3o6 Studios and The Fashion Blueprint joined forces at the Florentia Village open studios to maximise their joint sustainable serve and discuss a hot topic in the circular fashion world: does sustainability need a rebrand?
When there’s so much ambiguity around, getting properly educated on what sustainable fashion really is can feel like a tall (and boring) task. This is what The Fashion Blueprint and 3o6 Studios want to turn around.
The panel was led by Giovanna, founder of The Fashion Blueprint which she introduces as, “a social enterprise on a mission to combat textile waste”. Her experience across the luxury and high street fashion worlds played a big role in exposing the disconnect between how the industry operates, how consumers consider sustainability, and, “how far they’re willing to go to sacrifice things like bags, design, quality, in exchange for something that’s perhaps made from better sourced material and has a better end of life.”
Sourcing sustainable brands can take time, up-cycling discarded items can take even more, and maintaining these behaviours long-term can feel daunting. These are the problems that The Fashion Blueprint and 3o6 Studios want to bring forward.
Does Sustainability need a rebrand?
Well, yes!
Jen grounds her answer in her work. As the owner of fashion brand 3o6 and founder of the “creative community hub” 3o6 Studios, she wants to give people the skills the make their own wardrobe circular and make consumers less reliant on big-waste brands.
Originally an architecture student, Jen centred her final project on how city living can negatively impact both physical and mental health, drawing attention to how unused buildings have the potential to be transformed into community spaces. She then began working with a sustainable high street clothing brand before going behind the scenes and realising “sustainability is kind of a lie”.
What Jen and Giovanna can agree on is that, “the way brands communicate their sustainability efforts is actually very different to how they operate”. 3o6 Studios and The Fashion Blueprint are all about closing this gap through experimenting with different ways to positively engage with circularity in fashion and making sustainability fun.
What does circularity actually look like in practice?
Shopping second-hand through sites like Vinted is a great start, but as Jen points out, it’s charity shops and dead stock fabric warehouses that are actually having to deal with the most waste. Even a very small charity shop will have to throw away kilos clothes each week because customer demand can’t keep up with how many discarded items they’re receiving.
Giovanna also highlights the impact of our domestic fashion waste on the global South. The items that don’t sell here are shipped to countries like Ghana and resold there. When they do not sell there (which is often the case), they end up in landfill and ultimately the sea. This affects other industries, because “if the sea is filled with garbage, that affects agriculture and that affects the fishing industry.”
Everything is interlinked
So, what can we as individuals do to make a difference?
Taking an extra second before you throw away that old pair of shoes, choosing to buy one high-quality item from a brand you know is sustainable rather than five from SH**IN, browsing goodonyou.com to find out which of your fav brands are actually sustainable — all of these small actions can make a real difference.
Jen and Giovanna argue that “there’s a shift that happens when people realise the potential of their creativity,” and they have both seen it firsthand at their workshops. New wardrobes, new styles, and new friends; taking part in up-cycling events and learning about the different ways a wardrobe can be made circular can lead to so many positives.
Another important point the panel discussed is that individual actions are important because holding a big corporation accountable is more difficult than individually taking accountability. Companies are beginning to be held more responsible for how they dispose of their waste, but the path to full accountability is a long one as the decision-makers are the people who benefit from our current system built on over-consumption.
Is it fair to put responsibility on the consumer?
Rather than blaming the consumer over the corporation, 3o6 Studios and The Fashion Blueprint approach responsibility as “injecting consciousness into everyday activities,” as Giovanna puts it.
When it comes to sustainability, which is a political, environmental, and economic issue, there’s a fine line between education and overstimulation. What Jen and Giovanna want to focus on is building the basics first and building them in a fun way. A big part of the sustainability rebrand needs to be “engaging with consumers and meeting them where they are at rather than getting them to shift right off the bat.” Using culture and trends as a grounding point can also help make the education element more fun and bring more people into the conversation.
Be more conscious of what you’re buying and what’s around you
This is what Jen and Giovanna conclude with as the bottom line of the panel. “See what you can learn,” and start applying it wherever you can.
One task Giovanna left the audience with is to share something new they learned about sustainability with someone who didn’t attend the talk. So let’s carry her wish further! Share something you learned from this recap with a friend, family member, or a mutual you’ve never spoken to before and keep an eye out on the 3o6 Studios and The Fashion Blueprint Instagram and Eventbrite pages for fun upcoming workshops.
Words by Poppy Gordon-shute