October is Slow Fashion Month

slow-fashion-october Did you know we are almost half way through Slow Fashion October? Slow Fashion October is a celebration of the small-batch, handmade, second-hand, well-loved, long-worn, known-origins wardrobe.  This event has been launched by Fringe Supply Co.'s creative mastermind, Karen Templer.  She created an outline of the month on the Fringe Association blog mid-way through September.  It will help you to get familiar with the concept. If you want to dig into the good stuff and be inspired, head to Instagram and check out #slowfashionoctober and follow Slow Fashion October.  You will find a wide range of textiles work (knitting, sewing, visible mending and natural dying to name a few) posted by a refreshingly huge variety of Instagramers.  I'm really enjoying perusing this hashtag because it is introducing me to many new ways to enjoy textiles! Pieces Celebrating Textiles The concept of Slow Fashion is especially relevant to me right now because I joined a local group called Pieces: Celebrating Textiles several months ago.  We are busily working away on an exciting plan to support the growth of Slow Cloth and Textiles Art in the Comox Valley.  We want the Comox Valley to become a destination for Slow Cloth just as it has already become a thriving center for the Slow Food movement! [caption id="attachment_6279" align="aligncenter" width="611"]mending hands - slow fashion october Mending Hands at an Eat Make Mend - a monthly Pieces event where we get together to prolong the lives of special garments at a local cafe.[/caption] One of the Pieces founding members creating a very succinct write up on Slow Cloth for our business plan.  It is a great read to introduce you to the concept:
“Slow fashion” coined in 2007 by Kate Fletcher (Centre for Sustainable Fashion, UK.) is antithetical to fast fashion. Fast fashion pumps out clothes at ever faster rates with; cheaper prices, poorer quality, increasing amounts of chemically derived fibers and massive amounts of waste and pollution. Slow fashion is both an ethos and practical approach to cloth production and clothing purchases that puts the art and heart back into the production process. This ethos cultivates thought about what we buy, how much we buy, who we buy from, how long we wear it for, if we really need it, if it is made from fabrics which are heavily laden with chemicals and helps us to factor in the people who make the clothing. The slow fashion approach brings awareness to the treadmill of unconscious consumption and how that is filling our wardrobes with clothing that is quickly discarded. More importantly slow fashion provides a wide variety of options to gradually or quickly, depending on your skills and budget, fill in your wardrobe with sustainable clothing options. And most importantly, for the purposes of this business plan, slow fashion provides vast opportunity for textile artisans and makers to create prosperous textile businesses in order to fill what promises to be a large demand for sustainable clothing.
She also compiled a number of inspiring links to pair with her write-up:
  As menswear makers, we are all part of the slow fashion movement - this is the month to celebrate the time we take to make!
October 09, 2015
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