Creativity with Purpose
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Creativity with Purpose by Fashion Revolution
SMALL BUT PERFECT
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Creativity with Purpose
CONTENTS
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Contents • Background information and inspiration | What is Creativity with Purpose?
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• Case studies | Who’s doing what, why and how?
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• Goals and potential shifts | Finding your place
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• Reflection exercises | What do we need most?
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• Worksheets, tools and templates | Water | Waste | Circularity
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• Reading list, further resources & references | Quotes and inspirations | Terminology | Further reading
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SMALL BUT PERFECT
Creativity with Purpose
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION & INSPIRATION
What is Creativity with Purpose? As fashion decision makers, be it consumers, designers, or entrepreneurs, we are automatically social and environmental decision makers. Our decisions directly affect people and the living environment that we are all a part of. Everything has changed – creativity, fashion, stuff without purpose is glaringly outdated. A new purpose has reset the dial and once aligned with this it’s rare that anyone reverts back to the old mode. Fashion Revolution encourages an industry that values profit, people, planet, and creativity in equal measure: and we believe that it is our collective responsibility to make this happen. By collaborating and innovating, by measuring success differently, by looking at growth in a more holistic, realistic, healthy way, we can shift attitudes from the apathy that is often the result of feeling that we have inherited a massive problem, to the enthusiasm of being an active part of the solution.
“Does what we create justify what we destroy?” Tony Fry
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Creativity with Purpose
BACKGROUND INFORMATION & INSPIRATION
EXERCISE Embed sustainable thinking – let this inform your offer instead of trying to retrofit ‘sustainability’: Circle all the terms below that relate directly to your business. Anything that doesn’t, make into a list and stick it up somewhere in your office or workspace to prompt further consideration.
secondary and tertiary markets
up-cycling longevity decomposition
makers as designers
multi-life design service business models
downcycling
craft centred production models
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION & INSPIRATION
Fashion is a reflection of the culture we live in, and together we can change the emphasis and the culture that surrounds it by defining a meaningful industry that demands positive leadership, transparency, sustainability and proactive accountability.
We must return to a mindset of:
Borrowing, Transforming and Returning as opposed to
Extracting, Using and Discarding.
How is your business doing this?
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION & INSPIRATION
The principles of sustainability are relatively new to the modern fashion industry and there is huge potential for innovation, leadership and change. There are also many obstacles and resistance which must be navigated with determination, persistence and clarity. It’s all about considering and engaging with these principles and how they apply to your concept or position. It’s about being proactively accountable, starting with the concept and the design process, as opposed to designing something and then leaving the suppliers and the end customer to take responsibility for the social and environmental impacts. It’s about asking the right questions, requesting disclosure and inviting partnership from all supply chain and brand partners.
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CASE STUDIES
Who’s doing what, Kilomet 109
• Indigenous raw materials • Horizontal and transparent value chain grounded in local materials and market kilomet109.com
Hiut Denim
• Heritage production • Denim brand founded in order to retain local jobs and to do one thing well hiutdenim.co.uk
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why and how? NorBlack NorWhite
• Consumer cultural collaboration • Primary focus on preservation and celebration of traditional crafts and clothing culture. norblacknorwhite.com
Renewal Workshop
• Regenerative circularity as a service • Brand becomes a service, repairing and repurposing other brands’ products renewalworkshop.com
CASE STUDIES
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GOALS & POTENTIAL SHIFTS
Finding your place You don’t have to be big to have a big impact. It’s the small brands – the myriad of brave, courageous young designers who are defying all stereotypes and inventing a new fashion industry: smaller, slower, more spontaneous, built on totally different attitudes – who are creating real change.
“We’re going to need everyone. Find your place.” Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
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REFLECTION EXERCISES
What do we need most? Our wardrobes are a part of the fashion supply chain, so our actions can make a tangible difference. As fashion decision makers, be it consumers, designers, or entrepreneurs, we are automatically social and environmental decision makers, because our decisions directly affect supply chain workers and the environment we all share.
EXERCISE Please take a moment to write down the top 3 things you know the global fashion and textiles industry needs to do most urgently in order to change its socially and environmentally destructive course:
1 2 3
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REFLECTION EXERCISES
WATER We have a finite body of water on planet Earth. It is called the Hydro Cycle – the same volume remains throughout time. WASTE In our conventional fashion production systems, waste at every stage of the value chain, from raw fibre to post-wearer, landfill is a given. All too often it is also seen as someone else’s problem. CIRCULARITY Earth’s biome which we all live within and rely on entirely for our existence is a circular system. There is no such thing as a linear system.There are only degrees of regeneration or degradation within Earth’s circular system.
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REFLECTION EXERCISES
EXERCISE 1 Take some time to write down a full list of the purposes of your business. (Write down everything you can think of and don’t get stuck on what’s right or wrong.) Now condense them down to the top 3 and see how they relate to the definitions of water, waste and circularity above. i.
ii.
iii.
2 Explore the Fashion Open Studio initiative: www.fashionopenstudio.com/designers Then identify the brand or business you think is either most similar to yours OR you would most likely want to work with. Write a short paragraph on why.
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WORKSHEETS, TOOLS & TEMPLATES
EXERCISE
Water Make two lists: One is a list of when water is (most likely) extracted or harvested from a natural source to enable your product or service to be made and used. The other is a list of when water is (actually or potentially) contaminated by chemical inputs to enable your product to be made or used. Include the entire life cycle to the best of your knowledge, including user phase. If you don’t make a product, choose a product related to you or your business. water extracted or harvested
water contaminated
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WORKSHEETS, TOOLS & TEMPLATES
Waste Using a scale of 1 – 10 ( 10 being the highest)... Score your best-selling product or service on the follow questions:
How likely is your product to be relevant and valuable for resale in a foreign culture or market place? How readily will your product biodegrade or safely decompose? How much do you consider the second or third hand owner of your product when you are designing it?
Add all your scores and see where you come out: 0-10 How can I add more value and make my product safer to dispose of? 10-20 My product is valuable but not in-disposable 20-30 My product has technical and emotional durability
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WORKSHEETS, TOOLS & TEMPLATES
Circularity Write a definition for circularity in the context of polyester textiles that differentiates the term from ‘resale’ or ‘recycling’. (Do the same for any other fibre category, with the option of ‘decomposition’ included for natural fibres.)
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READING LIST, FURTHER RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
Quotes and inspirations “When one sits in the hoop of the people, one must be responsible because all of creation is related, and the hurt of one is the hurt of all and the honor of one is the honor of all” The Legend of White Buffalo Calf Woman, Lakota Instructions for Living
“Design has [the] potential to influence both groups [industry and consumer] and affect change in all of these areas, working both to shape products and to facilitate new types of behaviors” Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys, Dr. Kate Fletcher
“Here’s where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good” Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, Michael Braungart & William McDonough
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Smart manufacturers understand that thinking of use cycles means thinking about a customer’s longterm relationship with a product and brand” Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, Michael Braungart & William McDonough
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READING LIST, FURTHER RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
Terminology Here are some common terms (and the experts who helped pioneer them) around this topic, as well as some suggested reading and browsing. It is important to be clear these are general terms, they are not accreditations or certifications. SLOW FASHION: Takes its name after the ‘Slow Food’ movement, the opposite of ‘fast fashion.’ It is rooted in principles such as, ‘Buy Better, Less Often’ ‘Care and Repair’ ‘All materials return to the earth as either a poison or a nutrient”. Environmentally friendly materials, low toxicity longevity, heirloom, trans-seasonal, unisex, hand made, biodegradability, recyclability, ‘Make Do and Mend’ are also all key elements of the Slow Fashion movement. There are some influential designers emerging under this banner. Dr. Kate Fletcher – researcher, lecturer, author and industry pioneer, can be considered one of the key founders of the slow fashion movement. www.katefletcher.com ECO FASHION: The most common and perhaps ‘original’ term that describes the broader ethos when considering environmental aspects of fashion production. Used globally but often considered a bit old fashioned or ‘uncool’. Marci Zaroff – can be considered the ‘founder’ of the term ‘ECOfashion’, which she coined (and trademarked) in the mid 90s. She was one of a handful of truly pioneering individuals around the globe and across the fashion value chain, who are still at the forefront of this movement. www.marcizaroff.com ETHICAL FASHION: Another very common and broad term for brands that take into consideration environmental AND social aspects of their business. Used most often in the UK and brought to the forefront by organisations such as The Ethical Fashion Forum, founded in London in the mid 2000s. It includes all kinds of variations and combinations of certifications, but is not a certification in itself.
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Creativity with Purpose
READING LIST, FURTHER RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
Further reading Fashion Revolution [Manifesto] www.fashionrevolution.org/manifesto True Cost [Movie] truecostmovie.com River Blue [Movie] riverbluethemovie.eco The OR Foundation theor.org Parley for the Oceans [Campaign] www.parley.tv/#fortheoceans SOKO Kenya [Producer] www.soko-kenya.com Circular Textiles Foundation circulartextilesfoundation.co.uk Good Business Lab [Business development] www.goodbusinesslab.org Make Works [Physical space] make.works The Story of Stuff [Awareness Campaign] storyofstuff.org
Content written by Joss Whipple for Fashion Revolution
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