Environmental NGO Redress organised a design challenge, two workshops, a seminar and the Ecochic Design Award 2015/16, a sustainable design competition for emerging designers at Hong Kong Fashion Week.
On 15 January, 'The Redress Forum: Ford Design Challenge' tasked finalists to up-cycle sustainable materials used in Ford's vehicles, and made from recycled plastic bottles, into statement fashion outfits.
This one-day action and education packed challenge between two of the world's largest industries, fashion and cars, explored how cross-industry sharing can give rise to sustainable design innovation.
“To drive their creativity further, the designers undertook tour of Hong Kong's highlights, from heritage sites to bustling markets, to inject local inspiration into their up-cycled outfits,” a Redress press release said.
“The winners of the challenge were Amy Ward and Pan Wen, who jointly won an educational fund of HKD 10,000 provided by Ford,” the press release added.
On 18 January, 'The Redress Forum: Reconstruction Workshop' took finalists on an educational journey into the depths of a secondhand clothing warehouse, located on the Hong Kong and China border.
Surrounded by mountains of discarded clothes, they were challenged to explore how fashion designers can reduce waste and influence a garment's sustainability, usability and recyclability.
These finalists then developed ideas for reconstructed outfits, imagined with an aspirational brand in mind, as they demonstrated how their creativity can keep clothes in the fashion loop for longer.
On 19 January, 'The Redress Forum: TAL Apparel Zero-waste Workshop' took the finalists to one of the world's largest shirt manufacturers, TAL Apparel located in Southern China.
Here they learnt how the shirt manufacturer manages its environmentally-conscious business ethics in order to reduce textile, energy and water waste throughout the shirt production process.
The finalists had the chance to get hands-on experience in how sustainable practices can be applied along the entire supply chain, before pitching their zero-waste ideas to TAL Apparel's senior teams.
On 18 January, Redress and HKTDC co-organised a panel discussion to answer the question 'Can circular business models be a solution for the fashion industry's textile waste?'.
Redress founder, Christina Dean was joined by Hanna Hallin, sustainability manager at H&M, Shan Shan, co-founder of Yeechoo and Jong Lee, founder of Bonham Strand.
Finally, the NGO hosted the Ecochic Design Award, a sustainable fashion design competition challenging emerging fashion designers to create high-appeal clothing with minimal textile waste.
The 2015/16 cycle opened to designers living in the whole of Asia and Europe and following nine months of inspired design and rigorous judging, ten finalists competed for career-changing prizes on the runway at the show.