Make Fashion Circular
Linear is out of fashion. Let’s design a circular future for our clothing.
Rethink Fashion participants
Find out more about the Rethink Fashion learning journey
Adam Robertson is the Managing Director and Founder of Kalopsia Collective - a batch manufacturer of Textiles apparel and accessories.
Adam is a textiles print and graphic designer who has worked on briefs
for a variety of companies such as British Dance Edition, Gynoides, Nike
and Beer52.
Adam’s practice is focused on system and data-led design, which he now
applies to the development of Kalopsia’s efficient manufacturing and
ordering processes.
Get to know Adam:
Alice V Robinson received her masters in Womenswear from the Royal College of Art in 2018. With a specialism in accessories Alice’s work has focused on the UK leather industry, exploring the transference of raw materials from holistically managed and ecological farms in the UK through to the fashion industry.
In the last three years Alice has created two collections: “11458” and “374”, which explore the intricacies of our supply chains. Each collection, made from a single animal, presents a transparent journey from farm to product to encourage discussion on the absence of traceability in the leather industry.
Alice’s work is currently focused on creating a new supply of traceable leather made from hides of animals raised on pasture-based farms with ecological and humane practices, and tanned using traditional vegetable tanning methods, for this work she is collaborating with Sara Grady.
Get to know Alice:
I am the creator of Curiously Conscious, a sustainable fashion blog documenting kinder ways to live and dress.
Started in 2014, I now work full-time on the blog and writing for likeminded content partners. Alongside my blog, I run Ethical Influencers, a free community platform for creatives championing on sustainability. The community has over 800 members from 42 nations around the world.
Get to know Besma:
Designer and London College of Fashion alumnus Comet Chukura’s brand and social enterprise Glow creates reflective knitted accessories, bridging the gap between functionality and aesthetics.
Glow’s mission is to create sustainability, activity, and high visibility while honoring and empowering craftswomen over profit. Partnering with women’s groups and charities to make the range, Glow’s pieces are slowly hand-crocheted and hand knitted by skilled BAMER (Black, Asian, minority ethnic, and refugee) women who face barriers to the labour market and who are paid their area’s Living Wage.
Developed to meet the needs of those like her who casually cycle, and want to wear high-vis without compromising style, Glow is an enterprise that combines Comet’s passions as a designer, women’s advocate and cyclist into one venture, for the good of the consumer as well as the maker. Comet’s vision is to create visibility on the roads and in the lives of the crafters, delivering fresh innovation.
Get to know Comet:
Layla Sargent is founder of The Seam, on a mission to change the way consumers care for their clothes!
Originally from Birmingham and now residing in North London, Layla has always had a penchant for good fitting clothes. Growing up she was fortunate enough live with her grandmother who was a professional seamstress!
However, upon moving to London (and not having nan live nearby) she realised how difficult it was to find a local tailor to make and repair her clothes. So, in 2019 she built The Seam, a marketplace for clothes alterations and repairs. Fast forward one year and thousands of customers are now getting their clothes repaired using The Seam, and makers across the country earning a living whilst sewing from their homes.
Get to know Layla:
My name is Mairi and I am a Scottish Systems Practitioner, School of System Change student, MSc Social Innovation graduate, and Founding Member of Sustainable Fashion Scotland.
The central question I explore through my work is, “How can we make a positive social impact towards a sustainable future through collaboration and innovation?”
Focusing on sustainable fashion in Scotland, my research involves navigating complex challenges through a systems change perspective.
I am particularly interested in exploring community systems change approaches to support the social impact of Sustainable Fashion Scotland, a community-led social venture with the mission to connect the fashion community in Scotland and facilitate a sustainable fashion transformation through collective impact and knowledge exchange.
Get to know Mairi:
Nathalie is a London based Materials Researcher and Designer.
For her Master’s graduate project in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins, she set out to design a vegan and circular alternative to wool by collecting the wasted leaves of pineapples from markets and crafting their fibres into a woven textile for fashion.
Spencer’s work addresses fundamental issues around the sustainability of the fashion industry, by turning to the materials around us and the crafts of local people. She has since worked in R&D at Ananas Anam (Piñatex) and is now continuing to develop her own practice as an independent designer and maker.
Get to know Nat:
Nina Falk is a fashion designer and product developer from Stockholm who has ran several brands and stores over the past 15 years.
Having studied in Sweden, Japan and the UK, Nina’s work has always focused on subverting norms and questioned standard industry practices, whether it be to do with gender, workers rights, model exploitation or environmental impacts.
Nina founded Kalopsia Collective in 2012 with print designer Adam
Robertson and developed Kalopsia’s ‘Assemble’ collection of standardised
accessories and apparel to combine all of her knowledge of effective,
long lasting and low impact design into desirable products.
Get to know Nina:
Co-Founder & CMO of Chip[s] Board ltd, Rob is a material lead designer with a strong focus on developing novel solutions to growing global problems.
He graduated with a degree in design from Kingston University with accompanying awards in product innovation and material development.
Chip[s] Board® is a thriving UK bioplastic innovation company, creating circular economy materials using abundant industrial food waste. With a specific focus on low impact manufacturing and responsible resource management, Chip[s] Board’s vision is to produce materials that work with nature, without compromise on quality.
Get to know Rob
Sara Grady is creating a new supply of traceable leather, made from hides of pastured animals raised with ecological and humane practices. She is developing this in New York and in England, where she is collaborating with Alice V Robinson.
Sara was previously the VP of Programs for agricultural non-profit Glynwood (www.glynwood.org) in New York’s Hudson Valley, where she directed numerous initiatives to support regional farming and food culture. Since moving to Europe in 2019, Sara consults with various food and farming enterprises to provide strategic planning, research, and project management services. Prior to her agriculture-related work, Sara worked in various creative and mission-driven capacities in design, arts, and educational multimedia production.
Get to know Sara
Founder of S. HAWKINS, a workwear label focussing on no waste manufacture and Japanese craftsmanship.
With up-cycling and British tailoring at our core, we build small and local supply chains to make beautiful and practical garments without waste.
In Spring 2021 we launch our Made in Japan series of jumpsuits for women and children that are woven and constructed by a mill and workshop in the Okayama Prefecture (Japan’s Denim Mecca’). T
he jumpsuits will be released in small batches, three times a year as made to order, which is a selling strategy that eliminates waste too. We believe that awareness and empowerment for consumers is key, so through our series of How-To videos we teach make and mend skills to all ages, while offering an in-house mending service too.
Get to know Sophie:
Kohl Kreatives is dedicated to beauty empowerment. The company reinvests all profits into providing free make-up consultancy for cancer care patients and transitioning transgender people.
Trishna’s products and workshops are catered towards helping everyone improve their self-esteem and to reintegrate into society. Leading with innovation she created the first beauty tools to empower people with motor disabilities.
Further to spreading positivity and diminishing standard beauty ideals, Trishna also strongly believes in education equality and works with the Nottinghamshire council as an enterprise advisor integrating enterprise into curriculum at schools.
Kohl Kreatives has featured in the Guardian, the Evening Standard, Harpers Bazaar, Stylist and the Huffington Post. In 2017 Trishna won the Nottingham Post Women in Business Award for ‘Rising Star’.
Get to know Trishna:
