How to raze the polluting fashion industry to the ground

This summer's Arnhem fashion biennale focuses on one thing: making the current fashion industry more sustainable and caring. But where do you start? If you ask fashion professor Daniëlle Bruggeman, Linen Project-initiator and head of the Fashion Design master Pascale Gatzen, and master student Critical Fashion Practices Wei-Chi Su, it's simple: in solidarity. In this interview, all three give their vision on this theme.

Under the theme 'Ways of caring', during this years State of Fashion biennale, makers, artists and designers are looking for alternatives for the traditional fashion industry. Today's industry is much too led by exploitation and pollution, despite the world needing sustainable alternatives more than ever. So, in this article, a selection from the research and education at ArtEZ that is ending the ego tripping of the fashion industry via fashion design and critical reflection.

Pascale Gatzen, head of Master Fashion Design

The fashion revolution in a flaxseed

Raze the fashion industry and economy to the ground. Literally. If it were up to Pascale Gatzen, it starts with a more sustainable production chain in fashion at ground level. Together with Crafts Council Nederland, in 2018 she founded the Linen Project. Their objective: revive the local flax cultivation and linen production. In the Linen Project, farmers, textile manufacturers and linen enthusiasts come together to grow local flax and weave linen fabrics, from seed to final product. Linen is made from flax fibres. Flax is a sustainable crop with a rich history in the Netherlands. There is also the ‘Shared Stewardship’, in which researchers and students commit to the Linen Project for an entire year.
 

A caring economy is a cashless economy

The people working on the Shared Stewardship initiative of the Linen Project are jointly responsible: for the risks and returns, the seeds, the plants, the production, each other. They do this voluntarily, with no money in circulation. An important addition for Pascale. "In the Linen Project, we want people to experience what it's like to be part of an alternative economy, based on solidarity and togetherness. So, we don't make any financial profit in the Linen Project. We create value in a different way, namely in welfare and togetherness." For Pascale, participation in this is essential. "Just through participating and experiencing it yourself, you can experience what it's like to work in a system based on solidarity with each other and nature, and you can experience how much power we have as people. Because believe me: once you have control, you really experience what people are capable of achieving together!"

Solidarity with people and nature

Pascale applauds the fact that the 'Ways of Caring' theme is the theme of this year's fashion biennale. Pascale proudly says, "The Linen project is all about solidarity and caring, with each other and nature. We are therefore totally in line with this year's theme, and I'm delighted to see so much attention paid to the importance of solidarity - or lack of - in the fashion industry."

Daniëlle Bruggeman, Fashion professorship

Towards solidarity-based fashion systems 

Within her professorship, Daniëlle studies alternative approaches to the current industrial fashion system and together with State of Fashion she organises an international conference, 'Ways of Caring - Practising Solidarity'. During this conference, participants search for alternative fashion systems and for more solidarity-based forms of making and wearing clothes. "The Linen Project is a wonderful example of such an alternative approach," says Daniëlle. "We are seeing these kinds of projects more and more, and it has become a great movement in a new critical fashion discourse: a desire for more solidarity with each other and with nature."  

COVID as a catalyst for change

One of the driving forces behind this 'solidarity shift' was COVID, says Daniëlle. "When the COVID pandemic first started, big Western fashion houses cancelled their orders with the factories. So many people in those factories lost their jobs or were working for absurdly low salaries, if they earned anything at all. That brought about calls for solidarity with these workers: from NGOs battling for a living wage for workers to researchers and people in the fashion industry," Daniëlle explains. "Many people in my discipline subsequently started to wonder, what does solidarity actually mean? And how can we, both as researchers and as consumers, show solidarity with these factory workers?  This was an important reason to do more research on solidarity, and ultimately to make the 'Practising Solidarity' conference really about those questions."

Solidarity as the conference's foundation

Solidarity is also key in the organisation of the conference. For example, the programme has not been put together by one curator, but by various co-curators, who were invited to register via an open call as co-curators. "All the co-curators have different cultural, geographical and social backgrounds. Workshops and lectures are also being organised at night, to enable people from all time zones to listen in and participate. Because that's also the meaning of solidarity. Solidarity is really the basis, origin and goal of the conference: the research question, the way in which the programme is designed, the timing - it all comes down to solidarity."

Wei-Chi Su, Master's student in Critical Fashion Practices

How to decolonise fashion

Like many others, Wei-Chi Su, a graduating master's student in Critical Fashion Practices, responded to the open call of the Mode Biennale. Wei-Chi's response was honoured, and now she and two other designers, Ateliê Vivo and Danayi Madondo, have done four months' worth of research into how we can decolonise knowledge production - both inside and outside the fashion industry. The result of their research is now on display at St. Eusebius' Church in Arnhem. "The dominant Western narrative in fashion continually claims the West has fashion and the non-West does not. Our aesthetics and how we perceive the world are limited by the modern and colonial order. In my work, I want to challenge that Western thinking, and decolonise the fashion industry," explains Wei-Chi.

Unwearable fashion

For Wei-Chi, fashion is about much more than just a nice garment. "Fashion for me is about the way you relate to your environment. It's a feeling, an experience, and a way to relate to your history and culture." Many of Wei-Chi's designs are therefore not wearable, but abstract sculptures, audio installations or performances, involving the spectator through the different senses and getting them to think. For Wei-Chi, the Master Critical Fashion Practices was an obvious choice. As the focus of this master's is on the challenges of dominant perspectives on fashion, Wei-Chi's vision for fashion and her objective to decolonise fashion fully reflect the values and vision of this master's.

Sharing knowledge without limits

The design, created by Wei-Chi along with Ateliê and Danyi, is called "Does it have an end?" and is a huge piece of fabric, made of various knitting, embroidery and crochet techniques. Wei-Chi: "It's a kind of eternal work in progress, and the idea is that visitors contribute by crocheting, knitting or embroidering. Because we all have our own skills or crafts: one person may be able to knit, another has learned an embroidery technique from her grandmother."

The visitor is invited to talk about these crafts, techniques and their origin while they knit or embroider. "In this way, our work is an invitation to share knowledge in a new way: one that is based on equality and solidarity, and whereby knowledge is shared in the creation process and not in the final product. "Does it have an end?" is ultimately a visual representation of a diversity of different crafts, cultures and knowledge."