Fashion Utopia - from Peak to Party

“Green is the new black”, it is said. It is “in” to think green and to show that you care. The trend is clear;we buy more ecological products than ever before, but at the same time, the total consumption of clothes is growing. Many firms make small, ecological concessions in order to justify themselves, so-called greenwashing. How much does the ordinary consumer know about clothing firms and the products they buy? When you read names like “Leaf Tee” and “Bamboo Printed Wrap” on 100% recycled price tags, you would think the garment was environment-friendly. Often, firms give their products “green” names in order to convince the costumer that they are eco-friendly. And it works.
For what are eco-friendly clothes and green fashion really about? Are they about showing others that you think about the environment, or about a real commitment to the environment? It is in the nature of fashion to continually change direction. Will green fashion disappear, or will it miraculously stay in the public`s awarness as one of the first trends that manage to hold its ground in the eternally changing cycles of fashion? Or will all these good intentions simply kill fashion as we know it today?
We are not environmental activists. We are two newly qualified clothes designers who have adressed a number of issues about the clothes sector. The question we ask is how can we create clothes that can be used in several different ways and have longer useful lifetime? Is it possible to create clothes you can wear on a hike and then go straigth to a party, all in the same outfit? Our Utopia would be that the customers buy fewer clothes and take care of, and lengthen the lifetime of, our products.

Nanna Heiberg & Holby Ylva Baltzersen

nannaheiberg@hotmail.com

mrbocaylva@yahoo.com