Illinois State University’s 18th Annual Fashion Show is this Thursday. The show’s theme “Starting a Fashion Revolution” has more meaning behind it than you may think. This fashion revolution all has to do with sustainability in the fashion world.
Revolution of Sustainable Fashion
Sustainable fashion deals with producing garments in socio-economically and environmentally friendly ways. Sustainable fashion can be obtained in more ways than one. Sustainable fashion encourages ethical ways of creating and designing garments for a more timeless use.
In 2019 the pressure is high to keep up with the current trends, this brings up the topic of fast fashion. Many fashion companies completely throw out sustainable fashion for fast productions of new trends to quickly get out on the market. This is when resources and production ways can get messy and unethical. This year’s fashion show director, Claire VanDerGinst felt this is a critical time in the fashion world to step up and start a revolution.
Claire VanDerGinst: Throughout my time at ISU, I have learned a lot about the fashion industry and its negative effects on the environment. This year for the first time in the fashion show, we decided to challenge our designers to make their collections in a sustainable way of some sort! Going green is a major movement that we want to be a part of, and we are so excited to be able to share our sustainably made garments at the show.
This show gave seventeen designers just one requirement for their collections. Within each designer’s collection is at least one design created in a sustainable way. Sustainable techniques such as deconstructing old garments giving them new life to creating new textiles from recycled fabrics. Each designer has their own creative liberty on how they will create their sustainable piece, and we will have to wait until Thursday night for the reveal.
The designers and models of the show hard at work during preparations for the show!