Walk, walk, fashion, baby! Fashion Revolution Week is finally here and we’re so excited to share with you what’s happening this weekend in Singapore. But first, let’s chat about why the Fashion Revolution movement is so important:
Singaporeans love to shop, but…
Fashion is big business in Singapore. According to Textile World Asia, the textile and apparel industry comprises 4,818 establishments, and the nation is ranked second, after Hong Kong, as a textile and apparel business sourcing hub in the Asia-Pacific region. Singaporeans are also big fashion consumers, with many high-street, fast fashion retailers (think H&M, Cotton On, ZARA, UNIQLO) in our malls. We also have many local fast fashion brands (think Modparade, Love, Bonito, Beyond The Vines, The Closet Lover, The Editor’s Market, to name just a few).
But we’re also throwing out a lot of clothes – collectively, Singapore generated 156,700 tonnes of textile and leather waste in 2015. Textile waste is only a small part of the problem; fashion is associated with a host of other issues, namely: accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, depleting non-renewable resources, animal cruelty, human rights violations…
Fashion Revolution in the little red dot!
Don’t panic, because fashion can be good. The Fashion Revolution is the global fashion movement to keep your eyes on – they’re calling for a fairer, safer, cleaner, more transparent fashion industry. They believe that as citizens and consumers, our questions, voices and shopping habits matter in paving the way towards better fashion.
In January 2014, the Fashion Revolution came to Singapore. Entirely volunteer-run, the Fashion Revolution Singapore team, in collaboration with the Textile & Fashion Federation Singapore, and The Green Collective who are curating the workshops, have planned a whole series of events for you this Saturday, 27 April 2019, to explore and deep dive into the conscious fashion movement. Located in the heart of Singapore’s shopping district, here’s what you can expect:
DESIGN ORCHARD
MAKE YOUR OWN SHOES with Lisa Teng Studios
Make a pair of sandals or mules with jute soles! The material provided will be scrap leather, and you’ll be able to cut and stitch your shoes from scratch and wear them immediately after. To encourage circular fashion, only leather cut-offs will be used – which means you have to get creative!
Time: 11am-4pm
Price: $90 per ticket
RSVP HERE. (Sold out, but walk-ins are possible!)
HOW I WRAP MY CROWN HEADWRAP with OliveAnkara
Learn from rich African history and pick up the skills of knotting, twisting and tying headwraps so that you too, can wear them with confidence and poise. Walk away with queen vibes – open to all women of colour.
Times: 3pm-3.30pm and 4pm-4.30pm
Price: $15 (without wrap), $60 (take home a wrap)
PANEL: TaFF x ZERRIN Presents: Breaking Up with Fast Fashion
Time for a wardrobe intervention. We have to break up with fast fashion and the destructive ways through which we consume. Join the Editor-in-Chief of Honeycombers, founder and designer of Maisha Concept, a Senior Lecturer in Fashion Marketing and Management at Raffles Singapore and Laura Francois, Fashion Revolution SG Country Coordinator to chat about sustainable and ethical fashion, and thoughtful consumption.
Time: 4pm-5.30pm
Price: FREE
RSVP HERE. (Sold out, but walk-ins are possible!)
FASHION REVOLUTION 2019 FASHION SHOW
This year’s spotlight fashion show event will feature collections from The Fashion Pulpit, Rentadella and Style Tribute, highlighting Singapore’s greatest alternatives to fast fashion and introducing innovative preloved brands to the runway. You won’t want to miss this.
Time: 6.30pm-8.30pm
Price: FREE
RSVP HERE. (Sold out, but walk-ins are possible!)
LASALLE College of the Arts
SHIBORI WORKSHOP
Conventional dyeing practices in the fashion industry can be deadly for our waters. Join LASALLE’s Fashion Design & Textiles students to learn about the ancient textile dyeing technique of Shibori and get your hands blue! Don’t worry, it’s natural indigo, meaning it’s not harmful to your skin.
Time: 10am-1pm
Price: FREE
BATIK WORKSHOP
Being in Southeast Asia means that Singapore is close to a rich history of textiles and arts – batik being one of them. Batik is a textile art from the Nusantara archipelago where patterns are formed through the repeated process of applying dye-resisting agent and colours on a piece of cloth. Join the workshop to learn more about this textile art’s history and about contemporary applications to this technique.
Time: 2pm-5pm
Price: FREE
Come for a day of mingling with like-minded individuals who care about sustainable fashion, learning about the global movement on a mission to turn fashion into good, or just experiencing an alternative to the world of fashion that we’re so used to.
Fashion Revolution Day Singapore 2019 events will be happening on 27 April 2019 at Design Orchard and LASALLE College of the Arts. Find out more about the event here.
Image by Fashion Revolution