Becky Earley
Circular textiles & sustainable choices
I first heard Professor Rebecca Earley speak at an Ecosessions The Crisis of Stuff event at Beyond Retro in July 2016. I was blown away by how her design-led research translates in to a commercial context for sustainable fashion textiles. If Becky's concepts were implemented globally the fashion industry would function extremely differently. We'd truly understand the way consumers use individual items of their wardrobe and make it our responsibility (as designers/brands) to design garments for carefully considered lifecycles. Through design, recyclability can be considered from the outset to create a circular approach. Fast fashion is not necessarily bad and if you want to know why, listen to our podcast, it's all about designing better from the outset.
We've all heard of concepts such as BUY LESS, CHOOSE WELL, MAKE IT LAST, but what else is there from a design and production perspective for brands and what can we do as consumers to really make a difference? Well I believe Becky Earley has the answers.
“Design activism is to embrace the whole ethos that everything you make and everything you do, has a campaign, has a meaning, has a communication power behind it, and everything we make should lead to some kind of positive change.”
“If you’re a fashion brand and you’re using a material, consider that you are just borrowing it, you’re going to use it for a while, do something to it, put it into the world. Think about then how it comes back into your loop, and how it gets re-processed and cycled.”
TED's TEN
“We really want products to go on to the shop floor that consumers are desperate to have, to keep, to hold, to be part of the system. A lot of investment can go into sustainable product, and it doesn’t quite work.”
“We need to start giving tax breaks on recycled materials, and encouraging the reuse of resources, there should be no tax on second hand goods, on recycled materials, and there should be higher taxes on virgin resources. So we start to support and drive the recirculation, then there will be profit in the areas where sustainable fashion could be really good, the sharing economy in particular, a kind of Airbnb wardrobe model, so you can have aspirational consumption but with a very different model behind it. ”
One topic Becky discusses in her podcast episode is recycling textiles, and how we can track fabrics and fibres through the process. If this is something you're interested in why not take a look at our profile with MIRIAM RIBIL and H&M Global Change Award Winner 'Content Thread'.
photos by bec o'conner taken at becky earley's home studio in west london
podcast recorded at soap studios in camden, north london
NOTES
Professor Rebecca Earley is a design researcher at University of the Arts London, dividing her life between Chelsea College of Arts where she Director of Centre for Circular Design (CCD) and Sweden where she is key part of the research consortium work for MISTRA Future Fashion and the EU Horizon 20202 project, Trash-2-Cash.
Becky Earley
Ecosessions Events
The Ten
Kate Goldsworthy
Kate Fletcher
Mathilda Tham
Cradle To Cradle
University of Arts London
Centre For Sustainable Fashion
Fashion Revolution
Copenhagen Fashion Summit
Lucy Kimble
Innovation Insights Hub
H&M Global Change Award Winner 'Content Thread'
01.06.2017
