“Share the Love” Fashion Show
Saturday, 7:30 p.m., $5
Freeborn Hall
There’s no better way to wrap up the UC Davis Fashion Week than to attend the “Share the Love” fashion show this Saturday night at Freeborn Hall.
Tickets for the show are $5 and can be purchased at the members of the Student Fashion Association (SFA) tabling at the Memorial Union.
Presented by the SFA, the show will feature the garment designs from students of Textiles and Clothing 198 as well as designers from Sacramento and San Francisco. All proceeds earned from ticket sales will benefit Nourish International – a student organization dedicated to the eradication of global poverty that funds sustainable development in impoverished countries around the world.
In addition to the garments on display, “Show the Love” spotlights the environmental implications of fashion.
“[It is] heavily focused on not only the designing process of making clothes but the ramifications on the environment,” said Amy Marchiando, a junior textiles and clothing major and coordinator of the event.
The fashion event will include both conventional and sustainable garment design – any participants using new or store-bought textiles and materials for their clothing designs are categorized as conventional designers while participants using second-hand or used materials are considered sustainable designers.
The main difference between sustainable and regular clothing production is the “attention to all of the decisions and actions that go into fiber production, yarn spinning, fabric manufacturing, apparel production, retailing practices and consumer behavior,” textiles and clothing professor Susan Kaiser said in an e-mail interview.
Because no official standards have been set up to monitor environmentally friendly garment production, it’s hard to tell whether or not a brand produces completely sustainable clothing.
“Sustainable refers not only to the environment, but also to economics and issues of ethical and social responsibility,” Kaiser said.
Since sustainability is still a developing design concept, consumers should be wary of what they purchase, such as the effects of all the factors that go into production and delivering. Despite the shift toward eco-friendly shopping with “the green movement,” Marchiando advised shoppers to do research about the actual process and production of manufacturing clothing.
“A lot of research has to be done when shopping. Just because it says eco-friendly doesn’t mean that it’s actually eco-friendly,” Marchiando said.
For example, sustainable clothes use less chemically formulated dyes – however, that doesn’t mean that all sustainable clothing is made in an environmentally friendly way.
“Lots of [companies] use pesticides for the cotton to grow and use harmful chemicals that clean up clothing dyes,” said Susan Hopkins, a senior design student and participant of the fashion show.
Still, sustainable practices are becoming more ingrained into the fashion industry. A few brands that are taking the step toward this include Patagonia, Nao and Los Angeles-based designer Linda Loudermilk. Patagonia, for example, has made an effort to inform consumers of their production process. On their website patagonia.com, consumers can read about the eco-friendliness of the label’s clothing manufacturing and production and also the reasons why some areas of production are not fully eco-friendly.
Kaiser said that these sustainable practices are “for the future of people – those who make, distribute and wear clothes – as well as the planet.”
SIMONE WAHNG can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.
