Slow Fashion Club creates and educates for sustainability
Written by Maddie Marks. Photo courtesy of SCAD Slow Fashion Club.
Faster doesn’t always mean better, especially when it comes to clothes.
Fast fashion brands such as SHEIN, Fashion Nova and Topshop have boomed in popularity because of their ability to generate runway-inspired clothing at low prices. However, behind the scenes, this type of clothing production exploits underpaid workers, dumps tons of waste into landfills and damages ecosystems. Fortunately, people are fighting back, and SCAD’s Slow Fashion Club is one of the many groups pumping the brakes on fast fashion.
“The club started because students in the fashion department wanted to focus on sustainability,” says Anyssa Merlini, President of the Slow Fashion Club. “It’s something we didn’t really have in the department. We’re here to be a voice for students who are passionate about fashion sustainability.”
Even though some of SCAD’s fashion classes discuss what it means to be eco-friendly while designing, the Slow Fashion Club is one of the first places that fashion sustainability steps into the spotlight. Merlini hopes sustainability will soon become a driving force behind her and her peers’ designs, not just an afterthought.
And she has a lot of ideas about how to get there. Working with five other students on the Slow Fashion Club Executive Board, Merlini plans and hosts workshops, information sessions, and other events to engage the SCAD community. Her goal as President is to teach as many people as possible in the fashion department — and other departments — about the importance of environmentally friendly designs.
Photo courtesy of SCAD Slow Fashion Club.
The club has found a lot of success expanding its reach by hosting quarterly clothing swaps at Eckburg Hall. These fun, casual events give students an opportunity to trade up to ten unwanted clothing items for different ones. Even though there are no speakers or presentations, the swaps bring together a community of students from across majors, which is, in Merlini’s eyes, the whole point.
Even so, Merlini wants to do more to make a difference.
“I’m trying to put the energy back into education and resources,” she says. “The clothing swaps are fun, but we really want to get everyone to be as sustainable as possible.”
Merlini hopes that through the clothing swaps, more people will learn about and attend the club’s other educational events. In the past, the group has held workshops on natural dyeing, informative sessions about sustainability news and lessons on basic sewing skills to lengthen the life of clothing. While they’re not as well-attended as the clothing swaps, these events have drawn more attention to the club.
And that’s what the club is banking on — especially because more attention helps them host bigger, more involved events, such as their Upcycling Competition, which was held on April 15.
“We had a big hoard of non-donatable clothes and fabric scraps that we wanted to put to good use,” Merlini says. “Participants came and picked through some of the items to grab everything they needed, and then they had a week to create a fully-finished garment.”
The week culminated in a fashion show held at SCAD’s Student Center. Over 160 people attended, and the club awarded first, second, and third-place prizes to the most creative and well-tailored garments. The three winners received gift cards to Lite Foot Company, a local, sustainable refillery that partnered with the club to host the event. The first-place winner will also receive the opportunity to create a line of clothing to showcase at Atlanta Sustainable Fashion Week in the fall.
Inspired by such a great turnout and all of the positive feedback, Merlini is excited to come up with new, creative ways to educate about sustainability and put donated clothing to good use.
“That’s the type of thing we want to continue in the future,” Merlini says. “It makes such a big impact and brings so much good attention to the club.”
The club’s online reach is just as crucial to the traction it’s gaining. The team recently brought on a new Social Media Manager and Creative Director, Alex Baracaldo, who majors in Fashion Marketing and Management and Advertising. Alex’s efforts to bring a new creative vision to the club’s marketing have doubled their number of Instagram followers and helped the club reach more students and industry professionals.
Photo courtesy of SCAD Slow Fashion Club.
In the near future, Merlini wants to continue educating the SCAD community by publishing a newsletter and bringing in industry connections to speak on sustainability. She also wants to educate students through firsthand experiences with companies like Goodwill.
“We’ve been offered the opportunity to tour the backside of Goodwill and learn about the ways they collect and donate clothes, as well as some of the outreach programs they have in the community,” Merlini says. “I was able to attend on a field trip and I want to offer that up to the rest of the club.”
Even though the Slow Fashion Club would love to do it all, Merlini says the biggest problem they’ve run into is scheduling issues. Time is limited as a student-run organization and they can only handle so many events per quarter, despite how much they appreciate knowing that people enjoy their events and want more.
Despite that, the Slow Fashion Club makes it a priority to promote sustainability in as many creative ways as possible. And for Merlini, the hard work is worth it.
“When you see people come to the events and they’re smiling and happy to be there, that type of feedback is so amazing. They’re excited to see that we offer this to the community here.”
