Alumni News
PHOTO CREDIT We The Makers 2020 - Saskia Baur-Schmid
Challenging Consumerism
After submitting a look from her Redress Design Award collection, 2020 Semi-finalist Saskia Baur-Schmid is currently one of only 21 emerging names from across Australia and the world, showing at We The Makers 2020, a new bi-annual exhibition of design at the National Wool Museum, Geelong, Australia until 22 November 2020. The theme, “Design for the Future: Sustainable and Ethical Textiles and Fashion”, offers the perfect context for Saskia’s work, which features a circular approach to design, zero-waste pattern-cutting, reclaimed deadstock fabrics that were destined for landfill and up-cycled hardware and innovative sustainable textile alternatives. This includes Pinatex, a fibre extracted from pineapple leaves, and Cupro, a regenerated cellulose fibre made from cotton waste. “Through my sustainable design I hope to inspire the next generation of women to challenge the unconscious consumerism that drives the industry by creating a more considered way of self-expression and connection with the clothes they wear,” she says. “Let’s encourage less consumption, more wear and educated decisions based on fabrication and quality and how our choices impact the world we live in.”
Find out more about Saskia Baur-Schmid here.
PHOTO CREDIT CLAIRE DARTIGUES
PHOTO CREDIT TESS WHITFORT
Redress Design Award Alumni Provide COVID-19 Medical Gear Relief
This year, as we face the reality of climate breakdown, the world was confronted with a new challenge: a global pandemic, zoonotic in origin, called Coronavirus or COVID-19. At the time of writing, COVID-19 has reached over 20 million cases and claimed over 730,000 lives. New cases daily average more than 250,000. The ferocity of the pandemic took everyone by surprise, leaving doctors, nurses and other health-care workers at the frontline of the battle against the virus short of vital protective equipment; in April, in the US, there were cases of hospital staff using trash bags for gowns and using takeout containers as face masks.
Redress Design Award Alumni were quick off the mark to help. 2018 Alumni Prize winner and 2017 Finalist Claire Dartigues has created sustainable and safe fabric masks, handmade from materials usually used to make her signature polo shirts. Meanwhile, 2019 Finalist Anna Schuster has uploaded a series of mask tutorials on Instagram stories, highlighting the need for ordinary people to make their own masks - to take the strain off demand for surgical masks and ensuring medical staff get the equipment they need to do their jobs. The alumni stay true to everything they’ve learnt during their time with Redress. With two sisters working in the NHS, including one in an ICU ward, 2020 Finalist Grace Lant has sewn medical gear to send to health service staff. Using the directions from Christopher Kelly, CSM textiles tutor, she made the scrubs out of donated fabric and bed sheets.
2018 First Prize winner Tess Whitfort’s triple-layer masks, decorated with her signature punky paint splatter, are made from scrap and deadstock waste materials and are available for purchase online here, and 2019 winner Maddie Williams is also selling masks here.
Find out more about the alumni here.
PHOTO CREDIT TOURISM AUSTRALIA
Crafting the Future with Katie Jones
With a following of over 51,000 on her colourful Instagram account, 2014/15 Redress Design Award Semi-finalist Katie Jones continues as an ambassador for all things handmade, via her namesake brand, which focuses on sustainable practices, embracing her Granny's vision of making something beautiful from nothing and consciously addressing issues of over-consumerism. Her work featured in the now iconic Fashioned from Nature exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, in 2017. In July 2019, her work - a jacket made from scraps and offcuts from the Ferragamo studio - was chosen again as part of Salvatore Ferragamo Museum's Sustainable Thinking Exhibition. As if that wasn’t enough, Kylie Minogue wore Katie’s Koala Jumper, created in collaboration with Romance Was Born, in a Tourism Australia ad in December 2019, in support of Wildlife Victoria during the Australian bushfires.
PHOTO CREDIT PENDULUM STUDIOS
Reading the Riot Act to Fashion
After winning First Prize at the Redress Design Award 2018, Tess Whitfort, who holds a degree in Fashion from Box Hill Institute, Australia, launched her own brand Pendulum Studios at Melbourne Fashion Week in September 2019. The brand - tees, skirts and dresses in Tess’ signature punky aesthetic - focuses on eliminating fabric wastage through zero-waste pattern cutting and establishing circular supply chains through up-cycling, biodegradable materials and garment components. In November 2019, Tess showcased the collection at Undress Runways, Australia’s leading sustainable fashion runway event.
Find out more about Tess Whitfort here.
PHOTO CREDIT JANKO LAM
Circles In The Sky
Redress Design Award 2011 winner Janko Lam’s brand Classics Anew launched a new collection earlier this year, titled CIRCLE. Inspired by ancient Chinese cosmology, where the earth was believed flat and the sky round, the collection features beautiful garments with geometrical shapes not normally found in traditional Chinese garment design, with select pieces accentuated with patchwork detailing. In line with her brand philosophy the collection is made from a mixture of deadstock fabrics found in factories, creating a collection of unique garments that resemble the modern-day qipao.
Learn more about Janko Lam here.
PHOTO CREDIT ANGUS TSUI
Futuristic Silhouettes Inspired by Human Adaptation
This September, Redress Design Award 2012 People’s Award winner and 2017 Alumni Prize winner Angus Tsui showcased his newest A/W2020 collection, ‘•••• - - - - - •’, meaning ‘home’ in Morse code, on a ‘phygital’ runway at CENTRESTAGE, Asia’s fashion spotlight. His virtual show tells the story set in the year 2120, where Planet Earth is facing mass extinction and destruction events due to severe environmental pollution, a shortage of resources and overpopulation. A planet capable of supporting terrestrial life, Origin-7, has been found and becomes a new destination for human colonisation, where they send out the message ‘•••• - - - - - •’ to welcome other space refugees, and evolve together to create a true home for all species. Watch the presentation here.
Angus’s new collection is inspired by current trends in customisation. Items are created with the same pattern and silhouette so that every garment is interchangeable for longevity. Components of the garments such as sleeves can also be rearranged - eliminating the limitations of seasonality. The collection is made from part up-cycled, part natural materials.
Jean Genie Jesse Lee Teams Up with Levi’s
There was more to look forward to in May 2020 when The R Collective invited Redress Design Award 2018 Second Prize winner Jesse Lee to launch Denim Reimagined, a sparky capsule collection of up-cycled irregular and leftover denim samples, provided by denim giant Levi Strauss & Co. The collection offers an answer for one of the most pressing questions facing apparel supply chains during COVID-19: what should be done with excess materials? “Up-cycling excess materials and extending the life of garments are two of the most sustainable things we can do with our clothing, as anyone who has owned a pair of vintage Levi’s® knows,” said Liz Lipton-McCombie, Levi Strauss & Co Director of Sustainability, at the launch. “As such, we’re proud to support creative up-cycling projects, like The R Collective’s Denim Reimagined, and are encouraged to see the progress they are making.”
Facing the Emergency
Redress Design Award 2019 First Prize winner Maddie Williams joined the JNBY Group in late 2019 to develop an up-cycled capsule collection set for launch this Autumn 2020. Her Redress Design Award collection, inspired by biodiversity loss and planetary health, and up-cycled from reclaimed textiles, yarns and secondhand clothing, continues to attract attention: she was interviewed by Clare Press for the Sustainability Editor’s renowned podcast series, Wardrobe Crisis. In the same month, she was featured in Fashion Revolution’s How To Guides. “Knowledge about the destruction we are doing to the planet continues to increase, new horrors are brought to light daily, you must keep reassessing your impact and avoid complacency,” says Maddie.
Find out more about Maddie Williams here.
PHOTO CREDIT ANNA MEETS X
The Power of Collaboration
2019 Finalist Anna Schuster took part in the opening event of the Fashion for Good x Redress Design Award 2019 Exhibition and 2020 Launch event, where she presented her modern looks for men, made with various techniques such as patchwork and crochet in discussion with Christina Dean and sustainable lifestyle expert Marieke Eyskoot. After co-founding JOA, an outerwear brand designing out of post-consumer waste, and participating in the design collective ARNT, a womenswear brand creating clothes made out of interior textile waste, Anna’s latest project is ANNA MEETS X. Featured at NEONYT Berlin in January 2020, this innovative concept aims to create unique sustainable design strategies from collaborations with artists and creatives from other disciplines. The work challenges the designer to think beyond conventional design processes and aesthetics and to create garments that bear real value and quality and that connect closely and fundamentally with people and place. Collaborations so far have included a community of knitters in a retirement home, a watchmaker, a graphic designer and a social media creative. Watch this space.
Find out more about Anna Schuster here.
PHOTO CREDIT INSIDE/OUTSIDE STUDIO
East Meets West
In January 2019, Julia Talita Pagenkopf launched her new label INSIDE/OUTSIDE Studio at Berlin Fashion Week. In the debut collection, titled Transcultural Deconstruction, the Redress Design Award 2019 Alumni Prize winner seamlessly blends Japanese and German design traditions, using carefully curated post-consumer textile waste and vintage garments from both countries. At the core of the collection lies the Wabi-Sabi Philosophy in which imperfection is celebrated with a focus on the process of making to elevate the beauty of slowly handcrafted garments. Coverage from publications including SLEEK magazine and Vogue Germany and a showcase at Vancouver Fashion Week AW19 in October 2019 means this is work to watch.
This year, Bulgarian designer Denitsa Damyanova introduced menswear to the latest collection of her label blonde gone rogue, founded in 2017 to educate consumers about the real cost of conventional fashion and to provide responsibly created alternatives. All pieces use only up-cycled fabrics that are sourced locally and produced in an atelier in Denitsa’s hometown of Ruse Bulgaria, where working standards are high, employees are paid living wages and the quality is all important. A semi-finalist of the Redress Design Award 2019, Denitsa holds a BA Degree in Fashion Design from Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano, Italy.
Learn more about Denitsa Damyanova here.