Fashion…In A Different Way Than It Seams
By Natalie Sifuma
Fashion is among the industries making headlines in climate news. Fast fashion to be precise is the term frequently coming up. This lucrative industry is one that’s constantly producing and encouraging people to keep buying. But, it has a darker side.
Within the lifecycle of most pieces of fabric or garments is a dark story. Usually this begins with information about sweatshops around the world, where labourers have poor working conditions and earn unreasonably low wages; or the stories of discarded clothes ending up in landfills in Africa. Fashion’s impact on the environment can’t be understated. In 2018 the UN reported that fast fashion is responsible for 8-10% of global emissions.
Spurred by these reports and conscious of the impact they want to have on the planet, various crops of textile creators and fashion designers are opting for more sustainable approaches with their designs. While casually scrolling on Instagram, we came across a page for a podcast - Fashion: Not All As It Seams. The podcast is creating space for conversations around the ethical and environmental issues within the fashion and textiles industry, and is hosted by three women experts – among them Koshe Salayi.
Connecting with Koshe Salayi on Sustainable Fashion
Koshe is a Creative: an Artist, Designer and Sustainable Materials Researcher who is deeply passionate about ethical and environmental issues. She has one simple belief and approach: to challenge our conscious minds so we can strengthen our problem solving abilities as humans.
Since she was a teenager, doe-eyed and curious, Koshe has been fascinated by nature – but more specifically how it’s the originator of textiles; its abundance – so much that it’s the reason human bodies can be clothed. It was fascinating when the thought first crossed her mind at 15, and a curiosity etched in her mind in the lead up to her enrolment at university.
Koshe: “I did my textiles degree at the University of Brighton and specialised in woven fabrics and materials. I remember thinking two strings of fibre interlocking in a pattern to create a fabric to cover the human body was some sort of alchemy. And I thought to myself how genius the human mind must be to create armour for the skin from strings of natural and synthetic fibres.”
The swift transition into the fashion world kept her on her toes and sometimes with an ear to the ground. And though this was the kind of vibrancy that excited her, there was a bleak side to things and she needed to redirect her focus.
Koshe: “The world kept nudging me to pay attention to natural disasters and unethical labour affecting developing countries which forced me to pay attention to how and why the fashion and textile industry was accountable for so much damage occurring on planet Earth. And so I started my journey to sustainable materials, biomaterials, Biofabrication Materials. I have designed a minimalistic collection of sustainable natural fabrics for fashion wear called SecondSkins with a concept of making the consumer choose the healthiest and safest armour for the body. The collection plays with natural fibres such as organic cotton versus natural cotton and organic silk versus peace silk and watches their behaviour when draped against the body.”
Evidently, Koshe stays fascinated by this gift from nature. Research has made her curious to explore biodegradable materials such as algae, bacteria and fungi to create sustainable textiles. But it’s her shift from wanting to keep up with global fashion trends, to creating her own meaningful trend that’s taken priority in her work.
Koshe: “As a designer and researcher, my aim is to advocate for a circular economy via sustainable practices that can be the foundation for any upcoming fashion trend. What motivates me and my work on a daily basis is the growing market of the conscious consumer not just in the fashion industry but also food and education. I believe it is through policy change and human behaviour we can make infinite environmentally friendly fashion and lifestyle trends.”
Koshe’s fashion business, SecondSkins, is the avenue she uses to educate. What began as an ideology in the early stages of her work as an independent sustainability textile consultant has grown into a business that’s proactively part of a movement that’s progressively gaining global traction.
Koshe: “I would present SecondSkins as a concept to start up fashion brands during our consultation sessions. But they were more interested in me teaching them how to Brand their already sourced clothing items with the correct sustainability terminology to show their customers that they are committed to a sustainable eco-friendly way of life. Nothing to do with creating from scratch. I then decided to design and create a collection of woven fashion fabrics exploring the concept of SecondSkins keeping it completely private by the way because I wasn’t sure how exactly I wanted to sell or present it to the market.”
Today, SecondSkins has transformed into a materials research studio and lab that sits on Koshe’s expertise and knowledge on fashion’s benefits and effects on health. Though conversations around environmental consciousness in fashion always bring up thoughts and questions around affordability. Can quality, environmental-friendly and affordability coexist?
Koshe: “Affordability is definitely a very important part of my design and thought processes when creating new biofabrication materials. One way I approach this is by comparing a traditional material to an already existing biodesign material on the market. For example, when comparing a biodesign material to cotton fabric on an affordability scale, it is important to consider several factors, such as the cost of production, the availability of raw materials, and the durability of the material. The idea of bio fabrication is to work in collaboration with nature. And right now nature has a crisis. Waste. Let’s focus on food waste. This gives designers a by-product that’s quite cheap to source. Mycelium-based materials and plant-based plastics made of potato, corn and sugarcane are two examples of affordable biodesign materials that are currently available on the market. As the field of biodesign continues to develop and mature, we may see even more affordable and sustainable materials emerge in the future.”
But also in the context of fashion… there’s often a need to reinvent ourselves and changing “our look” usually prompts an out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new approach, which is code for getting rid of clothes…
Koshe: “To practise any environmentally friendly ways to discard our clothes we first need to go back to the beginning – how we choose items we buy. This is where adapting a new culture of consumer behaviour in our markets comes into the discussion. Consumers need to be aware that every material has an end to its life which will affect the health of our planet and its people and animals. So discarding, in its simple, sustainable way, could look like: donations and clothes swaps, recycling textiles, repurposing fabrics (old clothes into other items like bags), or even selling the clothes if they’re still in good condition. My opinion is this… choosing an item of clothing should be a holistic, calming ritual we practise to connect with our bodies. And as consumers we should be more demanding in asking the very wealthy, large corporations to start to seriously think about alternative materials and alternative ways of producing clothing items that are based on a circular design based on a cradle to cradle life-cycle.”
More about Koshe: Koshe has previously worked on virtual museum curation projects such as Kurdish Digital Heritage (2022) and We The Women (2022) – and these experiences have taught her that every curation or design solution must offer all or one of the following goals: health benefits, environmental benefits to protect and respect heritage where necessary, or to create a strong sense of community.
Follow Koshe online: