MA students 'fashionably sustainable' ahead of Winchester Fashion Week

Winchester School of Art’s MA Fashion and Textile Design students will make a dynamic contribution to Winchester Fashion week this year with a catwalk show, as well as creating an exciting installation and pop-up shop in the Brooks shopping centre.

Winchester Fashion Week, which opens Monday 16th April 2018, is now in its eighth year.  This year the theme of ‘luxury’ is woven throughout the week-long celebration of fashion and style which culminates in a catwalk show in the Guildhall on the evening of Saturday 21st April. 

The ‘UN-BROKEN WHITE’ is the MA Fashion Design students’ sustainability and zero waste collection to be shown at the catwalk show.  At WSA we teach the importance of ethical design, and this collection shows the innovations which make sustainability and ethical design a trend in luxury fashion and textiles.  

Sustainability means zero waste, understanding the provenance of products, and respect for how things are made.  But the guilt factor alone will not work – exciting design matters.  The ideas of ethics and sustainability are an extension of people’s identities; these values come from the heart. 

The 'BROKEN WHITE' pop-up shop in the Brooks shopping centre is a sustainable, collaborative, textile installation created by MA Textile Design students and will be exhibited throughout Winchester Fashion Week.  Using fabric waste from the fashion industry, each of the 19 students created individual design samples, utilising traditional textile techniques such as stitch, weave and knit over an intense two-day creative workshop. These samples were then joined to create a final luxury piece which measures 2m x 1.8m. 

Alongside this centrepiece, each of the 19 students will be exhibiting and selling samples of their work.  You will be able to find luxury printed textiles, wallpaper, scarves and innovative, sustainable and environmentally-responsible new textiles created from waste material.

To find out more about the project, our students have designed a blog to document their progress, and regularly update their social media channels with the latest news such as meeting with British cash printing company, DeLaRue.