Show time - fairy lights and feathers

to promote sustainable and Fair Trade fashion in spring we’d never imagined that it would galvanise so many university students in Japan and UK.

Akari and the incredible team!

School of Fair Trade and People Tree intern Akari Kuga did an amazing job with other students, Natsuki and Akiko to organise a Slow Fashion extravaganza near Shibuya in Tokyo. They invited Baba (former designer of Dress Camp who is the first Japanese designer to win a competition between FIT and Parsons in New York), and me to discuss fashion and what it meant to us.

Tama Art School students show their work

They also organised three fashion shows, together with Tama Art University students and ‘xChange’ to promote fashion made out of sustainable materials and to promote clothes swapping, followed by the People Tree Youth Collection endorsed by Emma Watson. There were 80 people PACKED into a gallery in Shibuya – that is how we kept warm!

The new future: Slow fashion

Chinese garment factory workers

There was a presentation about Chinese garment workers conditions of young women the same age as the university students gathered – where workers do an average 14 hours working day – Fast fashion really began to catch on in Japan about 5 years ago, resulting in 2.3 million tons of clothing which is disposed of each year – of which only 10% is ever recycled or reused. Making second hand clothes and charity shop shopping cool is the challenge in Japan – There’s no culture of it as in the UK where we all buy from Charity Shops.

2.3 million tons of garments are thrown away each year

People Tree youth collection, endorsed by Emma Watson

Motomi and me

Motoomi Baba

There was a panel discussion with me and Baba Motoomi. He’s a real artist, we talked about fashion and what it means to us. Predictably we were poles apart – Motomi talked about how you have to live and breathe fashion to suceed in it – and I talked about the real cost of Fashion. I’m intrigued by him and his designs – so I decided to see his collection later that week.

Some very creative work from Tama Art school students.

Good styling, upcycling and second hand - so cute I love it!

Great event – well done everyone. Slow fashion rocks!