Re-styling the Fashion TRAID for London Sustainability Weeks
25 April 2005
Recycle Western Riverside (RWR) is joining forces with TRAID to provide workshops to secondary schools in the Western Riverside region, teaching pupils how to re-style second-hand clothes into fashionable outfits.
Schools in the boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham, Lambeth, Wandsworth, and Kensington & Chelsea will have workshops from 16 - 19 May and the best outfit designed during the workshops will be displayed in TRAID shop windows during London Sustainability Weeks (5 - 19 June).
Wayne Hemingway, maverick designer and creator of the Red or Dead label, and patron of TRAID, said: "With a little imagination, it is easy to re-design second hand clothes into up-to-date, fashionable outfits. This encourages people to be creative and helps to reduce the amount of resources needed to make new clothes, which benefits the environment. The items that are produced are also unique - you know that no-one else will be wearing the same outfit!"
During the workshops, students will get an overview of TRAID as a recycling charity, take part in a discussion about attitudes towards second hand clothing, see pieces of customised clothing from the TRAID Remade label and watch a demonstration of various customisation techniques. The students then have the chance to customise their own outfits, with advice and guidance from one of TRAID's own designers.
RWR Campaign Manager, Jim Fielder, said: "Vintage or second-hand clothes are extremely popular with fashion icons at present. Young people like the idea of customising clothes into a completely unique outfit and these TRAID workshops give students the skills to learn how. The Recycle Western Riverside campaign is funding the workshops in the run-up to London Sustainability Weeks to promote the message of re-using items rather than creating waste."