With the support of the British Council and in partnership with BIAAF (Bilbao International Art & Fashion) the designer and founder of the global sustainable fashion movement Fashion Revolution Carry Somers will be taking part in the second edition of the Bilbao Bizkaia DWeek, an event focused on the promotion of creative industries, (architecture, crafts, audiovisual, communication, digital contents, design, interior design, fashion and video games). A range of conferences, workshops, exhibitions and other events will take place between 16 and 23 November in Bilbao with the aim of promoting these industries.
In 1992 Carry Somers founded the first certified fair trade company, Pachacuti, a company that empowers excluded women by making hats made from environmentally friendly materials and offered on the market at a fair price. She was inspired to found Fashion Revolution after the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, and revolutionized the world of fashion globally by launching the simple and complex question: “Who made your clothes?” Her talk at Dweek2017 will cover consumers, brands, retailers and policy makers.
Carry’s talk at Dweek2017 sits within the framework of the British Council Sustainable Fashion programme, whose aim is to foster a better understanding of sustainable fashion in Spain, France and Greece via the exchange of best practices between the UK and these three countries. The programme includes a series of activities aimed at influencing policy makers, engaging with the main stakeholders in the fashion industry in Spain, training future fashion leaders (designers, retailers, etc.) and highlighting the excellence of British creativity in fashion. The talk at Dweek2017 opens a month of Sustainable Fashion events in Spain which includes a series of tweetchats with relevant professionals from the sector in order to expand the expertise and feed the network.
In December the British Council will organise a Sustainable Fashion workshop in Madrid for emerging designers and companies in order to raise awareness of the impact of fashion on the environment, generate curiosity and interest in sustainable fashion and share examples of good practices in embedding sustainable procedures throughout the process from design all the way to retail. Guest speakers will include Alice Holmberg, social Entrepreneur and Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, together with the designer Elsa Ellies from the brand ONEBYME.