Mad March & Ethical Fashion Con-Fusion

I’m late, I’m late! Noooo, I’m not pregnant – just way overdue. Where did February go? I just don’t know! But here we are well into March. In Bunhill Cemetery the daffodils are a-shaking their shocking yellow heads; and the bluebells are a-tinkling which means one thing: spring! Ding dong the witch is dead get outta bed…

Spring has sprung and I’ve returned from my year of self-imposed exile to London tan’s Eastend to start a-new. So I began my new London life in style by attending the Fashion Fusion Expo, “a showcase for the very best in ethical and sustainable designers”. A short stroll daan the

I'm off to the sustain-a-ball

frog (that’s authentic cockney rhyming slang …) to the labyrinthine Truman Brewery, the FFE was a little hard to find. But once I found it boy I wished I hadn’t.

I’d been peachy keen to get my teeth into some sustainable style, not to mention “…get up close and personal with … industry experts…” as the website claimed. I mean I’ve just become a fully fledged Holistic Colour & Style Consultant, don’t you know, and I want to make some contacts: designers I can tell my future clients about, that sort of thing. But after costing an arm and a leg to get in – a tenner, Olympia prices! – there turned out to be all of ten stalls; a couple of which looked strangely similar, so they kinda cancelled each other out…

And I’d set my heart on listening to a talk given by Image Consultant, Hannah Jean, who was supposed to be on at 12 noon, Saturday. She has an interesting slant on image and self empowerment and runs a project for teenage girls called Diva-licious – this is the

Curiouser & Curiouser

sort of stuff I want to hear about, the sort of stuff I want to do. But the talks were rescheduled and no-one seemed to know what was happening when: curiouser and curiouser. And by the time Hannah Jean appeared she was even later than this blog, and not all I’d anticipated. So I cut my losses and left.

I did manage to have a chat with some some lovely ladies however, including: Frank & Faith, who were exhibiting an array of simple separates in sustainable fabrics, in lush colours, made in the UK; NV, an “…ethical accessories company … producing entirely handmade, high quality bags and accessories, designed in Britain and created in Calcutta…”; and the Ethical Fashion Forum, who told me, it would be worth attending their monthly socials for networking porpoises… (I went to see Alice in 3D the night before last, and I’m toadally off my head now).

Surely the Fashion Fusion Expo was meant to establish ethical and sustainable as viable alternatives to fast

Green (& ethical) with NV

fashion? Instead it showed that green is not the new black it claims to be, but a pale imitation. My climate change enthusiast (if you can be enthusiastic about such a thing) house-mate had tagged along and insisted the reason for the FFE failure was that there isn’t that much ethical or eco fashion around, full stop. I was like, er, yeah there is! I mean, if the sustainable style message is missing this gal, then there has to be something seriously wrong.

And if events like these are the face of the ethical fashion industry then there’s no wonder people are sticking to their fast fashion fix. Fast fashion comes in enticing, addictive ‘eat me’ ‘drink me’ consumable, disposable packaging; and Green is still perceived as a bitter pill to swallow. For ethical and eco high ideals to be embraced by the high street, and beyond, events like these need to stop being Fashion Con-Fusion – ho ho ho – and start catwalking the talk.  (A bit like me and the old colour & style consulting business!)