Just Fashion Lab at the Hay Festival 2015

Joining Hay Festival with the Just Fashion Lab for the second year running, the lab was taken outside for one week, and joined by students from Falmouth, UWE, East London, and Sheffield Hallam as well as two of our own LCF students, to explore and experiment with different starting points and methods for design.

The week of design and making culminated in a panel discussion between Catarina Midby from H&M, Orsola de Castro, Jessica Bumpus, Vogue and Margareta van den Bosch, chaired by CSF’s Dilys Williams, to answer the question 'What we are saying and doing through fashion and what might fashion’s legacy be in a changing world?'

Examples from the lab were offered during the discussion to illustrate what happens when we re-connect with nature, think about our vulnerabilities and work with what we have over what we cannot afford to squander.

This kind of immersive lab offers the means to think differently about time and nature, it offers a sense of freedom from convention, to be able to see fashion and sustainability from a different perspective. The students responded by created pieces that flowed from one decision to the next rather than working to a prescribed design and plan. The outfits ready, the series was photographed and shown as part of the Hay Festival main programme and will form part of our ongoing lab work at the centre.