Fashion Sustainability is the new buzz word in the industry. It has been recently discovered that industry manufacturing processes are extremely detrimental and damaging to our environment resulting in long-term effects on climate change.
What is sustainable fashion? The philosophers and social movers and shakers say it is “an inclusive term that refers to products, processes, activities and stakeholders (policy-makers brands consumers) aiming to achieve a carbon neutral fashion sector based on equality, social justice, animal welfare and ecological integrity.
As a member of the Australian Fashion Council our focus is the 3 “R”s, reuse, recycle and repair, are important components for a successful circular economy.
This is part of the methodology to rid the world of fast fashion and return to slow fashion, when clothes were made well and made to last. Due to fast fashion we have seen an increase of literally thousands of cubic metres of clothing being discarded into landfill and waterways after just one wear in some cases.
This has contributed to an overflow of second-hand clothing and the proliferation of second-hand shops in third world countries including Fiji. In many countries especially in Africa, it’s a crisis where clothing is also found washed up on beaches and animals grazing on clothing!
But according to the very creative and stylish Nicholas Huxley “Everything old is new again”. Nicholas is an absolute stalwart in the Australian Fashion Industry as a teacher and trainer over the past 40 years.
On his 8th visit to Fiji since 2015, brought in by Fiji Fashion Week to work with our local fashion designers to assist and guide them Nicholas has trained most of Australia’s past and current most successful designers.
But when in Suva, he loves to trawl the second-hand clothing shops in Suva of which there are many and especially the Bulk, Value City and Bargain Box….. They have become his treasure troves and he visits regularly finding gems of clothing discarded by others.
For Nicholas “one man’s trash is another one’s treasure” and he has made an art out of collecting fine pieces after combing through the so-called “trash” in these stores. Due to the success of this first “recycled” collection in FJFW last year, fashion show guests bombarded the FJFW office wanting to buy the dresses thinking they were brand new but didn’t when it was declared as second-hand.
For Fiji Fashion Week 2023, Nicholas has again produced another knockout collection with the label “Retrouve” the French word for find and retrieve. He loves taking an old garment that’s been around and recreating it into a modern way as simply another form of art.
Just like a painting that starts as a base he says “and then you add colour, textures, layers and detailing to create a finished look it’s exactly the same process as painting” which is another notch he has in his artistic belt.
He has found amazing garments a Zimmerman dress (an globally successful Australian Designer he trained) for $15 which normally sells for $1500 in Australia. Add Chanel, Armani, Oscar de la Renta the biggest names in European fashion in our Suva shops!
Featuring in his collection will be the pictured red dress with the sunray pleats which had been sitting in the same second hand shop in Suva for the past three years.
He decided to save it and give it a new life. It now it looks like a cleverly crafted Haute Couture dress that originally cost him $9.50 Fijian. Now that he has upcycled the dress, adding on various trimmings and detail, this dress can sell for $150 and is ideal for a balmy night of cocktails.
Nicholas will be showing “Retrouve” at the Resort Cruise Show on Friday June 2 at the Vodafone Arena and all pieces will be on sale after the show.
- Ellen Whippy-Knight is the managing director for Fiji Fashion Week. The views expressed are hers and not of this newspaper.
