Jeanne, we met during the event of Radical Imagination at University of the Arts London on the 18th of April. You sat alone in the row below and so did I. After the presentations have finished we started to chat and discuss the outcome of the event and what did we do and study.
It draws my attention to your new ventures in the field of finding the material to replace plastics. So relevant to the topic - sustainability. I briefly remember it was made out of seaweed. Would like to know more about it and follow up in the future.
We are so seeking for the solutions of these magnitude huge issues, so it is very inspiring people like yourself manage to step into the fields of discovering new ways and approaches of so long human created problem.
1. Please tell me a bit about yourself and your journey to England? What lead you here?
I come from France. Lil, which is in the north of France. It's an average town, not the biggest. There are many students due to many universities. I think I was attracted to having a bit of a change. In high school I did a year abroad, which was the option of International Baccalaureate. Which meant that I had extra hours of English and we looked at English literature as well as other foreign history. And I really enjoyed those classes. I was very drawn of speaking another language and studying English. So I applied to university in London. I have family in London, so I think it was easier for my parents to accept I was going somewhere else than friends. And yeah, I got in King’s College London and I studied German & Management for my bachelor’s degree. I think it was a good choice because I was very interested in learning German. We had lots of philosophy classes in high school and a lot of German philosophers came up and I was always interested in the language in itself and the whole culture around the language. And then management, I guess because I didn't really know what to do with my life. And I think it's very practical and always useful. That was what I did and what got me to England.
2. What lead you studying Masters in Environmental Technology?
During my time at Kings, I joined a society called an Axis. Which was all about social entrepreneurship. It started this project on upcycling fashion. Because I was very concerned about what my friends were buying around me and I wanted to find a way to make it sustainable, affordable as well as fashionable. It was all about trying to find solution with ways not having to produce. It was just a school project in a sense. And so having this experience really got me interested in trying to find the synergies between businesses and the environment.
One of my teacher was looking at the circular economy and trying to make it more social. I think people just tend to think about circle economy as recycling clothes or anything. But actually there's way more into it and so I applied to this seriously. I was really interested in what my teacher was teaching. I was interested in trying to find a way where businesses, especially fashion business models, could be more sustainable. We have to think about the future and everything. So that's why.
3. It is fascinating how you managed to create two worlds into one – Environment and Fashion, and rightly so. Is there any further journeys for you to take in regards of academics?
I think I can't go anywhere else in fashion and environment. I guess I'm trying to look a lot about the social aspect of the fashion and the sustainability. So I'll be doing a thesis on all the clothes waste that are exported to Kenya and all the impacts it has in Kenya. More I dig in and more there is kind of shared nuanced concerns for people – I would say that it's actually worst colonialism, Where there's just too much waste and it's just putting the waste of the UK in another country. But actually there's other sources that says that it's creating jobs and economy there and people are looking to get new clothes from the second hand market and willing to do so. So that's what I'm trying to understand. I think the whole thing is diving a bit more into the cultural aspect of fashion. Looking at Kenyan particularly. I think they were always very much sustainable. I think in the aspect of producing clothes and wearing clothes. They would create clothes with the local community deals. Following the cycle of nature to get the nice fabrics. Get tailored them, fitted for themselves. And then they would share it from generation to generation and so now having this kind of waste issue in their countries.. It's quite interesting to dive in to. The whole circular economy, sustainability, sustainable fashion.
I guess that's my new academic journey I'm going to take.
4. I had a thought about seaweed and the broad consumption of plastics on the way home from the event. Therefore the question arise in my mind, if we would start using that sort of material, or any other naturally arisen materials, what impact would it leave to the nature and would it be possible to generate to such volumes as necessary. I know it may be too early to ask. It just crosses my mind. It is simply comparing to the trees.
Really interesting question. It's really kind of what we are right now discovering. We're doing a life cycle assessment and the biodiversity impacts and seeing if our material is going to be biodegradable and if it's not disturbing the ecosystem. I think about it in the way of future of fashion and especially sustainable fashion. It's really going back to the roots of where fashion started in the sense of looking at the materials we have the local natural based material and you would see that like seaweed for example. It can only be about harvested four times in a year. It goes quite quickly, but it have to follow the cycle of nature to be able to get a seaweed. And I think that's the balance between not using too much of natural resources as well as respecting this environment. It's looking at being in reason with nature.
5. Tell me please about the UNV and how is it going? What are plans of UNV? Is this something still actively operating?
UNV is kind of what I was talking about studying, what got me interested in studying environmental technology. It was this project that I had on the side as part of the society in AXIS. And it was really coming from exactly how being a student, looking at friends buying at ZARA, I wanted to act. Wanted to find them like an alternative that is sustainable. Affordable and fashionable and also just having fun with clothes. So we worked with fashion students around London and we would ask them to create new clothes out of the ones we collected. To completely upcycle the new clothes. And then we would sell them on our marketplace for quite affordable prices because we didn't really have any cost. We didn't pay ourselves. We didn't pay for the fabrics. It was just really much for the maintenance. That was kind of what we were doing. We were really helping fashion students get a bit more experience and kind of creating the portfolio through partnering with us creating amazing clothes out of unwanted clothes that we collected. And it was really cool experience, I learned a lot from this. We've partnered with French fashion school and created like a curriculum in the school and did a collection together.
I went to Berlin for a year and I worked for the fashion student there. Looking at making clothes from different sizes, gender and everything. So for me it was very much like an exploration of fashion and different business models with waste. Now the plan is wait. When I was at the end of my bachelor I was wondering if I wanted to do it professionally as a continued project. And actually I realized it was very difficult, because it really relied on the clothes we were producing from what we received as waste as well as on the fashion student timetables. So it was a very difficult to be able to have a bit more impact in the sense and produce a bit more clothes and have more people involved. It would require a lot of maintenance and organization. So I decided to kind of leave it to King’s and inactive society for the purpose of a student to kind of experience it and start developing skills in project management and start-ups. I hope it's still operating.
6. What are the biggest challenges for second hand clothing industry? And how do we overcome them?
I mean for me the biggest challenge is definitely the materials. The clothes one makes, so much waste, so much second hand clothes. The clothes are not biodegradable. They are difficult to recycle. Only 1% of those actually are recyclable. There are so many mixes of different fibbers in different materials. Especially looking at polyester and nylon are synthetic based on fossil fuel materials. It's really the one that we can't recycle because it's not biodegradable, containing micro plastics with too many issues. This fabric is the biggest challenge. And of course, linked to the excess of production. The excess of consumption - how to regulate all of this? I see that France is trying to tax, trying to ban ultra - fast fashion to enter the country. And I think in that way, maybe it's a step forward of having really a strong power in and making right policies. Trying to really tax bigger company, when they are creating, producing too much and creating too much waste. I think with EPR - Extended producer responsibility as well as the ESPR regulation in the UK. They already looking at it and doing a great job. But the question is how? How is it going to be implemented, followed and how brands are going to react to this? Looking at the materials which are not recyclable in the first place.
7. Do you think fashion matters and if so then on what extent to one as an individual?
Fashion matters because I think it's kind of way expressing yourself. It's what you showing to everyone around the world, outside. And if even you don't really care about fashion, the fact that you decided to not care about it when you decide to wear white T-shirts, it just means that you are involved in it. And so fashions is kind of everywhere in a sense. For me this whole question is about being kind of a source of confidence and being a source of expression. With creativity bring your outside and showing who you are with the clothes without having to talk. There's so much more aspects of fashion. It's cultural, it's political, and it’s environmental. There's so much linked to it. It connects an individual to the community like if you are part of the music groups, political movement. And that's why I think that is so interesting. It's never boring.
8. Do you follow trends and to what extent your dress style is influenced by them?
I wouldn't say I'm following trends. I guess, I am unconsciously following them, I guess because I'm influenced by them. Influenced by how people walked in the street or on social media, magazines. Created trends are just unconscious aspect that has on you. But no, I'm not actively looking for them, and I think what my style is very much influenced by how I want myself to be perceived in the world.
I have this great kind of image that I created throughout the years that I really like and I'm not looking for new clothes. I might like to have more clothes., because I don't really know what to Wear in summer, especially in London. For spring I created this nice little capsule. I think what my rule for fashion is to have immunity, and raising awareness.
9. What role do you want to play in Fashion Sustainability?
I want to slow the system down. I want to feel like - look that it's actually possible to create a system that is in rhythm with nature and then using the best materials and getting back to giving back to communities while making something very fun and something very creative that people would want to wear by expressing themselves in. So it's kind of this balance I want to show being more respectful with their environment. Meaning being more respectful of the clothes themselves, and like valuing them a bit higher.
10. Where are you heading within next five years?
Right now I want to give a shot to the start-up and looking at seaweed, which could be a good replacement for polyester. That's what I think I'll be doing for the next five years. Looking a bit deeper into it. Seeing if it can have a good biodiversity impact as well as environmental social energy usage doesn't require any pesticide fertilisers. So that's already a win. But yeah, looking at the energy is. Water use. And seeing if it's actually a good alternative or not. So yeah, that's what I would see myself trying to go full time into this start-up and then as well getting an internship experience in fashion houses to actually have an insight a bit more on what's happening.
11. How do you think we as individuals can change the fashion industry for good?
I think we have differently powers as individuals to change the fashion industry. Someone told me that we can vote with our wallet. I think it was quite right in the sense that we have much more power than we think. We have because in the end we are fuelling those prints. And so we can select which brands we want to keep. Other than being which clothes we want to keep wearing.
The clothes that we have trying to reuse them as much as possible. Wear them, love them and take care of them.
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