This week is Green Week at LCF and across University of the Arts London. What with loads of free events and workshops happening at LCF, we wanted to delve a little deeper into what ‘being green’ might mean for the fashion conscious and fashion creative.
We spoke to Emmi Hyyppä, MA Fashion Photography, about her interest in sustainable fashion and a recent project she undertook to celebrate clothes that represent the opposite of ‘fast fashion’ – things borrowed, bought second-hand, inherited and treasured for years.
Coming from Finland, she was able to give us an insight into how sustainable fashion is taking off there and how it inspires her work. We were pretty amazed by how many of the featured ‘sustainable’ purchases proved to be such bargains!
Emmi Hyyppä, MA Fashion Photography
Emmi: With this editorial I want to show that fashion doesn’t have to be new, fresh from the factory, this season. Fashion recycles, old trends come back, the same clothes are in vogue again and again. Fashion is and should be sustainable. The red kitten heels in the image above are ones that my mother used to wear when she was my age.
Finland has an active flea market culture. There are great number of thrift shops and new ones are popping up all the time. Expensive vintage boutiques have not yet taken reign and there are still places where you can actually find good quality clothes for very little money. People reuse clothes and products, and DIY is a big thing. Recycling groups on Facebook are thriving and various second-hand events are organised continuously. For this editorial I decided to gather clothes and accessories through different means of recycling fashion.
Emmi Hyyppä, MA Fashion Photography
The black jacket I found on Cleaning Day, a day when thrifty people gather around in parks and streets to recycle clothes and other things they don’t need, and to find something to replace it with. The jacket cost me 1.50€!
Emmi Hyyppä, MA Fashion Photography
The 3€ yellow wind jacket is from a Facebook flea market group, where you post the item you are selling, someone reserves it, then you arrange to meet and handover the goods.
Emmi Hyyppä, MA Fashion Photography
There is a flea market chain in Finland that organises sale weeks when all of the items in the shop are 8€ on the first day, 7€ on the next and so forth. The blue silk shirt is from a 2€ day.
Emmi Hyyppä, MA Fashion Photography
The old town in my hometown organises an annual flea market weekend, when the occupiers have yard sales and cafes in their beautiful gardens. I found the green circle bag two years ago for 4€ and it is one of my favourite thrift finds.