Stockholm Fashion Week so far - our thoughts and recommendations
This week is the digital Stockholm Fashion Week. The fashion week is organised by the Swedish Fashion Association and has been held since 2005. The digital way has become the new normal and many are positive since the Fashion Week becomes more inclusive for a larger audience.
Sustainability has also become a more frequently used word around Fashion Weeks, where for example Copenhagen Fashion Week (in collaboration with Zalando), said sustainability to be it’s core.
"Sustainability is the core tenet to our vision of Copenhagen Fashion Week as a forward thinking representation of Nordic talent to our global community,"
- Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO Copenhagen Fashion Week
However, the Copenhagen Fashion Week has also been accused and criticised for greenwashing after letting H&M having their studio at the show (even though Copenhagen Fashion Week did have a sustainability advisory board). We’ll see how Stockholm Fashion Week will be judge or cherished, as a more sustainable fashion show or not? Considering their partnership with Boozt we believe it’s already clear that the Fashion Week is not a sustainable one. Since Boozt is as a company that has an un-sustainable business model and sell products produced in harmful ways.
Despite that fact, there are many promising speeches, conversations and seminars on the topic of sustainability. Below you can watch some of the topics we think are worth watching and we’ll add more favourites after the Fashion Week is finished too.
The Closing the loop is about circularity where we were happy to hear about the initiative and the huge demand of circular textiles by Re:NewCell. But we lack some of the critical questions, such as how Gina Tricot view their ambition to become circular, what does that mean to them? Are the material going to be exchanged or are they going to change their business model? We also missed the critical aspect about if circularity is enough, what about social sustainability or the “rebound effect”? For examples shouldn’t the focus be to down-size and produce less in combination with circularity? We were happy to hear about Jennys answer on if we’re still in a growth paradigm and if circularity might just not be a new way to do the old way and not the systematic change needed (she agreed). The gender fluidity was inspring due to the important question regarding norms, who can wear what and where? We were happy to hear about the question on security, because that is actually what it is all about for black gay people. The purpose and values also talked about stereotypes where for example Imane shared how she get questions about politics even though she’s a fashion curator where other influencers might not get that question. The lack of preprentativenss among all areas related to textiles and the fashion industry is equally important as the environmental aspects. These last too conversations related to social sustainability it truly worth watching.
H.R.H. CROWN PRINCESS VICTORIA
CLOSING THE LOOP – THE NEW BUSINESS MODELS
Kakan Hermansson / Freelance, Ken Gacamugani / Model, Maja Gunn / University of Gothenburg
PURPOSE AND VALUES – THE NEW INFLUENCERS
Clare Press / Wardrobe Crisis, with Imane Asry / Fashion with Faith and Roger Dupé / Melyon