The first round of discussions at the Berlin Fashion Summit, which started on Tuesday, was about regenerative fashion and designs for the biosphere. The participants agreed that regenerative fashion is the way forward.
For Lauren Bright of the Biomimicry Institute, this means starting with sourcing using different methods if you buy products directly from the grower. This also includes the willingness to pay more for a premium product so that farmers can implement better cultivation methods.
For Renana Krebs, CEO of vegan tech-style start-up Algaeing, it’s about raw materials and who produced them rather than the finished product. Algaeing converts seaweed into a liquid formula which can then be used as a dye or combined with cellulose turned into textiles.
Fashion for Biodiversity Solutions’ Chandra Prakash Jha pointed out that designers and brands alone cannot bring about lasting change, it must be supported by consumers and governments, also to end the fashion industry’s dependence on petroleum. In addition, designers also need financial support in order to be able to manufacture regenerative products competitively.
What does design mean for the biosphere?
While there is some clarity about what constitutes sustainability, circular economy and cradle to cradle, it may not be clear what design means for the biosphere and for the fashion industry.
Bright pointed out the strengths of the fashion industry, namely production and consumption, but also the shortcomings of what to do with textile products at the end of their life and how to reuse them. “We are all part of a functioning ecosystem and need to eliminate the dualistic view that divides the world into separate technical and biological cycles. Everything in nature returns to the biosphere sooner or later,” she said.
For Krebs, it is about seeing what can be done better, not only in terms of the environment, but also in terms of manufacturing, brands and end consumers who feel better and healthier in their clothes thanks to better materials . “We have to become part of a bigger whole and part of the good that we can do. We need to understand how a material can enable companies to change without changing machines or staff. We want to make it easier for the entire industry,” she explained.
Traceability is important
Jha pointed to supply chain solutions offered by his start-up. This is about verifiable on-site traceability, i.e. in the cultivation area. Data obtained from satellites can be used to trace back what was being grown on a given piece of land even five or six years ago. This is important for brands that want to eliminate hidden chemicals from their suppliers. “Nowadays, people don’t just ask ‘Who made my t-shirt’, they also ask ‘Who was my farmer,'” summarizes Jha. This also includes information for both consumers and farmers.
In summary, the panelists shared the optimistic attitude of previous speaker Claire Bergkamp from the Textile Exchange, who pointed out that solutions exist but need to be implemented quickly. Bright agreed and referred to the construction of models that can have a systemically important impact.
Jha dramatically summed up the discussion with “let’s go regenerative or die”, while for cancer, collaborations and choosing the right, long-term partners are key elements of a regenerative fashion system.
The best solutions come from nature
In the position statements that followed, strategist Ricardo Garay, who has spent the last twelve years researching regenerative systems and how they can be applied to the fashion industry, said that it was essentially about imitating nature and its simple solutions.
Larissa Roviezzo and Melissa O de Leon from Regenerative Fashion consultancy, which educates customers in the US and Europe on the benefits of regenerative fashion, shared the experience of one such customer in Brazil who, with the right recycling partner, managed to offer recycled clothing. However, Brazilian consumers were not convinced, believing that recycled automatically means lower quality. Some clarification is still needed here.
Finally, Safia Minney, founder of fair trade brand People Tree and grassroots movement Fashion Declares, affirmed the importance of the industry coming together to tackle issues like those under discussion. Fashion Declares therefore calls on interested parties to join the Open Letter and the “5 Commitments” in order to bring about lasting change.