This time last year, WTiN reported on Cloudwool – a sustainable fabric collection from business partners Yolanda Leask and Martin Brambley, founders of Doppelhaus Ltd.
The sustainable wool fabric is created with nonwoven processes, such as spunlace, to produce softer and more flexible surfaces than traditional felting techniques.
Now, Doppelhaus has teamed up with Bysshe Partnership, a company aiming to revive hemp and linen weaving, to showcase its fabric to a larger audience. The two British companies are organising an exhibition called Transparency in Fashion: From Fibre to Garment at Stour Space, Hackney, East London, from 25 February to 3 March 2019.
“The aim is to show that it is possible to make sustainable fashion economically viable, and still highly fashionable, producing as locally as possible,” says Leask.
The collection is said to exemplify the ideal fashion supply chain
The future of fashion
Both companies take a ‘new and inspired’ approach to working with natural fibres, Leask adds, and place an emphasis on local, ethical production, from fibre to fabric. Eliza Collin and a range of other fashion designers have collaborated with Bysshe and Doppelhaus to produce a range of garments made from their fabrics, to be presented during the exhibition.
The collection is said to ‘exemplify the ideal fashion supply chain’, with all the garments incorporating natural fabrics by Bysshe and Doppelhaus, whose sustainable, regional supply chains have the potential to ‘disrupt the status quo of the textile industry’.
Pink coat designed by Johanna Parv using Cloudwool fabric by Doppelhaus Ltd
Bysshe’s hemp, linen and organic cotton textiles demonstrate how sustainable European fibres can be woven and finished in a local and transparent supply chain centred in the North of England. Cloudwool, meanwhile, is made of 100% pure British virgin wool which is lighter and more versatile than conventional felt and combines all the benefits of ethical local wool with a more efficient manufacturing process, making it economical to manufacture in the UK or mainland Europe, according to Doppelhaus.
It adds that the project offers an opportunity to ‘restructure the conventional textile-to-fashion business model’, allowing all stakeholders a greater share and ownership of the results. And, the innovative collection offers Bysshe Partnership and Doppelhaus Ltd greater visibility as textile producers and enables young emerging fashion designers to source small amounts of sustainable materials for sampling; resolving the issue of high minimum order quantities which serve as an entry barrier for all new fashion labels.
The Cowhide suit designed by Eliza Collin using Cloudwool fabric by Doppelhaus Ltd
The London exhibition, which will be accompanied by a week of events, is being financed by a crowdfunding campaign. Fashion director Eliza Collin, who is working with Bysshe and Doppelhaus to organise the upcoming events, has led the creative direction of the project. She believes that “fashion’s intimacy offers a critical space in which to address our everyday relationship with materials, and the politics of the processes these engage”.
The exhibition will follow on from London Fashion Week in February 2019, and the accompanying events will include a series of panel discussions on sustainability, from textile manufacturing and fashion production through to consumption. It will commence with an opening launch party that will provide networking opportunities for fashion industry professionals.
The collection includes pieces by the following fashion designers: Eliza Collin; Soster Studio; Ley Clothing Company; Johanna-Maria Parv; Mathilde van Rossom; Isabel Fletcher; William Palmer; and Nelson Silva.
The project is organised by Yolanda Leask, Martin Brambley, Eliza Collin, Henry Palmer and Leonard Hawkins. For more information, contact yolanda@doppelhaus.co.uk (for general or textile-related enquiries) or elizacollin.info@gmail.com (for enquiries related to the designers’ work and the upcoming event).
