‘Threads of Change’ – Lessons in sustainable fashion taught on campus

Fashion design pupil Elizabeth Nelson carries off the off-white tunic effortlessly, with two equipment – a masks and a hand bag. She designed the garment has half of a sustainability mission for St. Teresa’s College, the place she is a pursuing a postgraduate diploma in fashion design. It comes as a shock when she says it was once her father’s outdated mundu.

She together with 18 different college students, of the Fashion Design division of St. Teresa’s College, have been requested to up-cycle clothes for an atmosphere day mission, ‘Nature Heals Itself’, they excitedly agreed. It was an fascinating exercise for the lockdown, one thing to maintain them busy, creatively. Over the subsequent three weeks outdated saris, unused and broken clothes received a second probability – they turned clothes, skirts, overcoats, pinafores, purses, ear items and, of course masks.

This was half of the faculty’s sustainability mission, Mattathinte Noolizha, and was put collectively by its Department of Fashion Technology and Bhoomitra Sena Club (its nature membership) in affiliation with the Haritha Keralam Mission. Haritha Keralam is a Kerala State authorities initiative which, amongst different issues, works in the direction of eco-pleasant and sustainable waste administration practices.

Each pupil was requested to document your entire course of on video – from ideation to execution – which was then edited and collated right into a video that was uploaded on YouTube. The video was uploaded on the faculty’s YouTube deal with on June 10. “Once we heard the concept – sustainable fashion – we were all keyed up,” says Elizabeth, who’s in the ultimate yr of her submit graduate diploma in fashion design.

Collaborative effort

The mission works with departments throughout the faculty together with the Women Studies Centre and the Department of Communicative English. The first in its sequence of initiatives was the #handmedownchallenge, as half of which the scholars have been requested to offer a used garment to good friend.

In one of the #handmedown challenges for college kids, uploaded on YouTube, college students handed down/upcycled a black t-shirt. “The aim is to cut down the consumption of textile; fabric is one of the greatest polluters as we all know,” says Nirmala Padmanabhan, the co-ordinator of the mission.

Textile industries and fashion industries are among the many largest pollution, some materials take just a few many years and even centuries to decompose. Around 10% of carbon emissions come from textile industries and roughly 85% of textile waste go into landfills. It can be a pollutant of water – textile dyeing is the second largest pollutant of water.

“With this project we aim to create awareness about mindless consumption of textiles and fashion,” says Padmanabhan. “We want the students to take pride in repeating garments, rather than buying new clothes and we hope they spread the word among their peers,” she says. The Women’s Study Centre has been importing brief upcycling movies on YouTube. “Haritha Keralam, on assessing the response here, will implement the project in campuses across the State,” Padmanabhan stated.

“This is the first step, we will re-purpose fabric and garments into items such as table mats, cushion covers and table cloths,” says Elizabeth. As half of the mission, there are plans to begin a sustainability consultancy in affiliation with the fashion design division. “The fashion design department will be equipped to help people up-cycle garments making up-cycling easier and possible,” Padmanabhan says.