projects processing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLCCfHMFIdc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZqMV787jJc

Due to the Covid 19, children could not gather together, so I divided 6 kinds into three groups, and conducted an online work shop.

Firstly, I told them some knowledge about jeans from the perspectives of environmental protection, waste of water, pollution and so on, And then tell them how they can recycle and up-cycle old jeans.

Then let them use their imagination and think about what kind of craft do they want to make.

The children had a very happy time during the 2 hours work shop. This is the first time for them to receive such a course, they can learn new knowledge about environmental protection and how to reuse waste jeans. The parents also think this is a very meaningful activity, they think there was a good balance of theory/ facts along with the practical session. It reinforced what one can do with items that you are no longer wearing. their kids were encouraged to asked questions and link what they had learnt to how they felt. Parents wish there were more of these kinds of activities for their children to join.

The result of this activity also gave me great encouragement. Learning from the encountering with the target groups, the next plan is to move in for educating children aging 8-12 on how they might create new items from unwanted blue jeans. It is hoped that the interactive workshops can be brought into primary schools in the UK, online or physical, to teach and facilitate children and their parents to create useful products from unwanted blue jeans.

In time, the next step is to create a platform which educates, sells recycled denim products by children, sells and exchanges used denim products.

The intervention in the large companies shows that most of them are profit-oriented and show no real interest in recycle their unsold inventory. Of course, it could be that they’re not interested in working with fashion school students.

So I set my sights on kids, who are the future of the world. I wanted to change the way they think about blue jeans by educating them how to recycle or up-cycle. When I explained my project to some parents, they are very happy to let their kids to join this workshop.

 I’d like to influence the kids about the concept of up-cycle their unuse blue jeans because Jeans are one of the most polluted fabric on the word. Kids are our future, opinions from them are very valuable. For example, Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg , the Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change.

I hope that through this work shop, children can understand the harm of jeans and get some inspiration on how to recycle or up-cycle their old jeans.

LOU is a part time student of MAAI class and also a teacher who teaches children to draw. When I explain my project on line to her, she is very exciting. Then I sent her a PDF about the up-cycle blue jeans , Hoping to hear her students’ opinions.

 

I used LinkedIn and website to  find  experts who are working in Blue Jeans related company

1.Lin William is a senior Development Manager at Levi’s

2.Orla Mckeon is the head of operations in LVMH

3.Jo Mourant is the Senior Sustainability Partner at ASOS

4.De’Mim is an Istanbul based Fashion Manufacturer, works on denim and non-denim apparels … I have no direct contact, but I send an email to their company.

5.Kalkidan Legesse, Founder at Shwap, a sustainable/ ethical fashion shop in the UK, Winner of Independent shop ( sanchosshop.com).

6.Denim History is established by Mohsin Sajid, a British Fashion Designer and graduate of Westminster University (2002), is a highly accomplished denim specialist, denim lecturer, acclaimed pattern cutter and ergonomic tailor. He has worked for some of the best denim and apparel companies in the global industry for the last 20 years.

7.Reformation is a sustainable fashion brand which is very popular these years, they also sell blue jeans, that’s the reason why I choose them as an interviewee. 

8. Emily Plummer is the Senior Director UK & Europe, Women’s & Men’s at FRAME( a famous Jeans company)

9. Amanda Ng is a Senior Denim & Casual Designer with over nine years’ experience.

10. Matchesfashion is a shopping website, I have called their London office twice, but no one pick up the phone, maybe most of the people are still work from home.

My question for the above stake holders is as below,

Q1. Does your company have any excess, off season or unsalable jeans stock? On average how many pairs are there per year? How does your company deal with them?

Q2. Will your company consider joining any London – or UK- based platform to reuse and recycle jeans? What opportunities and obstacles do you foresee for such a platform?

If anyone get back to me, it will easy to help me to understand what are the opinions from the companies about their blue jeans excess stocks. I hope I can have 1 or two feedback to help me to analyse.

Kalkidan’s answer:

The results shows that almost all the big/ famous fashion groups or companies, they do not care about the blue jeans recycle things. Or maybe they can not communicate their ideas with school students.

On the contrary, some small businesses，they are happy with exchange ideas with students. And they’re very aggressive in getting rid of inventory.

Waste clothes into floor and wall panels

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2184315-your-old-unwanted-clothes-can-be-turned-into-building-materials/

Waste clothes into textile reinforced concrete

https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/56947

Waste fabric into bricks

https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/city/fabbrick-makes-bricks-out-our-old-clothes

Textile waste as an alternative thermal insulation building …

https://cmadeubi.files.wordpress.com › 2013/06

Textile waste integrates the group of reusable materials that can be included in the building construction and which have differ- ent possibilities of .

https://www.elledecoration.co.uk/design/a33583178/recycled-tights-and-textile-waste-in-design/

During my research, I have found that currently we’ve already have the technology to transfer blue jeans or other cotton clothes into construction materials such as bricks. This is a good way to reuse, recycle the blue jeans in a large scale.

So I began to think whether we could use a platform to collect the discarded jeans of every enterprise or individual within the scope of UK.

1. Define the problem you’re going to solve. 

The work conditions and financial reward for fashion workers (people), especially those in the third world, are poor. 

Fashion brand owners shifted their responsibilities in sustainability to outsourced garment suppliers.

The difficulties in tracing the origin of materials for garment production, resulting in the difficulties in verifying the sustainability of raw materials.

The sale of garments has increasingly been controlled by importers, thereby blocking the entrance of small but creative products.

Fashion design uses variety of colours and materials, increasing the need for chemical dyes and artificial (petroleum based) textile.

Overall, making bigger profit by reducing unit garment cost may be the reasons for high volume fast fashion, increased new collection (up to 30+ per year!), use of petroleum-based textile as well as wastage.

Disposal of used clothing pose a huge problem in urban waste management.

The garment industry is a linear instead of a circular economy.

2. Define the customers for which the problem will be solved for. …

a. The work conditions and financial reward for fashion workers (people), especially those in the third world, are poor. (Factory/ brand owners, government, NGO)

b. Fashion brand owners shifted their responsibilities in sustainability to outsourced garment suppliers. (Factory/ brand owners, Governments)

c. The difficulties in tracing the origin of materials for garment production, resulting in the difficulties in verifying the sustainability of raw materials. (Factory/ Brand owners, Government)

d. The sale of garments has increasingly been controlled by importers, thereby blocking the entrance of small but creative products. (Importers, Brand owners, Innovators)

e. Fashion design uses variety of colours and materials, increasing the need for chemical dyes and artificial (petroleum based) textile. (Fashion designers, Fabric makers) 

f. Disposal of used clothing pose a huge problem in urban waste management. (Consumer)

3. Define the key customer and the key problem.

Key problem: Consumer don’t care

Key customer: Consumer, brand owner, factory, government?

How might we get brand owners to enforce their sustainability requirements upstream to cover their outsource producers and downstream to cover their logistics providers?

How might we increase consumer awareness of sustainability fashion?

How might we get consumers to understand how sustainable their fashion is at the time of buying?

How might we get consumers to understand how much damage they make to sustainability when they throw used garments with other rubbish?

How might we get consumers to buy more sustainable fashion and less of others?

How might we get consumers to buy only sustainably fashion?

4. Define a set of possible solutions. …

Set up an eco-system for the consumer, brand owner, factory, who are care about sustainable fashion. 

Consumer push: Education (Game, YouTube Channel, Advertisement), Labelling, 

Start a sustainable fashion vending platform. Only accredited products can be sold

Platform: 

5. Define a set of possible monetization strategies for that solution.

Buy- sell (B2C, B2B,C2B2C, P2P,)

Rent

Exchange

Donate

Some thinking about setting up a second-hand platform

Price     Products	High        >£300	Affordable  £50-300	Cheap        < £50
New
Used			I’m doing a testing and sold 3 piece in 1 week on a platform called vinted,
Mixed

Here is my shop link:

https://www.vinted.co.uk/member/67769854-melmelyiyi

These are some second hand items that I sold recently, and I analysed my customers, and they’re used to buying second hand clothes, through their profiles, their average age is around 20-35. I’ve also looked through the websites, and in general, the majority of buyers are women.

People who are leading the fashion trends, such as the British royal family, start on their own to lead the sustainable fashion concept.They show people with practical actions that fashion is not necessarily about wearing the latest season of clothes, but about having the latest sustainable concept to use old clothes. This is starting to become the new fashion mindset. More and more people is noticing this and do the same.

In the latest 2022 Alexander McQueen London show, many of the new design piece were inspired by Alexander McQueen’s previous designs, with some small change. It also means that McQueen fans don’t need to buy new clothes every year, their old clothes are still in fashion. This is also a concept to encourage recycling and environmental protection

I’m so delighted to met Alexa Paoavasileiou founder of @Designblender.co to the @ retureltd. in her 1 week ground floor show room in Selfridges.

During the chatting, I learned about their business model,

1.Choose a desinger. They have plenty of designers for customers to choose on line.(https://bespoke.reture.net/#/designers)

2.Request to upcycle

3.Designer conculation

4. Send garment

5. Desinger refashions

6. Send payment

7. Receive Garment

It is a brilliant idea for upgrading an old piece of garment in one’s wardrobe, I believe more and more customers will be interested in this refashion way.I t’s a great way to make people engage more closely with their clothes, not just wear once and throw to the environment.

The only thing I concern is the scale is difficult to become huge. Because this is more belongs to one – on – one senior ready-to-wear transformation service. And the price is not affordable for the general public.

This business model is more suitable for niche groups and it is indeed a very tasteful way to wear old clothes in a new way.

I have organised an afternoon tea Brian Storming with 6 girls who are coming from Mainland china and Taiwan, during the afternoon tea, we talk about what is fashion? where we usually buy? How do we balance fashion and environmental protection？

What is fashion?

A kind of attitude

Represents the trend

A manner of doing something cool

Where they buy？

Ancient market,

Secondhand shop such as in brick lane market,

Brand sale such as showcase

How do we balance fashion and environmental protection？

1. Basically buy less.
2. Buy from second-hand shop
3. Learn how to modify your own clothes.
4. Buy good quality/ sustainable fabric clothes, but less fast fashion.
5. It used to be a skill that women learned to sew, but many of us don’t know it anymore. We can take it as a hobby and learn to DIY our clothes by ourselves.
6. Every time you feel the urge to buy a fast fashion item, calm down and ask yourself if this item is a must. How many times will I wear it?