Stamping sustainability on the ramp
This year’s Sri Lanka Design Festival organised by the Academy Of Design (AOD) saw the Sustainable Fashion Runway being 
brought to the forefront once again on October 11. The show featured a series of contemporary fashion collections that were environmentally sustainable and socially conscious-an apt reflection of the festival’s vision. The collections recycled waste material into high end fashion, up-cycled industrial refuse to create couture, the designers working with rural artisans to provide them with improved livelihoods while preserving Sri Lanka’s craft heritage.
Another highlight was an address by Development Director of the Copenhagen Fashion Institute and a visionary instigator of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Jonas Eder-Hansen. Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Times, Jonas was passionate about his work in the field of sustainable design and manufacturing-a timely topic considering the festival’s premise of ethical fashion.
Pix by Indika Handuwala
Jonas certainly knows what he’s talking about. He’s a force behind the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, an event that emerged as a crafty fringe event of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference held in 2009. “We thought why not make a political statement along with the event,” he remembers. “So we instigated the first ever
Jonas Eder-Hansen
Copenhagen Fashion Summit in conjunction with the Cop 15.” At the event they launched a Code of Conduct for the industry, which included clauses about child labour and working hours among others. It marked a turning point for Denmark’s fashion industry, which now brands itself as a forerunner in sustainable fashion.
In Sri Lanka he hopes to inspire the same standard of thinking. Jonas is quietly impressed with the country’s commitment to sustainable design. “It’s great to see such a vibrant industry, with strong support from the government,” he enthuses, pointing out that his government’s participation is an all important aspect in sustainable design and manufacture. “We need governments to introduce incentives for designers and manufacturers to go into sustainable production.” This is why at the time of the interview he was looking forward to meeting with state representatives to establish “something more formal” in terms of garment manufacture and trade between Denmark and Sri Lanka.
He also hopes to have further meetings with Sri Lankan manufacturers to assess their capabilities to work with Danish brands. Jonas calls this ‘matchmaking’, and if it looks good he’ll take it one step further through what he laughingly refers to as speed dating. This ‘speed dating’ is the catchphrase he uses to refer to meetings they arrange back in Copenhagen for manufacturers and brands. We’re told that sometimes ten minutes is all you need to judge your compatibility with another. This is the technique they frequently use to arrange multiple meetings, sometimes between 10 manufacturers and 50 brands in one day. Manufacturers are flown in from around the world and their expertise is matched with the organisers’ knowledge of the brands. “It’s tough work,” he says. “But produces great results in terms of deciding the right price and right quality.”
Travelling the world in search of the ‘perfect date’- or in fashion terms, the ideal sustainable manufacturer, he also considers it a personal mission of sorts to undo the rather sticky hippie image sustainable design has in international fashion circles. In Sri Lanka, of course, things are all too different- as this year’s SLDF runway filled to the brim with sleek, beautifully cut ethical garments has all too well proven.
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