EPISODE 52 FEATURES EVELYN MORA, FOUNDER OF HELSINKI FASHION WEEK

In 2018, what is fashion week actually for? Is the old system tired & old-fashioned? Has it lost its purpose and reason for being? If so, what sorts events do we want to see take over? Do we need sustainable fashion weeks?

Meet Evelyn Mora, the 26-year-old photographer-turned-event-producer behind Helsinki Fashion Week. In its current incarnation, the event happened for the second time in July 2018, taking sustainability as its focus. 

Evelyn's mission? To reinvent “traditional concepts of fashion week venues and the ways they present collections to buyers and press” while simultaneously “questioning the way we consume.” Evelyn says her vision is all about “circularity, sustainability and beauty” but it’s also about getting rid of what’s gone before. She’s a change agent who likes to shake things up. She wants fashion weeks to be super-inclusive, zero-waste, diverse, open to anyone who's interested, showcasing ONLY ethically produced and environmentally-aware collections; in short, totally different to how they used to be. She wants them to change and keep on changing. Read Clare's Vogue Australia interview with Evelyn here.

“You don’t have to fit in a box,” says Evelyn, “you don’t have to be the same every year.” Who knows what HFW will look like in the future? But this year it looked like this:

The shows happened inside an old oil tank, about 30 minutes out of the city, in a post-industrial area on the water. Picture a steel silo that's been drilled with hundreds of holes to allow the light to stream through. This giant drum has been used as a venue for special events since 2014. It provided a dramatic backdrop for the runway shows.

There were 30 international designers on the schedule, united by their desire to embed sustainable values into their work.

This was fashion week with a break for yoga and a quick swim in the Baltic sea! (That actually happened.)

Hydration was provided via an ingenious machine that turns seawater into drinking water. There was lovely food made from waste.  And delegates were driven to and from the venue in Tesla cars.

In this Episode, we discuss emerging design voices who care about sustainability, and the need to give them a platform. Millennial values - how they will shape the fashion industry of the future, indeed how they're already shaping fashion right now. What sustainable fashion weeks might be like now and in the future. Heck, what sustainability even means...

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT...

The Ethical Fashion Show and Greenshowroom trade shows have been happening in Berlin for years, the brainchild of Magda Schaffrin. Now they're morphing into a new format. From January 2019 they'll be combined and rebranded as Neonyt.

Zuhal Kuvan-Mills runs Eco Fashion Week Australia out of Western Australia and Queensland. The next one is happening in November. Clare's going. Watch this space.

THE ECO VILLAGE CONCEPT. Helsinki Fashion Week was about more than clothes. Mora developed the Eco Village as an answer to the question: "If humanity would get another chance to design the built environment, what would it look like?" Enter, the KODA house...

Kodasema's KODA house is all about offering premium affordability by fitting into the cracks of the system in unused urban spaces. The company makes energy-efficient small houses designed to be relocated and repurposed infinite times. A single lorry to carry one in one piece, while a crane is required to "nest it in." They have no foundations, are designed to maximise natural light, and minimised external noise. Filters catch dust and allergens, and they are build using natural and non-toxic finishing materials around a timber frame with glass and steel. 

Bluewater installed one of its hydration stations in the Helsinki Fashion Week EcoVillage that pumped water from the Baltic Sea and directly turning it into clean, safe drinking water. Able to generate 7,000 liters of pristine water every day, the Bluewater water station served still, sparkling & chilled water that'd had all contaminants removed, including salt, chemicals, medical residues, micro-plastic particles and toxic metals. Increds.

Almost 100 million tons of food are thrown away each year just within the European Union. 

LOOP is an amazing restaurant in Helsinki where the food is high end. They cook with a purpose: to make incredible food, yet, but also to get the word out about exactly how big a problem food waste is around the world. Loop partnered with Helsinki Fashion Week to do the food on site. 

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland presented an exhibition on site at the show venue. The idea was to "question conventional ways of material consumption and disposal, while demonstrating sustainable alternatives" based their research. Think circular economy and biotech...

That BOAT. Q Yachts are swanky Finnish built, fully electric boats. They say: "From hull to exteriors, to the spacious interiors and touch screen operations at the helm, the Q-Yacht has been developed with one thing in mind — to be able to enjoy the journey. The result is a hydrodynamically optimised efficient hull that produces minimal wakes, and a boat concept which is simple to operate." We say - ZERO EMISSIONS. For when the girl who has everything.

The Sang movement. "In China, there’s an office culture known as ‘996’. It refers to working from 9am to 9pm, for six days a week, often at a start-up that pays no more than $600 AUD a month. As a reward, you get to keep a (mediocre, rental) roof over your head. If you’re in a big city like Beijing, this will take up roughly 60 per cent of your income. Unless, of course, you dream of buying your own place one day. Though at $1.1M AUD for a two-bedroom apartment — or 70 times the average annual take home wage — it more or less means living with your parents until the very last shred of hope for independent adulthood slips gently away. Which begs the question: Is it even worth trying? Increasingly, millennials in China are answering ‘no’. Or, at least they’ve been hitting back in the form of darkly humorous social media posts that rebel against traditional notions of ambition and the crushing pressures of work. The result is a new subculture known as ‘sang’ — a term that loosely translates to feeling hopeless or dispirited — and refers to a kind of ironic defeatism  fuelled by pop culture, internet celebrities and social media platforms like WeChat and microblogging site, Weibo." Via SBS.

HFW DESIGNERS WE LOVE

HOH PABISSI is a London-based designer inspired by decorative vintage techniques. She takes the slow approach, meticulously crafting these one-off, couture-like pieces with longevity in mind. One to watch!

TIZIANO GUARDINI is an Italian designer making waves with his rigorous approach to using sustainable materials, and his high-end sophisticated aesthetic. In 2015, one of his creations made of licorice roots, was a part of the show “L'eleganza del cibo – food about fashion” in the Traiano's Market museum in Rome. In July 2015, he showed a sculptural dress at EXPO 2015 in Milan. A Green Carpet Challenge alumnus, Guardini will show at Milan Fashion Week this September.

BAV TAILOR. British designer Bav Tailor is based in Milan and makes her beautiful, classic-yet-modern collections mindfully in Italy, with a focus on the age-old techniques of tailoring but with innovative, modern cuts. She's all about what she calls "eco-sustainable" materials - certified organic and natural or tech-driven with sustainability in mind. Tailor by name, Tailor by nature/nurture - both Bav's grandparents were in the trade.

UNRAVELAU. Designed by Laura Meijering, this Dutch sustainable brand elevates upcycling. Love her use of post-consumer denim waste in particular. She says: “Unravelau is a driver of change by doing the exact opposite of changing, we maintain. We are changing the fast fashion system by maintaining the ingredients we already have. Not only do we reuse discarded materials in our collections even the waste from previous collections are applied in new collections.”

CHAIN. Using 100% RAW COTTON made by an Argentinian cooperative this label is designed in Buenos Aires by Lucía Chain. It's deceptively simple & hyper transparent. He takes creative inspiration from his father and times past: "Los Feriantes is a day in a local market during my childhood. These places are disappearing in Buenos Aires, and the few that remain are [a] refuge and strength [for] those who still opt for local and healthy production. My father was one of them when I was a child, so I grew up knowing the value of the local products, the effort and knowledge of our workers. Inspired by the tone of the light, the smell in the air, the colours, the sound of the trees and the voice of the local producers." Via Not Just A Label

A note on our MUSIC: it is by our friend Montaigne, who sang a special acoustic version of "Because I love You" just for us. It's from her album Glorious Heights.

THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE WARDROBE CRISIS CONVERSATION. WE'LL HAVE A NEW EPISODE FOR YOU EVERY WEDNESDAY. CAN YOU HELP US SPREAD THE WORD? WE'D LOVE YOU TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS & LEAVE A REVIEW IN iTUNES.

Until next time,

Clare x

A note on our MUSIC: it is by our friend Montaigne, who sang a special acoustic version of "Because I love You" just for us. It's from her album Glorious Heights.

THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE WARDROBE CRISIS CONVERSATION. WE'LL HAVE A NEW EPISODE FOR YOU EVERY WEDNESDAY. CAN YOU HELP US SPREAD THE WORD? WE'D LOVE YOU TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS & LEAVE A REVIEW IN iTUNES.

Until next time,

Clare x