Tala Kamea: 05.2009

At the end of April I participated in an Earth Day celebration - the launch of Fashion Takes Action. FTA is an organization based out of Toronto that aims to create awareness, through all levels of the fashion industry, regarding ecologically friendly fashion. It will help to connect consumers with retailers with designers with textile manufacturers and so on in an effort to increase sustainability and help save our planet from complete devastation! A little dramatic, perhaps, but thankfully it seems that the general trend in fashion is indeed moving in this direction, albeit slowly.

The event went down in the historical Burroughes Building on Queen West, and featured an open bar and some great DJs including Brendan Canning from Broken Social Scene. Part of the night involved pairs of fashion students from Ryerson creating garments out of old product packaging and materials donated by event sponsors. My good design buddy Devlyn Van Loon and I created a dress out of materials provided by The Lifford Wine Agency. We had 3 hours to do it, and we did it! We had no sewing machine - just needles and thread and glue. The bodice is made of non-woven textile wine bags, the skirt was made from old promotional t-shirts, soaked in their now discontinued line of eco-wine for the tie-dye effect. The creator of FTA just Twitted (or whatever) our dress here: http://twitpic.com/48vre

Otherwise, here are some pics from the event itself, which was kind of incredibly fun:

Devlyn Van Loon in complimentary colours.