After 300,000 years of existence, we humans have climbed the greasy pole and become the true masters of this planet we call Earth. Certainly, since the start of the industrial revolution some 200 years ago, our living standards have improved immensely. Child mortality, life expectancy and wealth have increased to levels previously unachievable.

But who pays the bill for this global prosperity? Planet Earth has been treated as an infinite source of riches, free to use as we see fit. But the limits are beginning to show. Overconsumption is perhaps the most significant contributor to climate change, jet-fuelled by advertising companies telling us that we are no good unless we buy the next thing.

The fashion industry is one of the main culprits. Globally, clothing production contributes more greenhouse gases than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Growing cotton requires vast amounts of water, and the production of synthetic fabrics such as polyester, spandex and nylon use up to 342 million barrels of oil per year. 

Fast fashion is now the fastest growing segment of the fashion industry. Two collection seasons per year is a thing of the past, and brands are constantly releasing new items to meet the growing demand of trend-sensitive consumers. In 1980, the average American consumer bought 12 clothing items per year. This figure has now risen to about 68 items per year, most of which are usually worn seven times or less before they are discarded. 

We spoke to Kirsi Niinimäki, Associate Professor in Design and the leader of the Fashion/Textiles Futures research group at Aalto University, for her view on the future of fashion. She describes how the current fashion system has an enormous negative environmental impact and how we as consumers have helped to maintain it. “We are part of the fashion system,” she says, “and the way consumers behave keeps up the system and the fashion business.” She explains how moving away from destructive business practices will require extensive changes: “We need new ways of consuming fashion. From a system-level approach, behaviour changes such as buying and throwing away less stuff would help slow down and shrink the system which would affect the environmental impact.”

What will be the biggest driver behind this shift, consumers or market changes, I ask? “The development is run by two powers. Consumers are becoming more aware as they increasingly understand the impact that fashion has on the planet. At the same time, I believe policy changes to be a more powerful tool to steer companies in more sustainable ways.”

Doing more with less is clearly the way forward. Paris RE Made is a French fashion brand that combines vintage designer items and deadstock fabrics into new designs. Xuan Thu Nguyen, creative director at Paris RE Made, tells The Forumist how she thinks overconsumption affects us: “I think it makes us greedy. It is an old mindset which is slowly turning into a more conscious way of looking at things and life.”

The high-status value of the designer items used in the designs of Paris RE Made is not lost as it is transformed into new pieces.  Reusing and recycling instead add value,  according to Nguyen. “In terms of status symbol,” she says, “more high-end design items already have a heritage history, a history of quality. To be able to re-design those pieces into more contemporary items or more updated wearable versions for consumers only add more value to the design piece and the whole story behind it.”

She believes that people are increasingly adopting a more holistic way of thinking, but that this comes with its challenges as well. “People are turning more towards sustainability,” she explains. “But I understand it is not possible for every consumer. Being sustainable in fashion is not cheap and it is a mindset that is not understandable for most consumers/buyers. You need to know what you buy, where it comes from and how it is made. Being conscious about sustainability, recycling, upcycling, and knowing where your product comes from is already a good start. Start small is better than no start at all.”

Remaking old fashion pieces is one way of cutting down on resource use. But French designer Marianna Ladreyt has a slightly different approach. Her latest collection is made from salvaged inflatable pool animals which she has turned into garments and accessories. She explains how the inspiration came to her during a walk along the beach: “Last summer, I was walking on the beach side, and I saw a blow-up animal that was thrown next to a garbage bin. I instantly got triggered and couldn’t stop thinking of it.” Marianna brought home the discarded pool toy and started experimenting. “I decided to try something with it once I got back to my studio, because I found the ‘fabric’ super interesting. It is waterproof, shiny, super colourful and beautiful. In the end, all my experiments worked and I decided to go further with those pool-animal skins and work with them as a kind of fake leather to create bags, accessories and even ready-to-wear.”

Marianna believes overconsumption leads to a disconnect, both from ourselves and the products in itself. “To me, one of the worst effects of overconsumption is that it disconnects us, humans, from our own nature, our actual needs and wants. It makes us loose our perception of exchange in the process of buying. We don’t understand the product anymore.”

She ends the interview by giving some advice for more mindful consumption. “I guess we can all make small but essential steps in this way, but to me, I would say consume less or just ‘better’. Buying from small, ethical and local businesses, rather than large brands that greenwash. I have to say that I’m not against consumption as an idea, because I think it’s part of what we are as humans, and that is what is making us innovate nonstop. It should just be a beautiful innovation that makes us more connected to nature as a whole and our own natures and not for the sake of money.”

There is magic in decluttering both your wardrobe and your head, with the liberation from physical objects and mental weight they carry. Like the tidying expert Marie Kondo says, why keep anything that does not inspire joy?

Image Credits:
Clothes, bags and accessories by Marianna Ladreyt, photo Boris Ovini. 
Look from FW2022 collection by Paris Re Made, photo Diane Sangnier.
Cushion by Paris Re Made, photo Lan Nguyen

Creative use of space is more relevant than ever before. Today we have to seriously reconsider how we live our lives on sweet Mother Earth. Our cities are growing, as is our population, and experts seem only to disagree on the details of how grey or black our future looks. If this trend continues, we will all be living an urban life by the end of the 21st century, making space as a commodity truly expensive. The predominant mindset among the younger generations is driven by emotional experiences rather than ownership. Flexible co-living – adaptable spaces and social inclusion is more important than grand apartments and impressive cars. 

How to use space creatively, is something that has always been a central idea of MINI – the iconic car now in the reliable hands of the BMW Group. The use of space within a car was actually a principal concept back in the 60s, and, together with the pleasure of driving, it’s as important as ever. MINI has always had a clever approach to the future and all the challenges we face, and now more so than ever before. But rather than speaking about different creative solutions and models, the company is more interested in speaking about a wider approach to the ‘creative use of space’, something that is the essence of MINI. and, in the long run, it is of course a question of sustainability. 

Two important challenges of our era are density and urbanisation, but we also have historic opportunities for new socio-economic constellations and environmental solutions. It is a fantastic time of radical change with its natural need for innovation and creative thinking. We have to get the balance right to move towards a more sustainable and enjoyable future for all. This is a call for action to all industries that we depend upon. It also means a holistic approach: from production to recycling.

Carl Lindwall, Swedish Corporate Communications Manager, explains: “Naturally, it can become tiresome to hear the word ‘sustainability’ from every CEO these days, but it is actually in the frontline of everything we do – it’s the core of our very existence. It means to take responsibility for ensuring sustainability is maintained, from the supply chain, through the user phase to recycling. As an example, we have initiated a new collaboration with Swedish Northvolt for the production of sustainable battery cells. The BMW Group is today more than a car manufacturer, it is also a leading tech company. Through innovative technology solutions and collaborations, we help our customers to cleaner mobility and car ownership. by enabling electrified car-sharing services and geofencing technology, we help drivers in urban environments to naturally drive fully electric.” 

As part of this process, the BMW Group has set clear targets for CO₂ reduction by 2030. For the first time, these are applied throughout the life cycle: from the supply chain, through production to the user phase. The goal is to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions by at least one third per vehicle across the spectrum. With a fleet consisting of approximately 2.5 million vehicles (the number of vehicles produced by the BMW Group in 2019), this would mean a reduction of more than 40 million tonnes of CO₂ over the life cycle to 2030.
Today, China is the world’s largest car market. Something that also becomes clear when studying emission statistics. To further take part in a positive development in China, MINI will soon change its status as an import brand to being produced by a local car supplier. In doing so, they will be able to produce electric models in China via a new platform developed from the ground up for pure electric mobility. This investment will make it possible to meet the growing demand for emissions-free driving both in China and in other markets elsewhere in the world.

Whether produced in China or Europe, MINI’s electric core family will include a three-door model, a new crossover model in the small-car segment, and a crossover model in the compact segment. The next-generation MINI Countryman will also be available with both internal combustion engines and rechargeable powertrains. Future cars, regardless of concept and size, will continue to be characterised by maximum interior space, entertaining driving characteristics and individual solutions for customers.

“It is our responsibility to the brand and our customers to preserve the unique MINI character, with a minimal footprint,” says Bernd Körber, CEO of MINI.

MINI has always had a unique record of overcoming challenges with clever design approaches since its beginning. Crises have always been a great engine for innovation throughout the history of mankind and it was one such crisis that sparked the creation of the very first MINI – the Suez Crisis in 1956 led to severe cutbacks in the supply of oil, so the British Motor Corporation assigned automotive engineer and constructor Alec Issigonis to design a compact, fuel-efficient car with space for four adults. To achieve this, he increased the track width as far as he could and mounted the engine transversely, ensuring, amongst other things, maximum space and fantastic handling. The first MINI was launched in 1959 and soon became a hit and entering the pantheon of British popular culture.
Today, the age-old design philosophy of ‘creative use of space’ is being transformed into new innovative solutions to shape a better world for us to live in.

Team Credits:
Words by Tor Bergman
Special thanks to MINI

Photography by Mélanie Rey
Fashion design, Styling & grooming by Louise Poet
Model Huang Bai Yang (at Marilyn Agency)

Fashion Credits:

#All clothes by Louise Poet, Shoes Rombaut

A gigantic island of plastic rubbish is floating around in the North Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as it’s called, is the largest of all the garbage patches we know of. It consists of 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic – as in 1,800,000,000,000. Or 250 pieces per living person. We’re talking 80,000 metric tonnes of plastic debris. Which equals the mass of 500 jumbo jets. The area of this garbage patch is 1.6 million square metres. In other words, three times the size of France. Crazy numbers. To say the least. And not only does the plastic poison and damage the diverse life in the ocean, that poison might reach us humans, too, through the seafood that we eat. And the fact that it’s us greedy, stupid, shortsighted humans that are responsible for creating this garbage patch in the first place doesn’t make it better.

Now, you might think I’m about to round this rant off with a metaphorical slap in your face with a bitter aftertaste of environmental shaming. You know, just to give you even more guilt than you probably already have. And then finish things off with a “spontaneous” selfie of me standing next to a recycling station. About to recycle takeout bags. From the new hip vegan joint around the corner. With the “seasonal” menu and all.But I won’t. I don’t believe in such strategies. I don’t think we can solve global challenges through instilling guilt in others. Because the result, with us being the talking monkeys running around on a rock in space that we are, is usually desperate attempts to expiate our guilt instead of finding actual solutions. Because that’s easier. And gives us instant, short-term gratification.

And the very real and dangerous problem of global warming is no exception. I don’t think future historians will look back at this era and say, “Thanks to all the shaming in social media, global warming was finally tackled and we all lived happily ever after!” We can’t solve a challenge like this with an army of climate anxiety disorder patients (it exists, Google it). Anxiety makes us only see the problem and remain completely oblivious to the potential solutions. Also, we just strengthen the contempt of global-warming deniers. More anxiety and global-warming deniers is the last thing we need in this battle.

I believe in a strategy where we highlight the people who have dedicated their lives and careers to exploring end deploying actual solutions that can help solve climate change. A strategy through which we inspire each other with positive examples of superheroes and their potential solutions. Instead of virtue-signalling acts that only serve to dampen our own anxiety. With a strategy like this, we can create an army of hopeful and motivated people instead of spreading fear and anxiety.

With a strategy like this, we can empower each other by referring to the superheroes instead of competing with each other on the ladder of virtue. With a strategy like this, we can spread heroism instead of anxiety. Which in turn will lead to the spawning of even more superheroes. Who in time will have a serious shot at actually solving this grand challenge.

One of these superheroes is Boyan Slat. In 2013, at the age of 18, he started The Ocean Cleanup project. The mission was to find a solution that cleans up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Philanthropists, entrepreneurs and various organisations have since funded the project with more than $31m. And now it’s really gaining momentum. It’s estimated that the solution that has been designed by a crew of ingenious engineers will have cleaned up 50% of the garbage patch in only five years. Five years! And by 2040, it’s estimated that up to 90% of the entire garbage patch will have been cleaned away. Crazy numbers. To say the least.

The solution consists of gigantic floating containment booms, with a net “skirt” underneath the water’s surface. The structure travels faster than the rubbish, but slower than the fishes, in order to avoid damaging them. The first version has been dubbed System 001 and was launched last September. Everything went according to plan. It seems like the thing works. Which is amazing. To say the least. Slat and his team are great examples of the superheroes among us. And there are of course many more. Let us be inspired and motivated by them a bit more often.

Team Credits:

Words by Ashkan Fardost

Picture Credits:

#1 Computer rendering of tow-out of the system; photograph by The Ocean Cleanup
#2 Northwestern hawaiian islands; photograph by Matthew Chauvin
#3 Boyan Slat, 2016; photograph by The Ocean Cleanup
#4 Bite marks on a plastic bottle in the ocean; photograph by Kyler Badten
#5 System 001 deployed in the Great Pacific ocean patch, October 2018; photograph by The Ocean Cleanup
#6 Plastic samples collected during mega expedition, 2015; photograph by The Ocean Cleanup
#7 Visual survey data logging by Aerial Expedition crew; photograph by The Ocean Cleanup
#8 Ocean Force One; photograph by The Ocean Cleanup

I am on my way to meet with Sofia Hedman, one of the curators behind the current show at Liljevalchs; Utopian bodies, fashion looks forward. It brings a fresh breath into the traditional art institution. She and her colleague & partner Serge Martynov invite the viewer to experience what is said to be this autumn´s most colorful adventure. When I arrive she is easy to spot in a prismatic dress with a sparkling mood. Finally there, over a cup of coffee, the conversations flows easily.

Before I came here, I read on your website that you are a fashion curator. I must admit I have never heard that term been used before. Could you explain to me what that means?

Well, I think being a fashion curator is similar to being an art curator. The work is the same, we are just specified in different fields. I have studied the history of fashion rather than the history of art. Coming from both a theoretical and practical background, curating became the obvious way to tie everything together. By working with exhibitions I get to use both my practical skills and my theoretical knowledge to create shows, as well as the opportunity to work with a diversity of creative people, both artists and designers.

A tendency lately is that fashion slowly becomes more visible at the art scene and art institutions. Do you have any thoughts on that subject?

I think it is partly because everyone has a relationship to their body and the consumption surrounding us, which is also why we choose the title for the show; Utopian bodies and not utopian fashion. People like to go to fashion exhibitions. It is a trend many places in the world right now and the big institutions make a lot of money on it. Take the Alexander McQueen exhibition, it was groundbreaking in the amount of people that visited the show.

Do you think that fashion changes when it is shown in the context of a art institution? Does it become more like art, or closer to art and maybe less commercial?

Lately a new academic discipline has appeared around fashion which also brings a new aspect to it. Though the more traditional dress exhibitions have been going on since the early 19th century, studying fashion from a academic point of view is fairly new. In some ways the history of fashion can be compared to the history of film. When film came into academia, it took time before it was recognized or seen as an art form. I think fashion now is where film was a few decades ago. We have recently started to look at it from a different perspective, and with time it will become broader. When we were planning the exhibition we talked to several history experts about using utopia as a concept, and they all had different associations to the word. One person would say, it’s the worst concept ever because one’s utopia in anothers dystopia. But for me I don`t have that relationship to the word. There have been different trends within utopian in the 20th century, and a lot of critical thinking around it, because there was so much going wrong with these utopias in Soviet and Germany. But then again there is also so much potential to it.

Even though this is a new form of showing fashion, it’s done with great confidence, and is one of the biggest productions Liljevalchs has ever made. What inspired you to do this exhibition?

When we first started working on the project the ambition was to show the importance of fashion. But we also aimed to show fashion for a wider audience, and try to somehow capture the width of fashion in a show that represented both swedish and international designers. Using utopia as an entrance opened the possibility to show where we are now, but also where we can go in the future. By presenting different worlds and different characteristics of fashion, the rooms become quite separate from each other, which gives the visitor the freedom to look for their own utopia, rather than us presenting what we think the future will look like. Both Serge and I are very inspired by the modernist movement and the freedom of rethinking things, and the possibilities and hope that comes with that.

The show holds great variation of dresses and designers. However one thing that seems to appear with a strong presence in every room is creativity. A creativity that inspires change and is crucial for development, which also makes the show relevant to the art scene. Would it be wrong to ask if that is the essence of the show?

Actually that has been our hope. The exhibition for us is about the power of creativity, and all the amazing ideas that are out there, both visually and conceptually. We wanted to put all these ideas under one roof. Instead of focusing on the history of the term utopia, we choose to focus on the possibilities of change that lies in the term. People like fashion for different reasons. Some like it for the trends, some like it for the celebrities. We love it because it surprises us in different ways and somehow makes the world a bit bigger,

If I ask you to show me your absolute favorite work / dress, which one is it? And why?

That is extremely hard, but I think right now I would have to say Hussein Chalayan´s Table dress
because it is so relevant. This dress is about immigration and getting confronted with being a refugee. When we decided to include it in the exhibition, we weren’t in the middle of the crises that we are in now, but now it seems more important every day. I love when fashion is political, and reflects the society or the situation that we live in. It is amazing these days how young designers from New York get picked up by the big magazines like Vogue, which rarely before had showed any interest in political aspect of fashion. There is this new generation of designers out there that already have done so much for both gender and identity, that in the future I am sure men will walk around in skirts.

One of the eleven rooms in the exhibition presents fashion and technology. I find this maybe to be the most fascinating room, partly because I had no idea how advanced this area was. How did you collect the works and information for that room?

There is so much happening in that field right now, and it is incredibly fun – but also incredibly difficult – to do research about. There is a waterproof wall between fashion and technology, and these to worlds very rarely meet. However, when they do, it is so interesting and important because the hopes for the future are so present there.

Credits:

Words and interview by Iselin Page & Portraits by Philip Persson

Exhibition images by Mattias Lindbäck

Utopian bodies is installed in all eleven galleries at Liljevalchs. The exhibition consists of over 200 objects, images and videos that are inspired by various utopian ideas within Sustainability, Change, Technology, Craft & form, Craft & colour, Resistance & society, Resistance & beauty, Solidarity, Memory, Gender identity and Love. The show is very solid both conceptually and visually, a precious and rare combination at the contemporary art institutions. The exhibition is on until the 7th of february 2016. Cc is 120 SEK, however every Wednesday entrance is free for all visitors. Utopian bodies, fashion looks forward is curated and designed by Sofia Hedman & Serge Martynov

Liljevalchs is located at; Djurgårdsvägen 60 Stockholm, Sweden.