Ellen Köhrer discusses her book, ‘Fashion Made Fair’ and sustainable fashion
A journalism assignment in Bangladesh, four years ago, got German journalist, Ellen Köhrer, interested in sustainable fashion. During the trip, which was originally to research organic rice crops, an opportunity to look into the social issues of the fashion industry was presented. As part of that assignment she saw many aspects of the industry, while observing a “fast fashion textile factory”, visiting “a small NGO focused on teaching the workers about their labour rights [and] supporting them with medical”, seeing where garment workers lived and learning about a business which moved its production into rural areas (so workers didn’t have to relocate).
Since she’s written many-a-article and most recently a book around sustainable fashion. Whilst it’s commonplace for sustainable fashion to be considered “unattractive”, ‘Fashion Made Fair’, her book co-authored with Magdalena Schaffrin (founder of the Green showroom in Berlin), shows that sustainable design is, in fact, beautiful. Focusing on aesthetic ‘Fashion Made Fair’, published by Prestel, highlights designers from around the world who are innovating and creating socially and/or environmentally aware labels. It is a great coffee table book that shows sustainable fashion in a new beautiful light. While in Berlin, I paid Köhrer’s Prenzlauer Berg office a visit and we had a talk about the book, sustainable fashion and the state of fashion. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.
You’ve put together a book called, ‘Fashion Made Fair’, what was that process like…how did you choose which designers to feature?
That was not the easiest, because there are so many beautiful sustainable fashion labels right now. But you have a book with 192 pages and you have to decide which is the most relevant or which have the most outstanding concepts. My co-author Magdalena Schaffrin and I choose 33 labels worldwide which are outstanding in their design, concept and story. Amongst them are big brands like Vivienne Westwood and Patagonia, as well as small labels like Isabel de Hillerin from Berlin and Lemlem by Liya Kebede from New York. In addition we interviewed fashion experts like Bruno Pieters, Lily Cole and Michael Braungart.
What was the biggest lesson you learnt from putting the book together?
One of the biggest lessons was that the consumer has more impact than I knew before. Both Bruno Pieters, [founder of Honest by], and Orsola de Castro, one of the founders of the Fashion Revolution movement, told us that if the consumer ask in the shop; where the fashion is coming from, who made your clothes, under which conditions, it goes right to the top of the companies. They’ll know that people are interested, and they have to do something more for the social aspect and also in production.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the term ‘sustainable fashion’, there have been questions about it being more defined, or called something else because sustainability isn’t an attractive term. How do you feel about that discussion and what’s your point of view on it?
We discussed about the title of the book very often and very long with our publishing house. In the beginning, Magdalena and I thought, it would be better not to have wording like ‘Sustainable Fashion’ or ‘Slow Fashion’ or the like in the title, but they convinced us for them as a publisher, they need something that summarises what the book is about for people who are not as deep in the issue as we are.
Sustainability is such a word…it doesn’t fit [with] fashion because fashion, itself, is something that changes very often. So it’s a contradiction, to have sustainability on one side and fashion on the other.
Nearly none of the labels we talked to are happy with this labeling of ‘sustainable fashion’ or ‘slow fashion’ or ‘ethical fashion’ or ‘green fashion’ because they say it is just fashion. Orsola de Castro told us it would be good to do it the other way around, to name all unsustainable fashion, unsustainable fashion and sustainable fashion just “fashion”.
Since putting the book out who are some players doing interesting stuff in sustainable fashion that you’re watching?
There are so many. I guess during the last two/three years, the big fast fashion retailers like H&M [have been] doing lot about sustainability. If you say it is greenwashing or not, [that’s] a big discussion. The business model of fast fashion is not sustainable at all, but they are doing something and they have a big impact. If the big retailers are sourcing sustainable materials then the world market will follow. Maybe it’s not 100 per cent pure organic cotton that H&M sells but they have a big impact. They have a big impact in the discussion because people who normally [go] to the fast fashion retailers don’t think about sustainable fashion. But if they put it on the topics, they might.
More of Ellen Köhrer’s work can be found online (in German) via blog.ellenkoehrer.com. Fashion Made Fair is out, through Prestel, in both German and English.
OSCE days Berlin in pictures. The Open Source Circular Economy initiative was all about facilitating discussions, collaboration and out of the box thinking. Over the weekend, we listened to various speakers talk about their work and held group chats around sustainable textiles.
Elin Larsson, head of sustainability at Filippa K speaks on responsible fashion
Elin Larsson, head of sustainability at Swedish circular fashion brand, Fillipa K, photographed at OSCE Berlin.
During the Open Source Circular Economy days in Berlin, I got the opportunity to speak with Elin Larsson, the head of sustainability at Swedish brand, Filippa K, about responsible fashion and Filippa K’s role in progressing the fashion industry into a more conscious system.
What role do you think fashion plays in achieving the global goals?
[Fashion] plays a really important role, it is a global industry —[it is] affecting a lot of countries both positively and negatively. We’ll always need to wear clothes. I also think that clothes [are] a part of culture, it’s a part of expressing who you are, so fashion and clothing will always be there, we just need to change the patterns of [the fashion industry].
So what role does or can Fillipa K play in that? [In changing the patterns of the industry]
It depends on how you look at it. We are part of an industry, we are part of a society, so we do play a really important role. How we produce our clothes affects, of course, the whole value chain going up stream. But it’s also about the values and aware we create looking at the customer and society as a whole. It is really important for us to work with both —how can we not only do better but do good in terms of production but also create awareness through being a part of these sort of things to create a dialogue with our customers and help them think in new ways.
How do you feel about the state of sustainable fashion right now?
There is so much going on. Most of the brands are really addressing these issues and working with them —there has been a big leap going forward, but at the same time we are still working in the same manner. It is the same, you know, system. We need that system change, I hope it’s going to come, but we are not there yet. This is a transformation and a learning process, we know there are a lot of solutions and techniques out there but the connection hasn’t been made yet. These kind of get togethers, collaborations, creative forums are really important because that can create those new connections that are needed.
Interested in sustainable fashion? Read about upcycling brand, Therapy run by the Aguirre sisters and Katharina Heinze’s mission to slow fashion down.
a Reading list courtesy Nigerian poet, Titilope Sonuga
During ‘kein shöner Land’, a Berlin based poetry festival, I got the opportunity to watch and speak with Nigerian poet, Titilope Sonuga. As part of our chat (which will be live next week), she shared a few books she has enjoyed reading.
Here is a reading list courtesy Titilope Sonuga:
For Colored Girl Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Before I really started performing poetry, I went to a bookstore and found this little sliver of a book that I pulled off the shelf. ‘For Coloured Girl Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf’ --[I] read it in one standing then bought it and read it some more. It was particularly interesting to me because I [was] like ‘You can do that? You can say it like that?’. I wasn’t a coloured girl who had considered suicide necessarily, but the language the way this woman just wrote it. Forget grammar, pronunciation —let me speak to my people in the way that we speak and let my people understand it.
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire
Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant collection of poetry.
Pink Elephant by Rachel McKibbens
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
People talk about Half of a Yellow Sun but Thing Around Your Neck is still my all time favourite.
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
What are some of the books on your reading list? Share some of them with us via the ASK. Or if you’ve read any of the above and have thoughts to share, write us using the ASK
This week’s answer comes courtesy Jack Robinson (head of video at i-D magazine): A good fashion film “needs a narrative or concept to keep people engaged, that should be the focus.” Sacred Egg (above) by Amelie Hegardt and Sacred Egg does that.
Sacred Egg is a part of the Berlin Fashion Film festival submission list. See Cycle III another of my favourites from the BFFF submission list.
With the Berlin fashion film festival on the horizon, it seemed a fitting time to consider the question. In 2010, renown fashion photographer and director of Show Studio, Nick Knight said a good fashion film “has to make something appear desirable”.
Over the coming weeks, every Monday, I’ll share one fashion film (from the Berlin Fashion Film Festival submission list) that I enjoyed. This week, Cycle III directed by Daniel Gianini starts us off. Cycle III does what I think a good fashion film should...it sparks curiosity and actually showcases the fashion.
The freedom of Berlin is one of my favourite (and least favourite) bits about the city. The concept behind cross genre festival, Torstrassen, articulates that freedom. Torstrassen (which started in 2011) provides “underground” artists like Farao, Alex Cameron and more with a space in Berlin to express themselves.
This year, Torstrassen takes place from the 3rd until the 5th of June. Over the 3 days, it will host both native Berliners and Berliners-at-heart, the above playlist features some of the artists from the line up we’re intrigued by.
