• TALKING SUSTAINABILITY AND TECH WITH AMANDA PARKES

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    Fashion, digitalization and sustainability are connecting people more frequently today than ever before. Everyone is concerned about how the future will look like and where our consumption will carry us. Amanda Parkes has her scientific and industrial meanings around sustainability, high-tech textiles, artificial intelligence and future of fashion as such. In May 2017 she stepped into the role of chief innovation officer at Fashion Tech Lab, founded by Miroslava Duma as a new hybrid venture that is part investment fund, accelerator and laboratory. In June Fashion Tech Talks invited Amanda Parkes to Stockholm as one of the speakers, where she shared her ideas about building a sustainable material culture and producing smart fibres. While attending the conference, Odalisque Magazine could have a thought-provoking interview with Amanda, asking her a few questions concerning different aspects of the future of fashion.

    Could you please tell whether Future Tech Lab is a profit or non-profit organisation and what is your role in it?
    It is a for-profit organisation. The company is designed to be kind of disruptive to the industry and to move it forward. One of the pillars is the investment fund which is a start-up within sustainable and innovative textiles and broad section of that moving interactively. The second pillar is the agency, where we work with clients, helping them with sustainable innovation strategy, as well as connecting them to start-ups. Thus, we are a bridge builder in that way. And we are also building a brand through our experimental labs, working on creating showcasing fashion products by using alternative and interesting sustainable textiles. My role is chief innovation officer, steering innovation processes across those three pillars, trying actually to be quite fluent with that, and I also do a lot of public speaking.

    Do you think, we can reach the “zero-waste” goal by continuing to consume in the same way as we are doing now?
    It is such a complicated question starting with asking what the definition of “zero waste” is and how you measure and analyse zero ability in general. It is kind of a part of the industry having to work together in order to really define those metrics and try to understand those, because what might be good and sustainable in one place is not the best solution in another place. In terms of the consumption aspects, I think, it is quite interesting to hear arguments on different sides. First of all, if we stay at the same level of consumption, while the population of the world is increasing, is that sustainable or not? The ideas behind justifying our levels of consumption and growth are about if everything is circular, and it is going back in, then you can sort of justify fast fashion. Personally, I do not think that this is a fantastic justification, and I think that it is really more about the value system. The very nature of fast fashion and how cheap it is, is what really drives the mass consumption, because people can afford it. It is based on not a sustainable premise, meaning that someone is paying the price, whether it would be the environment for using harmful materials or humanistic ideas. Great part of it is not directly about consumption. The idea of the close meaning between what costs more is also to be valued more, would potentially hurt the environment.

    Isn’t that also a matter of ideology?
    Exactly. One thing is that we will never get rid of the fact that people want to use fashion as a language for personal expression and as a way to create identity. We are not going to change the idea that people want newness in their lives. That is really the fact of the fashion and sort of a point of the latter. I think, from that angle we should not be trying to get rid of it. What we should do is different battles, where you can have newness that is not just a value of clothing, things like rental systems, sharing systems, reclaim. Just all those kinds of notions that look different to the models.

    How do you think the notion of luxury might change due to the presence of artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, I am concerned about the aspect of heritage, when we today producing new things and later reproducing those, basing our references on them? Do you think the element of heritage can lose its actuality as a component of the luxury concept?
    It is definitely not going to disappear. And even in the short term, AI is going to have very little effect on luxury, because there is a lot of AI predictive analyses saying that the latter is transitioning very rapidly, what is closely tight to fast fashion. Meanwhile, luxury has always been a kind of classic and scarce, when a brand for example makes a certain number of a particular bag model and people are hunting them. Hence, you are not really fighting access in this case. In an interesting way, luxury is actually quite sustainable, because the goods are certainly pretty expensive due to their good quality including arts and crafts. Thus, people can use them in a longer period of time. In this sense, luxury is very satisfying for the sustainability goals. However, potentially new materials might bring change into the concept of luxury also changing our way to view things like fur and leather. In the context of sustainability, it makes us reconsider the ecosystems around productions and materials. Is silk thread created of synthetic piles considered less valuable than the thread coming from a real spider? Where is a value system inside of that? What do people really care about in luxury? What is luxury with those new material? These things I find really interesting to discuss.

    It is pretty clear today that we need AI to handle all that huge amount of data we are producing and collecting on daily basis. How do you think we can avoid a kind of Blade-Runner society and who should have control over all the information?
    First of all, we need to differentiate between AI and algorithms that create the meaning among the data, because AI is really based on the supposition that it is trying to predict or know something. Whereas, if you are just talking about algorithms and the analyses of the data, what you want to be is neutral and unbiased. In the sense of having a data and analysis of what it means is of massive value. It is really a question with any new technology, when you have something, what you might call a “Wild West period”, before governments or any kind of legislator try to create any kind of policy. You can either have go-for-it attitude and see what people do and then create some laws in the back-end, what is much more destructive, or you can have a community itself with people, who are developing technology and be self-governing, saying, “Here is what we think we should be doing.” And, I think, the second alternative is something that is going a lot more in biotech in general, not just in the context of fashion and materials. I think, the people who are developing the technology are the best suited to create their own guiding rules. When decisions are to be made, I hope this is what will come in the place together with ethics, questioning not only the technical part but also asking why.

    What do you personally think will happen to the industry of trendspotting in future and will the gut-feeling still matter?
    Nevertheless, trendspotting is probably more about what people seeing on the streets. All the technology is actually about questioning what the humans are good at, what is very hard for machines to do. You can walk around the city and kind of scope the style of the city and get a feel for it. Would robots be able to do that? Even if it is a collection of photographs, there is something to be said about first of all physical attractiveness and trendspotting has a piece of that. And also an eye for style is one of the things that AI has not done right. When you look at two identical suits but one of them is luxury and one of them is very low quality, and you are able to see it. It could be about tiny tricks and cuts, what would be very hard to get for AI. You might get 95 percent with AI but the last five percent is the human eye and the essence of things. And also the creativity aspect is important here, because the influence trends have on us is not merely about science.

  • Chanel Haute Couture AW 2018/19

    Written by Meghan Scott

    Paris is synonymous with Haute Couture as is French fashion house Chanel with Paris. This season Karl Lagerfeld paid another homage to the magical city, with a focus on book lovers and the Académie Francaise. The runway was lined with booksellers' “boxes”, as you would see quayside along the Seine, invoking the spirit of the Parisiénne intellect. Models adorned in beautiful dresses and gowns embellished with tweed, flannel, velvet, crêpe, lace, taffetas, radzimir and chiffon, as classic Chanel. The colour palette mimicked the tones of Paris rooftops, street asphalt with black and deep nocturnal navy with gold and silver reflections like the reflection of the moon on the Seine. Jackets were joined by pleated skirts. Chiffon blouses, high band collars, lace tops, and others with plastrons embroidered with sequins, beads, and crystals, further enriched the collection. A feeling of 1940's was present with exaggerated pompadours, knee-length skirts, pan collars, encompassing pre-rockabilly vibe. Karl expresses his recognition that Paris is a very unique fashion capital, a symbiosis of arts and culture makes Chanel unique.

    The guest list at the show included Chanel's new ambassadors Penélope Cruz, and the regular CHANEL ambassadors Lily-Rose Depp, Vanessa Paradis, Pharrell Williams, Marine Vacth, Caroline de Maigret, Soo Joo Park, Ellie Bamber, Ayami Nakajo, Liu Wen and Zhou Xun, American actresses Tracee Ellis Ross and Mackenzie Foy, Thai actress Chutimon Chuengcharoensukuying, Canadian singer Charlotte Cardin, French actresses Diane Rouxel and Carole Bouquet as well as French ballet dancer Marie-Agnès Gillot attended the Fall-Winter 2018/19 Haute Couture runway show this Tuesday, July 3rd at the Grand Palais. 

  • VOGT Stockholm: AN INDEPENDENT VOICE OF STYLE

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    Art Deco has since its birth embodied luxury, glamour, exuberance and belief in technological progress. So do the VOGT Stockholm handbags by building stringent architectural lines, skilfully married with the generous functionality and laconic pragmatism of Scandinavian design, underpinned by strong feminine identity. Bestowing a powerful association with the iconic geometry seen in Tamara de Lempicka’s paintings, the handbags, designed by the notable alumni of Parsons School of Design and founder of VOGT Stockholm Christina de Mercado, celebrate the modern woman. Every style is uniquely marked with either a year or a number, telling its own personal story referring to such phenomena as the history of women’s suffrage or the Vogt family’s remarkable fashion heritage.

    The thought-provoking interplay of the futuristic transience and sustainable newness creates a genuine feeling of strong identity locked in the idea of a co-creation between a woman and her potential handbag. It is a design that conceives a dialogue between the consumer and the product leaving a significant amount of space for individual creativity born in their unique relationship. Notwithstanding its short existence, the brand has already established its own independent voice and candid style expressed in luxury sustainability of materials, shapes and colours endorsed by Italian craftsmanship. Odalisque Magazine had a chance to meet Christina de Mercado – the woman behind the brand – and talk with her about her family’s fashion business tradition, the company, sustainability and a perfect bag wardrobe.

    Where does the name VOGT come from and what does it mean?
    Vogt is my maiden name, which originally hails from Germany. My grandfather immigrated to Sweden from Germany. Since three generations back the Vogt family has been an actor in the fashion industry. Once, my grandfather started a fur import company, what later was expanded by my father into a ready-to-made clothing retail company, providing around 40 different brands to retailers over Scandinavia. The name of the company was ‘Vogt Agentur’. Hence, it was quite obvious for me to continue using the family name for my own business.

    All the bags in your collections are marked with either a year or a number. Why and what do they mean?
    These are numbers and years which are of great significance for me, such as, for example, the first bag we ever received. We used to call it ‘Lucky number 7’, what became ‘No. 7’ in the collection. Another shoulder bag with a metal chain strap carries the name ‘No. 1921’, what praises the year, when women’s suffrage was granted in Sweden. ‘No. 1928’ celebrates my father’s birthday, honouring his memory and the Vogt family in general. Thus this is how it all is organized instead of applying different names.

    What did you learn during the years at Parsons School of Design?
    I think that the most precious thing I have acquired is the knowledge of exploiting and maintaining your creativity without being confined by it. If you believe that you are able to accomplish something, you will definitely achieve it with the right attitude and method. What I still appreciate most is that during the study process, I never felt limited by any rules. Having a vision and solution for that, I was free to do it in my way.

    What has been a source of inspiration for creating these bags with such an intelligent geometry and stringent architecture?
    I have always been fascinated by Art Deco that is always about geometry, architecture and design. Therefore it became a self-evident source of inspiration for me, when I started working on the products. It turned to be a signature of my design.

    What does the triangle pattern/shape mean?
    Some people see those as triangles, while others interpret it as a sunrise. In other words, it is your imagination that decides whether you see triangles or something else. In general, I think the pattern gives the handbag a distinctive character and form.

    What handbag is your favourite?
    It is ‘No. 1928 HOBO’.

    What do you think is the ideal size of the handbag a woman should have?
    First of all, it is of course very individual. For me personally it is HOBO, because it fits such important life style attributes like extra pair of shoes, sportswear and my laptop. Nevertheless, I also have a sling purse, like ‘No. 7’, which I can use for a cocktail party or while leaving the office for lunch. This combination of two purses is my perfect solution.

    How many handbags do you think a woman should have in her basic bag wardrobe?
    I think, the optimal number is two pieces, as I described in the previous question. Otherwise, it could be nice to have a few purses as a stylish handbag and a pair of nice shoes can lift the whole outfit. Then you could only wear jeans and t-shirt letting the handbag and the shoes do the job. In general, I think it is good to invest in a quality product, also considering the sustainability aspect.

    Great that you are mentioning sustainability, because I have a question about it. How is the sustainability aspect integrated into your products concerning both the design and production stages?
    A handbag is an investment that should hold a few seasons or even years. Therefore it is important that a woman owning a handbag does not get thoroughly bored by the latter. Accordingly, the purse should stick out in some way by having a certain distinctive design features. When it comes to production, we use Italian suppliers, who use certified chemicals on their raw materials and have a high grade of social responsibility and safety at work. It is a fair trade.

    What is the biggest challenge that you are dealing with as a female designer in the fashion industry?
    The biggest challenge is the daily routines of running the business. Besides that I have been accepted by the industry in a quite nice way and especially in Italy. There it is not so easy for young designers to establish a relationship with suppliers and retailers having such big brands as Dolce & Gabbana on their customer list. It is a great confirmation form me, meaning that they take my products seriously and that my products live up to high expectations.

    How do you keep your inspiration alive?
    I do go to the museums a lot and I love architecture. It might be sufficient to just lift up your eyes and look around.

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