IXEL MODA 2010: A Sustainable Fashion Conference in Cartagena, Colombia

Work by the Colombian Slow Fashion Designer Juliana Correa of ONA

I was recently invited to speak at IXEL MODA—a conference on Latin American fashion that takes place each year in Cartagena, Colombia and was co-funded by Erika Rohenes Weber and Danilo Cañizares.

The conference had both an academic and a business and development component. The academic side of the conference, which was organized by the Latin American fashion scholar Regina Root, focused on the theme of sustainability—a particularly interesting theme in the context of Colombia’s ongoing environmental and social problems.

Departing from her historical studies in Argentinean fashion, which were discussed in her recent book Couture and Consensus, Root discussed the need for inclusiveness in developing the country’s fashion system. Marsha Dickson, who is also U.S.-based, spoke about ethical fashion and social responsibility and the phenomenon of Fair Trade, as well as the difficulty of defining the terms. Arturo Tejada spoke on the importance of fashion education in the promotion of sustainability within the fashion industries. Kathia Castilho, from the Universidade Anhembi Morumbi as well as the editor of the Brazilian fashion journal dObra[s] spoke on fashion and language, while I spoke on the phenomenon of slow fashion, tying it to earlier experimental fashion movements and, in particular, deconstruction fashion.

Also of interest were presentations by Laura Novik, who spoke on sustainability and slow fashion in the context of Chilean fashion, which she promotes through her organization Raizdiseno, as well as the Brazilian journalist and academic Carol Garcia, who traced the tension between globalization and authenticity by following the permutation of Latin American symbols historically and cross-culturally. Garcia wrote a book on the topic titled “Moda Brasil: Fragmentos de um Vestir Tropical” (Fashion Brazil: Fragments of a Tropical Way of Dressing), San Paulo: Anhembi Morumbi Editor, 2001, which unfortunately has not yet being translated into English.

Work by the Colombian Slow Fashion Designer Juliana Correa of ONA

The event also showcased Colombian designers, some of whom fall within the slow fashion movement. Of particular relevance is the work of Alfonso Mendoza, whose jewelry is based on the region’s Afro-Caribbean heritage and includes local artisanal craft and fibers, as well as the experimental work of slow fashion designer Juliana Correa of ONA.

Another aspect of the conference discussed the need for a greater development of Colombian fashion both as actual industry and image industry and included a number of government officials, particularly ones connected to Inexmoda the Colombian Institute for exports and fashion. The intermingling of business and government officials alongside academic discussions made for interesting exchanges of ideas across what is generally an often strict divide based on—at least, in this case—the false assumption that the former might not be interested in academic discourse.

Francesca Granata

Wrestling for Attention

Wrestlers' Performance in conjunction with Fashion Night Out at Project 8. Photo CK.

It has been interesting to notice how far fashion and the fashion week/show phenomenon has seeped into popular culture and public awareness. Fashion Night Out and the public show at the Lincoln Center seem to have aided the frenzied attention. Sometimes, the interest in the phenomenon is such that the spectacle is greater than the work on show, as commented by fashion critics such as Cathy Horyn in the New York Times. Hopefully, in the end all the frenzy will aid the awareness of fashion as an important socio-cultural phenomenon which mediates contemporary cultural anxieties and aspirations, in part specifically because of how central fashion is to the progressive spectacularizationof contemporary society.

As fashion theorist Caroline Evans writes: “In periods in which ideas about the self seem to be unstable, or rapidly shifting, fashion itself can shift to centre stage and play a leading role in constructing images and meaning , as well as articulating anxieties and ideals.” Evans, Fashion at the Edge, London: Yale University Press, 1993

My very favourite event/performance this fashion week was one at Project 8 in the Lower East Side. An ambiguous spectacle of male virility and physical bonding, it showed young wrestlers holding artfully choreographed wrestling poses. It seemed an ironic take on the choreographed and synchronized female dancers, such as the Tiller Girls, which Siegfried Kracauer placed at the center of the spectacle of modernity, or perhaps more simply an ironic reference to the fashion show as a carefully choreographed spectacle of bodies in space.

Francesca

Wrestlers' Performance in conjunction with Fashion Night Out at Project 8. Photo CK.

Fashion and the Humanities: Exploring New Angles

by Rizvana Bradley

I am currently completing my sixth year of Ph.D. work in the Literature Program at Duke University, and am working to develop a variety of critical approaches to theorizing fashion and the body. I have taught courses at Duke that are intended to enable students to recognize how various literary, filmic and artistic texts continue to richly shape fashion culture, and highlight the complex theoretical and social issues contemporary fashion thematizes.

Having greatly admired the academic work coming out of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, I was excited to introduce students at Duke to the field now referred to as critical fashion studies. Initially I was at a loss as to how to design such a course, as some four years ago there was nothing like the CSM model being taught in US universities. Typically courses would mention fashion incidentally, or as an object of inquiry. With respect to the latter approach, fashion is constructed either purely as an anthropological object, proposing an analysis of historical dress, or as a sociological phenomenon, providing a detailed account of subcultural styles, for example. I knew that content-wise, the course I wanted to develop would incorporate the best of these strategies, but be less a fashion history course. I was most interested in concentrating on aesthetics, and spotlighting the visionary photography and runway productions happening in fashion since the late 1980s.

From the start it was evident that students had little exposure to an international fashion culture, the richness and eclecticism of various fashion figures, image-makers, entrepreneurs and designers. The courses challenged them to think about designers’ creative efforts in refreshing new ways. The first course, “Contemporary Fashion: Image, Object, Idea,” I taught once. I then taught a course entitled, “Fashion, Literature and the Avant-Garde,” twice. The final course, “Art, Media and the Body,” placed fashion in dialogue with the contemporary arts more broadly. All of these courses include fashion in the context of discussions about contemporary artistic practices that are currently provoking key concerns in the humanities, specifically questions of discourse, identity, representation and subjectivity, as well as certain questions about aesthetics, materiality and difference. Students learn that some of the most innovative fashion designers explore these themes in complex, beautiful and challenging ways. For this reason, the readings for the courses draw from different disciplines, among them, philosophy, critical theory, science studies, and feminist theory.

Hussein Chalayan, Vogue, December 2008

Fashion does not exist in a vacuum, but is an art form that reflects socio-cultural mores, fears, anxieties and desires. Students are incredibly responsive to the visual material, and are required to analyze various collections by looking at detailed shots of garments, videos of runway shows, and interviews with designers. Key contemporary designers are examined against a backdrop of critical theory, feminist thought, history and philosophy. Students learn to approach fashion design with a critical (sometimes skeptical) eye and interpret the spectacle of a runway show or photographic image by relating the garments on models to such themes as trauma, modernity, gender, death and technology.

Collectively as a class, we explore the idea that the spirit of the avant-garde in fashion, runs parallel to the spirit of the artistic avant-garde in many ways, chief among them a resistance to representation, evident in a general turn toward abstraction. Increasingly fashion is partially turning away from the literal, from the tangible, and towards the ephemeral, the emotive and the affective. Students are encouraged to use a range of philosophical and critical themes to question the normative body, the virtual and figural construction of the body in time and space, and the bodily production of affect and sensation.

Studying designers as theatrical as John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, with the minimalist sensibilities of Yohji Yamamoto and Rick Owens, the different body experiments of Gareth Pugh and Walter van Beirendonck, and technological innovations of Hussein Chalayan, students were able to draw their own conclusions about today’s design practitioners, who seem to not only be working and making, but also thinking at the fringes of disciplines and design philosophies in order to expand the cultural scope of fashion today.

Source4Style: The New Sustainable Fabric Marketplace

by Kimberly Burgas

Summer Rayne Oakes at a recent event for Source4Style.

Source4Style is the new venture of eco-friendly model and sustainability strategist Summer Rayne Oakes. An online marketplace for sustainable fabric to be launched in September, it will surely make significant waves in the sea of fabric sourcing. Filling the dearth of online eco-friendly sourcing options available to fashion designers, Source4Style allows both the seasoned eco-designer and those merely looking to dabble the ability to make socially and environmentally conscious decisions without the blink of an eye.

Oakes took the time to explain us how Source4Style works:

Once launched (anticipated for this September), designers or buyers will need to register to use the site, free of charge. There will be a small fee for suppliers. As a designer or buyer you are presented with several options when you log on to the site. The browse feature allows you to do just that: browse through the current and expanding collection of over 1,000 fabrics from over 25 suppliers; the best option if you have not yet honed exactly what you are looking to purchase. If you are entering the site with a particular fabric in mind, say an organic cotton from Turkey, Source4Style allows you to perform an advanced search specific to your needs. Queries can be narrowed based on fiber, country of origin, price, and weight. The Source4Style team is looking at expanding its query options to include certifications as well.

Each fabric, presented in both drape and flat formats, includes a detailed 300 dpi image, recreating the trade show experience online by allowing the buyer to “feel” the fabric’s texture through macro magnification. The “Swatchbook” feature is incredibly useful, similar in affect to Amazon’s “wish list” or for the library nerds out there, EndNote, creating a record of fabric of interest to the buyer. Within the Swatchbook you can add notes to fabrics for your future reference, purchase yardage, and purchase a swatch. This option provides a seamless browsing experience to the user and as Oakes describes it, encourages “a sense of discovery” that is often lost in the sourcing process.

The company refrains from making overall claims as to how eco-friendly a fabric is - a largely subject and personal decision - and instead champions company transparency. As Oakes notes, “it is less about creating a scorecard,” but noted that the company may take on the evaluative role in the future. Presently, sellers on Source4Style must first complete an in-depth questionnaire on topics of business and production practices, environmental processes, and for those handicraft sellers, cultural preservation.

Stay tuned for more updates on the September launch of Source4Style.

A Textile Arts Community Grows in Brooklyn

Summer Camp at the Textile Arts Center

I first heard about the Textile Arts Center (TAC) from my friend Isa Rodrigues, a textile conservator and fiber enthusiast who works there as the studio manager. She kept telling me I needed to meet the "TAC girls" because not only were they young and cool, they were doing something that nobody else in the city was doing - singlehandedly crafting together a vibrant community of like-minded people interested in textiles and fiber arts. I stopped by one of their free open-house weaving sessions that they have every last Friday of the month, and I was thrilled with the beauty of the space, the incredible looms, the colorful spools of yarn and the welcoming feeling that greeted me. Once I met Visnja Popovic and Owyn Ruck, the co-founders of TAC, I was instantly swept up by their enthusiasm and commitment towards forging a place where textile experts, novices, enthusiasts, and artists can learn and practice this most ancient of arts. Owyn took a moment out of her busy schedule to talk to Fashion Projects about their work and vision for the Textile Arts Center.

Fashion Projects: Recently TAC has gotten a lot of people in the local fashion and textile
 fields buzzing, even though it seems like you popped out of nowhere.
 Can you give us a little information on the backstory of the center 
and tell us about your gorgeous new space in Brooklyn?


Textile Arts Center: Buzzing?! Are they? That’s good to hear…I feel like we have our noses to the ground, pounding work out without taking a second to stop and see how much we’ve changed in the past year.

Textile Arts Center started just over a year ago in a small weaving studio in Park Slope. Visnja and I really wanted to expand to offer other programs, especially for adults, and create the “center” we envisioned. I think the main thrill was in bringing together everyone with a love for fibers, or even slightest interest, and creating the environment that was comfortable, fun and really conducive to making great work. The feeling of art school, without going back to art school.

We went through a long process of finding the right space, kind of with haste at one point… But we found this one after a few mishaps! And that’s what’s important. It felt like home immediately. Our move to Carroll St was in April and since then we’ve just sort of grown. I think a big part of that growth was feeling secure in what we were presenting to the public. The space speaks a lot for itself and we’ve been working hard to reach the right audiences with the confidence that we are doing something people could really love.


What is the overarching goal of TAC? How do you see the center fitting 
into the existing fashion and textile community in Brooklyn and New
 York City?


The whole DIY and fashion scene here is…intense. Growing up here (Brooklyn) I didn’t really ever imagine this happening, it hardly seems like the same place. But Brooklyn, and NYC in general, is amazing that way. There is always something new and exciting. People are constantly pushing boundaries here, and it’s really exciting to be a part of.

Fiber and textile arts have a stodgy stigma and one of our goals is to change that. Textiles are not only beautiful and fun to create, but also really important in our human history. Textiles touch practically everything in our lives and every industry. It’s frustrating, for example, that even those most knowledgeable in current fashion could not know the technical difference between a knit and a woven fabric! It’s important to understand how things are made, where they are coming from. We want to acknowledge that people can do it themselves, too. It’s not for a set of elite talent. Textiles are inherently social and community oriented and that should always be the attitude about textile appreciation in any form.


What are some of the classes you offer, and who is your intended 
audience? What are some of the classes, services and events that you 
hope to offer in the future?

We now offer quite a bit. In addition to the continuous Intro Weaving and Intro Screen Printing courses, the Fall courses include paper and book arts, sewing, knitting, dyeing, embroidery, quilting… We’ve really enjoyed shifting our focus to an adult audience, while finessing and perfecting our kids programs (Summer Camp and Afterschool). We want to reach anyone with interest in learning new skills, sharing their work, and being part of a larger community.

In the future, we want to keep the momentum going by consistently offering new class topics and more advanced courses. However, once that is going, our focus can come back a bit to the Gallery and fiber artists. We really have some great shows planned, as well as a textile artists residency program in the works. In addition, we’ll hopefully be adding a product line and a free program for underserved teens in portfolio development for art and vocational schools. I could go through the ideas constantly spewed out daily, but we’d be here awhile…



Brooklyn Mini-Skills: Natural Dyeing from tom hayes on Vimeo.

You have a very small team of people working at the Center, so it
 seems to really be a labor of love. How do you find that it’s working 
out? Are you looking for interns and volunteers? (something that I’m
 sure many Fashion Projects readers would like to know)

Boy is it a labor of love… Endless hours, but also endless fun. We’ve really created our ideal working life. There is never a shortage of people who want to be involved, and we love meeting new people. Some of our greatest advice and help has been 100% free. We really love this part of the community – textile lovers will do whatever they can for it and to be involved.

It’s hard when you are starting out to want to give up some dough to have hired help. But when we embarked upon the new space, growing rapidly, we quickly saw we needed real, solid help. We were drowning a bit! Both Isa (studio manager) and Kim (marketing assistant) started as free interns, devoting so much time, and are both now on staff. You don’t necessarily need a lot of people to run something like this, but you do need devotion and love for it. We’ve been lucky to have so many people around with this attitude.

We are always looking for interns and volunteers! Particularly coming up in the fall. We are aiming to be open 7 days a week, with late hours for artists, and need studio monitors we can trust in exchange for use of the studio. 



You’re participating in Fashion’s Night Out on September 10th, with an
 emphasis on Slow Fashion. In a way, this seems to be subverting FNO’s
 original purpose of spurring consumption by restoring consumer
 confidence and boosting the economy. (“Shop. For Something Good.” is 
their tagline.) What are you trying to gain and what message are you
 intending to spread by participating in this event?


I really thought hard about this when planning the event. The event started out as a small thing, since our Opening Party is the week after. But the feedback we were receiving from people was really positive so it kind of turned into something else entirely.

This positive feedback seemed to tell us there was a real place for this type of appreciation in fashion, that there are a lot of people that want to participate in FNO but not necessarily in the sense of pure consumerism.

I think FNO is great in many ways. The industry should not die out, designers need to be supported, and the economy does need a boost. There is no doubt about that. However, we didn’t feel right promoting blind consumerism. We are doing an event about the direction we think fashion should be taking, and IS taking, as we speak. Eco-fashion is the new thing…”green is the new black”, right?

As with all of our programs, the main objective is to educate. We wanted to support local Brooklyn/NYC designers that are making things by hand, with fabrics made in sustainable ways, with versatile, classic design sense. At the same time we wanted to make sure that people were walking away from the event with the understanding that “Sustainable Fashion” is not only about buying from designers who use organic fabrics. Yes, that is important, but the responsibility is on the consumer as well as the designer. “Slow Fashion” is buying what you need, what you love, buying locally, reusing and repurposing materials, learning about and knowing how to do-it-yourself…It’s imperative to understand the industry you are buying from and having the knowledge to make the right decisions of what and who you want to support with your well-earned cash.


As part of your commitment to Slow Fashion, you are also participating 
in the 6 Things challenge that was recently profiled in the NYT. Your 
blog about the challenge is
 fascinating as it reveals a lot of the anxiety, frustration, but
 ultimately liberation that you all are going through. Do you think 
that once you have finished the challenge your approach to your
 wardrobe will be radically altered?


I think so…I hope so! It’s hard to tell as in week one it still feels fine and relatively normal. Week 3 or 4 might be a different story.

I came across the 6 Items or Less project on Ecouterre.com and thought what Heidi and Stella had started was great, I was happy to see the coverage they’ve been receiving. It’s yet another good point to fashion lovers: to pay attention to what we buy and wear, and why we do. Fashion is an important part of self-expression, and has a psychological effect on most, but we need to be more aware of it. Why do we feel bad about ourselves if you don’t have the perfect outfit? Why should getting dressed in the morning be hard? Why do we feel we have “nothing to wear” with a closet of 100+ items. It’s just a great way to challenge yourself and dig a little deeper into your own psyche.

There have been a lot of complaints so far! But I think that doing it as a staff, a group, we are able to support each other and stay on track. I must admit, I felt like I was pulling teeth a bit, but I’m glad everyone agreed to do it. I love waking up and not thinking about it. I think we’ll all learn to be a bit more creative with what we already own, and appreciate the quality of what we buy.


Where do you envision TAC to be in 5 years? 10 years?

Hopefully it will still exist! It’s a little hard to imagine, but I can only hope that our classes and programs are always full, we have the grant funding to run the free programs we would like, we have a product line of beautiful woven and printed goods, and we never have to advertise ever again!

No, but really, we have a lot of ideas. We have huge goals, and we have the energy while we are young to take ideas and (attempt to) turn them into reality.

The ultimate goal is to be an accredited institution where students come to receive credit (so many fashion and textile programs in NYC don’t even have a weaving course!), where we can offer multiple free programs so everyone can join the community, and be a staple in the art world representing textile and fiber artists. ----------------- Textile Arts Center 505 Carroll Street Brooklyn, NY 11215 Phone: 718.369.0222 info@textileartscenter.com

Hours: Mon - Sat : 10am - 6pm Sunday: Closed

Sarah Scaturro