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AMFI organises international symposium about fashion and sustainability

On Tues­day 9 Novem­ber 2010 the AM­FI – Am­s­ter­dam Fash­ion In­sti­tute has or­ga­nized an in­ter­na­tion­al sym­po­sium en­ti­tled Be­yond Green, The Sys­tem of Fash­ion, in the World Fash­ion Cen­tre in Am­s­ter­dam. The aim of the sym­po­sium was to provide in­for­ma­tion to stu­dents and teach­ing staff in high­er ed­u­ca­tion on new de­vel­op­ments in sus­tain­abil­i­ty and fash­ion.

>> Re­port Be­yond Green 2010
>> Pho­tos Be­yond Green 2010
>> Lec­ture videos are avail­able on the
pro­gram­me page

Spon­sors:

Be­yond Green Sym­po­sium

The Sys­tem of Fash­ion was the cen­tral the­me of Be­yond Green this year. The cre­ation of a gar­ment is a com­plex pro­cess: an end­less­ly long chain of pro­cess­es which are often uneth­i­cal, in­ef­fi­cient or cause pol­lu­tion. It is there­fore im­por­tant to get more in­sight in­to the com­plex­i­ty of the man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cess, so that we can iden­ti­fy op­por­tu­ni­ties to pro­duce in a more sus­tain­able way. If the fash­ion in­dus­try wants the man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cess to be more sus­tain­able, it is im­por­tant to of­fer fash­ion stu­dents the knowl­edge they need to make it so. The stu­dents of to­day are the de­ci­sion mak­ers of to­mor­row.

Be­yond Green Gallery: Sta­tion Blue

The sub-the­me of this year’s pro­gram­me was Jeans; one of world’s most pop­u­lar gar­ments but al­so made from one of world’s most en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly un­friend­ly fab­rics: cot­ton. Some of the speak­ers ad­dressed the sub­ject of Jeans in their pre­sen­ta­tion. The Be­yond Gallery was al­so or­ga­nized around Jeans and was called Sta­tion Blue. The gallery in­clud­ed pre­sen­ta­tions on in­no­va­tive pro­jects by young de­sign­ers and grass-roots or­ga­ni­za­tions, and ex­hi­bi­tion stands manned by nu­mer­ous com­pa­nies con­nect­ed with fash­ion, tex­tiles and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. See al­so: sta­tion­blue.word­press.com

Free Fash­ion Chal­lenge

At Be­yond Green the Free Fash­ion Chal­lenge was launched. 15 fash­ion ad­dicts from all over the world stopped buy­ing clothes for one year. Free Fash­ion is a grad­u­a­tion pro­ject of Lau­ra de Jong in col­lab­o­ra­tion with AM­FI. With this chal­lenge the mean­ing of con­sump­tion with­in the def­i­ni­tion of fash­ion is be­ing ex­plored. Fash­ion stu­dents from the Nether­lands, Aus­tralia, Japan, Is­rael, Eng­land and the Unit­ed States have tak­en up this chal­lenge along with Nan­net van der Klei­jn (cre­ative di­rec­tor AM­FI), Frank Jur­gen Wi­jlens (lec­tur­er vi­su­al cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ca­tion AM­FI) and Ernestine Koel­man (lec­tur­er fash­ion draw­ing AM­FI). See al­so: www.freefash­ion­chal­lenge.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy: Joris van Eg­mond

AMFI Amsterdam Fashion Institute