Fashion Roundtable X London College of Fashion: The Radical Sustainabilities Webinar

Sketch by Nayanika Bharadwaj

By Kate Auguste, Owner of mi apparel

On Thursday evening, Fashion Roundtable and four graduates of the MA Fashion Futures at London College of Fashion came together to discuss their work and showcase their Final Masters Projects during an online event. The graduates included Aniela Fidler, Nayanika Bharadwaj, Deborah de Mello, and Jade McSorley.

Dilys Williams, Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, opened the webinar by discussing how fashion has dramatically evolved over time— from the perspective of both consumers and designers. Her students are very much leading the charge, with their intentions to address human equality and the health of our planet. Their ideas explore the power of justice, dignity and identity through questioning the concepts of beauty, shape, material and colour. Dilys reminded us that, through fashion, we are not just making garments, but we are also creating meanings and identities while shaping better lives: “there is no notion of beauty, no aesthetic judgment that is not related to morals and how we look at the world.’

The panel discussion was chaired Jodi-Muter Hamilton, founder of Black Neon Digital and Fashion Roundtable's Communications Director. Here she reflected on how the graduates elevate and showcase their work by harbouring different layers of innovation and craft. They examine how we present ourselves to the world, while bringing a broad range of sustainability narratives to tackle how we can move forward with fashion. These are the students that will help brands and consumers to navigate the changes we need to actualise in future. The MA graduate students showcased their beautiful work and described the reasoning behind their presentations.

Graduate Aniela Filder wasn’t happy with how sustainability is driven by fear— that end of the world mentality, guilt and not being good enough. Fashion comes from values, feelings and sentiments that can be attached to clothes. Her overarching concept was about the making of meaning, not just the making of garments. We’re not just fabricating clothes, we are making identities.

We also watched how Jade McSorley questioned: what are we trying to sustain? Yes, it’s about reducing consumption and creating more sustainable fashion, but it’s also about sustaining our relationship with fashion and using it as a form of expression. Breaking down barriers and perceptions of what people think about each other via digital platforms and hybrid identities.

Nayanika Bharadwaj delved into the role of craft and the storytelling values embodied within it, linking it with concepts of activism and innovation in the larger spectrum of fashion, design and sustainability. She sees craft as a radical act, and draws the connection and emotion of craft into fashion.

Deborah de Mello wants more diverse people to tell their stories beyond western aesthetics. Showcasing the untold stories about our bodies and how people see themselves being represented in fashion. Fashion is constantly telling us how we should look and how it doesn’t matter how accomplished you are, if you are a women and you don’t look in a certain way you're never going to be accomplished enough. Positively, we are starting to have conversations about how not one size fits all.  We all need to be owning our bodies.

We should see fashion in terms of what it’s like to be human, here and now. The everyday business of fashion is, of economic importance and with that comes the representation of who we are within it. We need to continue facilitating these important conversations to change the system.

You can watch the presentation for yourself here and view the full Graduate Showcase here— the future of fashion looks incredibly exciting.