By Zhangtong Cheng, Junior Project Manager of Art-Science

In 2021, our Café des Sciences will focus on innovation and sustainability. In the first edition of the new year, we started with the basic needs in our daily life - the clothes. Our topic focused on sustainable fabrics that is closely related to everyone in the society.

We can view sustainable fabrics from both the industrial aspect and the consumption perspective. When digging into the industrial chain of fabrics, we can discover that the topic is more complicated than belting out slogans of environmental protection. The born and application of a piece of sustainable fabric requires an enormous effort from research to production and then to distribution. At the same time, consumers’ decisions also play an important role in the development of sustainable fabrics.

For this hybrid event, we have invited two experienced fashion designers Jeanne von Segesser, Founder and Designer at apesigned and Head of the Romandie Region at Fashion Revolution (joining online from Switzerland) and Miranda Chen, General Manager and Co-Founder, LangerChen (joining onsite at swssinex China office). They brought us inspirational presentations from the insider’s perspectives.

Jeanne took the floor first with the topic of “Sustainable Fashion: Why it Matters!”. Jeanne began by stating pollution and energy consumption in the fashion industry with data and proposed the circular economy. The circulation is centered around use value. Besides recycling and reuse, it also emphasizes return and repair as well as the relationship between them.

Another interesting issue raised by Jeanne was the buyerarchy of needs which we can easily understand from the picture below. It emphasized the importance of the consumption concept and encouraged us to rethink our decision-making styles and switch to a sustainable way by reusing, borrowing or swapping. Meanwhile, we should respect the decisions we have made and cherish the clothes we bought. If everyone starts taking action, it would make a huge difference in the environment.

Jeanne also introduced the slow fashion spirit of her brand apesigned, which attaches importance to design and quality in order to produce timeless styles and prolong the life circle of fashion.

Then Miranda led the topic onto a more practical direction. With over 20 years’ experience in the fashion industry and more than 10 years’ experience in managing her sustainable brand, LangerChen, Miranda began by introducing the concept of industrial sustainable fashion which includes sustainable products, sustainable supply chain, and sustainable concept for customers. In her perspective, achieving a sustainable supply chain requires every single part of the fabric production to be eco-friendly and ethical. Besides minimizing the environmental effect, producers also need to ensure the rights of workers.

On top of that, she shared with us her understanding of sustainable fabrics. She categorized the production methods of sustainable fabrics into four categories: upcycled and recycled fabrics, organic and new materials, eco-friendly produced fabrics, as well as the low consumption.

Then Miranda pointed out some key issues in developing sustainable fabrics. Her principle is never to develop a non-sustainable product from sustainable materials. The rule is to create useful products and maximize their value. There are many difficulties in the application of sustainable fabrics such as low ready-fabric source in the market, limit raw materials, lack of professional knowledge, long lead-time as well as difficulty in getting across the message and financial challenges.

Finally, she said that: “We might have completely different ideas about fashion and trends, but sustainable is the only way to stay alive.”

During the Q&A session, the audiences and our two speakers have had intriguing discussions around topics such as the sanitation of the swapped clothing, how to balance between the idea of “Buy only what you need” and business growth and etc.

Fashion is not simply related to aesthetics or trendy styles; it is also an attitude towards life. By introducing sustainable fabrics and their role in sustainable fashion, we hope to raise public awareness of sustainability.

Please view and download the recording here.