Live from the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris

A show with over hundreds of ethical fashion brands, exhibiting down under in the Louvre…that’s something unique. With all the green fashion around, the Ethical Fashion Show has some name in pioneering for the ethical fashion trend. We arrived at the Ethical Fashion Show on Thursday afternoon, made a quick tour through the exhibition, and in the evening attended the runway show. I am here with Cecilia Palmer, co-founder of Grass Routes and designer of the green open source label Pamoyo.

Cecilia, what’s your impression up to now?

I found it very…international, at the same time very French. a lot of designers with African, Asian and South American background. It’s was mainly small designers, not so much known brands, which also has a very creative flair, with very spoken out things.

Something that sticked out?

I liked the ones making the PVC banner bags. They make bags and interior items made from recycled PVC advertisement banners. They’re not the first doing that, but the unique thing is that they take in the bags again to recycle the bags as advertisements. I t is cool that the circle is so round, it can just continue being bags, being advertisements, being bags…totally cradle to cradle.

And about the show?

The show was great, very well made, they had a good line up and large diversity. Very cool to see this great diversity of styles and than realizing it is all ethical. I liked Patrick Lafrontiere. He made those items made of vegetable materials, but they looked even from a short distance made of fur and leather. If you looked closer it was just made from leaves and trenches. Very rough haute couture, it is this mix of rough traditional style with haute couture creations.

That’s sounds quite ethnical…

Yeah, it was also quite ethnical, the exhibition is also very dominated by ethnical designs, but in an innovative way. It goes much far beyond the “fair trade shop” kind of stuff, but they exhibit designers from all over the world. I don’t think ethical fashion necessarily should be ethnical fashion. And it’s not good or bad for ethical fashion as a whole, but this is not how every ethical fashion event should be like.

It is the question if ethical fashion should be just about materials and production methods, about sourcing and producing ethically, and if you say so, it should just be just like any other fashion, because then it’s contra productive to create a certain eco look or ethnical connection. That’s one view and that view is also quite strong within ethical fashion. I mean for Kuyichi, they just want to be a jeans brand, they don’t want too much of this linked to their brand.

Cecilia: a large part of this exhibition are also labels that do not have this ethnical link. It is not so divided. There’s quite a wide range, from street wear to haute couture. The thing is also: I don’t agree with saying, ethical fashion should be this and not that. It is all there and there are so many labels that work ethically. It has a large richness, and can be just anything. From all worlds, all kinds of designers. Because in the end, ethical fashion is about the way it is produced and not about looking in a specific way.

Is that also visible in the exhibition?

Partly, it is showing a lot. I’m missing the presence of the well known ethical fashion brands. It is all small players, which then gives the impression that ethical fashion is like that. Many successful ethical fashion labels are not there.

Why is that?

They would prefer profiling themselves on the large exhibitions, and maybe also just of this ethnical part. Their target group of buyers might also not come here. But something else, I believe in France the treasure of immigrant culture has it’s influence. You have a lot of designers that bring their input into the design world. They cross over, they have a cultural background they mix with European values of design. In Germany I see that very little within design. In the design world in Germany, it doesn’t reflect the multiculturalism in Germany. I think here there are much more designers with another ethnical background that are successful. But, yeah, also in general you have more designers here.

I think that there’s also a notion of ethical fashion that wants fashion to be culturally inclusive and not too much focussed on western domination. Seen in that way, ethical fashion is also about giving non-western cultures and creatives a larger chance to be part of our globized culture.

There’s also a big potential of using old traditional craftsmanship skills, whether it is wool from England or local craftsmanship skills practiced in Afghanistan. European or Non-European, Asian, African. Ethical fashion tries to make use these skills and keeps them alive. When you start working with old craftsmanship techniques, then you also take certain design elements with it, it will make things look in a certain way. It will bring things from this design culture.

To be continued…