing collection of shifts, streamlined dress designs, and sturdy and artistic jackets. Many of her dresses are a modern take on classic 1920s styles. They are flowing, flattering to all sizes, and comfortable. With a streamlined approach to constructing her pieces, she can knock out individual, unique dresses quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.

Lockwood’s collections have recently been featured in New York Fashion Week, the Cannes Film Festival, and the Venice Biennale Preview as part of the

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