How to be Sustainable this New Year ! A New Year means only one thing at Ragchop. London Fashion week is almost here. New ideas will fizz and sparkle and we will become embued with a fresh sense of purpose as the constellation of ideas light the way. For some this will also be tainted with guilt as we know that Fashion retailers will react more quickly, to produce ever more quantities of ever cheaper garments, destined for landfill. There was always more money to be made selling chicken and chips than producing creative gourmet delights -and so it is in Fashion too. Technology can help make the planet cleaner. It has been quite a long wait but it is heartening...
There was a time long, long ago, when Interlinings were thought of as 'that stuff' we iron on, to stabilise our fabric. Lightweight fabrics turned to cardboard as we ironed on the solution that turned our dreams to disappointment. At some point technological breakthroughs in textiles came to the rescue (as if from design heaven) and brought special adhesive systems and fine yarn interlinings to the design houses of Paris and Milan. It started with Armani but more recent examples are the earlier years of Victoria Beckham and Roland Mouret. Perfect examples of the fully-fused garment, their signature peplum dresses could never have made it to a catwalk without the help of some very clever interlining. Those zip-backed dresses from Lanvin, Balmain's...