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EPISODE 123 FEATURES HELEN STOREY

You know those people who are always ahead? The true originals no one can catch? Helen Storey is one of them. This British former runway designer and current Professor of Fashion & Science uses fashion as a trojan horse for big issues. 

Ten years ago she collaborated with a chemist to make garments that filter pollution from the air. She's made dresses that dissolve to show how we destroy what's beautiful.

In 2015, in the run up to the COP15, she turned a decommissioned refugee tent, that had once housed a family in Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan, into a travelling fashion statement on climate change. She called it Dress For Our Time, and debuted it in a London railway station. That dress has since travelled to the UN in Geneva, the climate strikes, and even been on stage at Glastonbury. But it is Helen who has travelled the farthest. 

Today she is the UN Refugee Agency's first ever designer-in-residence. Hear how she works in Za'atari, which is home to more than 75,000 displaced people. 

Recorded in London before the coronavirus shutdowns, this fascinating conversation challenges us to rethink everything we know about fashion as a tool for change, connection and finding meaning.

“I HAVE FOREVER LOVED [FASHION] BUT ALSO BEEN ITS BIGGEST CRITIC. IT’S ABOUT HOW YOU LIVE THE TENSION BETWEEN THOSE TWO THINGS.” - HELEN STOREY

NOTES

UNHCR, THE UN REFUGEE AGENCY, IS A GLOBAL ORGANISATION DEDICATED TO SAVING LIVES, PROTECTING RIGHTS AND BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE FOR REFUGEES, FORCIBLY DISPLACED COMMUNITIES AND STATELESS PEOPLE. It works to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another country, having fled violence, persecution, war or disaster at home. It also strives to secure lasting solutions for refugees. More here.

Watch the film by David Betteridge here:

DRESS FOR OUR TIME (above) aims at raising awareness on one of the most urgent issue of our time: the plight of 68,5 millions of people forced to flee from their homes by war and violence.

ZA’ATARI Za’atari refugee camp hosts around 80,000 Syrians who have been forced to flee the war in Syria. The size of the camp, now Jordan’s fourth biggest city, is presenting huge challenges for infrastructure. As a host country Jordan is estimated to spend $870 million a year supporting Syrian refugees; if it were treated as a traditional donor, Jordan would have contributed 5,622% of its fair share. Via Oxfam. More here.

TIGER GIRLS - These Inspiring Girls Enjoy Reading. Adolescent girls in Zaatari are dropping out of school at a dangerous rate; only 20% achieve a secondary school certificate. TIGER Girls enables Syrian girls, supported by Syrian female coaches, to participate in team-based learning, increasing their personal sense of agency, meaning and connection. Using an open source multimedia library, this community-based program will motivate adolescent girls either to stay in or to return to school. Read more here.

TARIQ’S PENCILS Tariq Mohammad Hamdan is a master carver who carves intricate sculptures into pencil lead. Each piece depicts his life from the day he was born until he arrived at Zaatari. Read his story here.

WONDERLAND was a collaborative project by Professor Helen Storey MBE (Helen Storey Foundation and Centre of Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion) and Professor Tony Ryan OBE (PVC Science, University of Sheffield) begun in 2005 which examines plastic packaging and explores new approaches to it's use and disposal. It asks, as Helen says in the video above, “Is there anything that chemistry and art can say to each other might look at this in a new way?” The ‘Disappearing Dresses’ went on to appear at the Royal Academy of Art, London and to tour Europe as part of the Futurotextiles exhibition over 2010/2011.

The dress took weeks to make - with designers spending hours on the pattern, so that its colours would chase each other in the water in a "ballet of biology" - but it took only 15 seconds to dissolve completely, leaving no trace. It was a powerful statement about consumption, waste and the scarcity of resources.

“Destroy something beautiful" - it's not the kind of advice you hear every day, and it is even more unusual from a trailblazer of fashion, an industry that ultimately strives to create beauty. But as interviewer and erstwhile i-D fashion editor Caryn Franklin said at the start of a sweeping retrospective of the designer, artist, alchemist and activist's career: "This is not your average professorial platform; Helen Storey is not your average professor". Read the i-D profile here.

CATALYTIC CLOTHING Helen designed a dress that could purify the air. “The whole premise is you don’t buy special clothes for this, it’s a laundry product - you wash it onto your clothes.” Catalytic Clothing explores the use of an existing nano technology in an entirely new context, combining the power of science and art to tackle a global challenge. Applying an air-purifying photocatalyst to textiles and clothing presents the possibility that each of us can actively contribute to improving the quality of the air we breathe as we go about our daily lives. The efficacy of the technology is only apparent when mass adoption is achieved and so Catalytic Clothing uses art and design to inspire the citizen action that is needed to realise the potential that science offers. More here.

MUSIC is by Montaigne, who sang this special acoustic version of “Because I love You” from her album Glorious Heights, just for us.

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Clare & the Wardrobe Crisis team x