GBC – By GBC

Sep14, 2023

Where style meets function. The Fashion Exchange (FX) applied research program enables industry collaboration with GBC research teams to address technical challenges and research questions specific to the partner organization. FX brings together fashion researchers, educators, industry partners, community organizations, and fashion graduates to innovate for an increasingly sustainable, socially conscious, and economically vibrant fashion industry.

GBC – By GBC Research

April 11, 2023

As home to one of the Top 50 international Fashion Schools, George Brown College works proactively with industry stakeholders to advance research and innovation in the areas of design, creative arts, materials, and production methods. GBC research team and FX worked with partners Zoran Dobric to explore new ways of printing and incorporate new technologies into Zoran’s design process, helping to streamline design and production while still pushing the envelope of new innovative fashion creations. Big shout out to principal investigator Marysol Kim and students researches Caludia Gordilho and Mariana Custodio. Read more

GBC – By GBC Research

April 11, 2023

GBC research team and FX worked with partners @MaydinChyna to develop a research project on how to offer customers a custom fit while maintaining the freedom of remain creative, sustainable and purpose driven. Investigators Mana Mojaver and students, Ananda Sophie Quadros de Andrade and Carson Feng successfully explored and found a solution by using 3D body measurement technology to recreate the best fit for customers. Read more

True North Living

For many, fast fashion is a budget-friendly option for updating their wardrobe. But unfortunately, fast fashion often benefits consumers at the expense of the environment and manufacturing workers. Recognizing the implications of this issue, George Brown College’s Fashion Exchange (FX) is working on sustainable solutions.

Local support, global impact

Located in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood, the Fashion Exchange is tackling global problems while supporting the local community with training, research, and consulting support. Focusing on end-to-end sustainable production, the FX team champions a “make what you need attitude.” They encourage — and provide — digital software that maximizes fabric usage and reduces waste.

The Fashion Exchange also helps small, local companies bring their products to market faster and for a competitive price through its professional services. For Rosa Fracassa, Chair of the School of Fashion and Jewellery at George Brown, the idea of Canadian-made is the future. “We believe in creating fashion locally. Not only does this support the environment, but it also means we’re supporting ethical production that meets Canadian labour standards.”

Fashionable research

In recent years, George Brown’s School of Fashion and Jewellery and the Fashion Exchange have collaborated with industry partners on applied research projects. The Leading Innovation in Fashion Technology lab (FX LIFT) has the potential to transform the industry.

One of the technologies available at the FX LIFT is an EPSON dye sublimation printer for custom textile printing. This partnership with EPSON is an important step toward sustainable production because the printer is waterless and maximizes fabric usage. There’s more work to be done, but with George Brown’s focus on the environment, the next generation of fashion leaders will graduate knowing sustainability is the way forward.

Learn more https://www.georgebrown.ca/arts-design-information-technology/fashion-jewellery/fashion

The hidden price of your clothes, a topic that is getting more and more attention these days.

Leah Barret, GBC Professor and Anika Kozlowski, Professor Ryerson University were invited to participate in a CBC Marketplace story about the hidden human price of fashion. FX was the location for the interview where students Ayca Emine Yilmaz, Mariel Solis Cartes, Carly Jones and Sierra Snow were also invited. Leah and Anika spoke to this concerning matter from their experiences and research.

The people at the bottom of the supply chain are the most affected by cheap fast fashion often toiling extended hours for minimum pay and in unsafe working conditions.

Learn more https://www.cbc.ca/news/marketplace/the-hidden-price-of-your-clothes-1.6238325

Meet the winners of George Brown’s MAKECanada competition, who are creating clothing for a post-pandemic world.

We are trilled to present @makecanada winners !! 

Sarah Jill DeCoste, created “MY MASK”. Three face-masks, specifically designed for those without limitations, those who wear head coverings, and those who have a beard/turban. After several prototypes, “MY MASK” has been perfected and uses luxury textiles, Silk and SeaCell, to ensure consumer comfort.

Sareh Ghomi & Mehrshad Hajabdolazim Naraghi designed and produced HOPE accessories to help fight the mental health issues caused by the environment. They realized that remembering the word “HOPE” will help people to stay positive and survive this difficult times.

Vishali Sitharthan saw an opportunity for circular fashion in the PPE scraps from the pandemic and designed an upcycled PPE puffer coat. She used PPE as a stuffing inside the puffer jacket to avoid direct contact with the wearer’s body and used a fabric made from recycled plastic bottles to use as an outer shell.

Read more  https://www.thestar.com/life/together/people/2021/10/03/makecanada-contest-winners-are-creating-clothes-for-a-post-pandemic-world.html

New Trail – UALBERTA

https://www.ualberta.ca/newtrail/how-to/how-to-fashion-a-sustainable-future.html

“It’s not just me. Environmental sustainability is a fundamental issue for the fashion industry, according to Marilyn McNeil-Morin, ’77 BSc(HEc), director of the Fashion Exchange (FX) at George Brown College. She says the industry has a firm hand in global pollution and contributes around 85 million tonnes of textile waste into landfills every year”.  – LISA SZABO

BY SHREYA KALRA POSTED OCTOBER 7, 2020

Is the next generation of designers, buyers and industry leaders being trained for the transition?

The fashion industry has been hit hard by COVID-19. While some brands had a boost from online sales, overall consumer demand plummeted: between January and March 2020, the average value of the global fashion market fell by 40%. 

Meanwhile, COVID has thrown a spotlight on the industry’s more unseemly practices. In Bangladesh, for example, suppliers lost millions when big fashion players didn’t pay for the orders they cancelled when the pandemic began. Factories were forced to close, leaving millions of workers on the curb without wages for completed orders, or jobs. 

At the end of March, one non-profit stepped in to help. Remake, whose mission is “to make fashion a force for good,” started an online campaign under the hashtag #PayUp to pressure fashion brands to pay for their fulfilled orders. Adidas, H&M, The Gap and Lululemon were among those that were pressured into honouring their contracts, but The Children’s Place, Urban Outfitters and TJX, which owns Marshalls, Winners and HomeSense in Canada, have not yet publicly committed to paying. 

The fashion industry is at a crossroads: either slash costs by doubling down on unsustainable practices that hurt workers and the environment or ramp up sustainability pledges made before the pandemic. 

“The question is now, how do we build back better?” says Michael Stanley-Jones, co-secretary of the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, in a story for the UN Environment Programme’s website.  “We need to map the value chain and identify opportunities to limit the negative environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry while building in accountability and transparency.”

If one of the world’s dirtiest industries is going to clean up its act, then fashion schools must get in on the ground floor. Is the next generation of designers, merchandisers, buyers and managers being trained for the transition? 

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If the $2.4 trillion fashion industry were a country, it would be the world’s seventh largest economy. It’s also considered one of the world’s dirtiest industries, responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. The industry guzzles about 79 billion cubic metres of fresh water annually, making it the second-largest water polluter and consumer. Though apparel’s environmental and social impacts have long been criticized, COVID-19 unequivocally confirmed the need for the fashion industry to take action. Business as usual is no longer an option – and fashion’s supply chains, labour practices, water use and textile waste are all in need of makeovers. 

Are fashion schools keeping up? 

Currently, only a handful of sustainable fashion study programs exist, with just two offered in Canada. Marilyn McNeil-Morin, program director at George Brown College’s Fashion Exchange Program in Toronto, was at the centre of designing the program when it launched in 2016. She foresaw the “forces of change and recognized that the school needs to meet them ahead of time.”

McNeil-Morin explains that sustainability isn’t just about greener fabric choices. “The way the program is constructed is that it looks at the whole supply chain. Sustainability is not just fixing the environmental impacts of fashion, but also labour and social impacts,” she says. For example, classes focus on principles of accountability in the ethical sourcing of raw materials and sustainability challenges in apparel production by looking at labour logistics and production standards. 

There’s a push-and-pull tension in this space. Though McNeil-Morin suggests the desire to clean up the fashion market is growing on both the production and consumption sides, Pulse of the Fashion Industry 2019 tells a different story. The report – by the Global Fashion Agenda, Boston Consulting Group and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition – found that progress on sustainability slowed by a third in 2018. 

“Unless the current trend…improves,” the authors write, “fashion will continue to be a net contributor to climate change.” 

Sabine Weber, a professor in Seneca College’s School of Fashion in Toronto, offers a course on fashion sustainability but says there’s a shortage of trained people to lead sustainable initiatives. It’s a problem she hopes that classes like hers can help solve. She says sustainability is still “an abstract concept” for most fashion students and industry professionals, and it has to be made relatable by breaking down the supply chain. How does textile waste affect the planet? How can we reduce, reuse, recycle and join the circular economy? How can we push for quality clothing that people will want to keep longer? These are all questions she addresses with her students. 

“Designers determine the life cycle of a garment,” Weber says, “and they can see what the life of a garment will be at the end of its design and after the consumer is done with it.” Training students to design a garment so it can be easily recycled or upcycled helps ensure that tomorrow’s apparel companies are contributing to a circular economy. 

Suad Ali is a third-year Fashion Business Management student at Seneca College’s Newnham Campus. She says she learned about the detrimental effects of fashion in school. “[It] changed the way I think … Now I want to work in recycling and upcycling materials,” she says. 

Only a few students from her program are seriously incorporating elements of sustainability into their post-graduation business plans, Ali says, adding that most are resigned to the status quo. “That’s why we need more courses to keep reminding people of the importance of sustainability.”

Other schools putting sustainability at the core of their fashion design, production and business programs include Lethbridge College in Alberta and the London College of Fashion. But there are still far too few of them to flip the industry on its head, advocates say. 

A lot of the work going into educating the public, students and brands about the importance of sustainability in fashion is coming from outside of school systems. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has been working with a number of brands and universities to encourage a transition to a circular economy, recognizing the need to move away from a “take-make-waste” model of production and consumption. Through online resources and collaboration with universities around the world, such as the University of Montreal and the University of Chile, the foundation equips students with the knowledge and skills to build a society and economy with the concepts of sustainability and a circular economy at the core of their values. 

Still, more schools and universities need to recognize the future of business and forces of change and train students accordingly. 

“I attended the Copenhagen Fashion Summit [last May], and I was so surprised to see that education leaders were still only talking about introducing sustainability courses. At this point, we need interest at the program stage, not just the course stage,” McNeil-Morin says. 

Regenerative fabrics, upcycling, recycling, as well as slow-fashion business models all must become central to fashion programs so that students can bring these practices to the industry when they graduate. With scientists suggesting that we have 10 years left to bend the climate crisis curve, we need all hands on deck – including the next generation of fashion industry leaders. 

Shreya Kalra is a journalist based in Toronto writing on women, children and social issues.

From https://www.corporateknights.com/voices/shreya-kalra/cleaning-up-one-of-our-dirtiest-industries-starts-in-the-classroom-16020660/