Sustainable Fashion Festival held in Cambridge
St Barnabas Church on Mill Road recently hosted this first event of its kind.
Presented by Circular Cambridge, a project of Cambridge Carbon Footprint (CCF), the event was held on Saturday, November 17, and boasted a pop-up market, fashion show, sewing repair cafe, styling workshops, a womenswear clothes swapping party and upcycling and creative workshops.
The clothing industry accounts for around 12 per cent of global greenhouse emissions and is the world’s second largest industrial polluter. Environment campiagners say people often think of fashion as a frivolous affair, but carefully choosing what we wear could make a big difference to tackling environmental issues.
Cambridge Carbon Footprint, along with sustainable clothing pioneers Mamoq and AmaElla, organised the festival – the motto of which was ‘buy less, choose well, make it last’.
Nicole Barton, CCF’s volunteer and event organiser, said: “It was brilliant – we ran out of our printed programmes within two hours, and I think we had about 800 to 1,000 people coming along, which is amazing for a first event.
“The interest in Cambridge seems to reflect the interest in the rest of the world – Google searches for sustainable fashion went up 100 per cent last year.”
Nicole continued: “We had something for everyone – there were children there, there were older people there, and a lot of people hung around all day.”
On whether this will be an annual event, Nicole said: “Given the feedback, I think we would like to do it again. It went better than we could have dreamed, so hopefully yes. We’d love to repeat it.”
One of the attractions was a stall run by Emily Morgan, pictured above left.
“Emily is a Cambridge University student and she curated a charity shop stall,” said Nicole. “She went around Cambridge’s charity shops, took out the nicest pieces and curated a stall. I think they raised about £400 for local charity shops.”
Nicole said that more and more people hate waste and added: “Another really nice thing is consuming in a different way can actually be a really positive social experience as well.
“Going to the shops on your own is one thing, but going to a big swap party is a lot more fun.”
