Slow Factory Launches ‘Garment to Garment’ Pilot
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Nonprofit foundation Slow Factory is launching a free garment-to-garment pilot program for training new fashion talent.
Dubbed “Garment to Garment,” the design program will instruct designers on how to design for disassembly so garments stay out of landfills. It will be an extension of Slow Factory’s Open Education programming running from September 2023 to April 2024.
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To start, the program will grant five female designers from regions typically eclipsed by fashion cities to design and upcycle garment waste into new and innovative creations. Their works will then be documented and archived for replicable, open educational resources per Slow Factory. The first cohort includes designers Makayla Wray, Tega Akinola, Mahdiyyah Muhammed, Korina Emmerich and Sarah Nsikak. The designers will be mostly based in New York for the program. Luxury brands from Chloé, MillerKnoll, Stella McCartney to Gabriela Hearst supplied deadstock materials for the program.
“Every industry, from automotive to tech, has a design for disassembly segment as part of their supply chain, which is focused on taking existing items and upcycling them into new ones,” Slow Factory founder Celine Semaan said in a statement. “This is what this program aims to create, a new skill training program that is focused on designing for reassembly and disassembly. This is the future of circular systems and economy, a task force using design to transform existing items that usually end up in landfills, to turn waste into new resources and products!”
At the pilot program’s close in April, the finished garments will be displayed at the Sustainable Fashion Forum in Austin.
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