Join us at Fashion Circle, an event series presented by the Fashion District and The Trampery for fashion businesses to learn and develop their network. We are delighted to host the second in the series, during ReLondon’s Circular Economy Week, to shine a spotlight on some critical issues for sustainable manufacturing.
Flora Davidson, Founder of SupplyCompass, will join us to provide insights into sustainable production practices, and ways in which technology can play a key role in enabling better, more collaborative and more sustainable relationships between brands and their supply chain partners. Diana Kakkar, of MAES London, will then share her expertise as the founder of a luxury manufacturing studio that focuses on ethical manufacturing and creates closer links between designers and manufacturers.
Image courtesy of Gung Ho
Finally, from the designer’s perspective, Esther Knight, Founder of Fanfare, and Sophie Dunster, Founder of Gung Ho, will discuss their experiences of setting up a sustainable fashion label – including the importance of having responsible supply chain activities from day one. They will address the challenges of navigating a competitive environment where sustainability messaging can be confusing, and will consider the fundamental values that should drive any sustainable fashion brand.
Image courtesy of Fanfare Label
FLORA DAVIDSON is the Founder of SupplyCompass, a production platform for fashion brands and manufacturers. Through their two-sided product development and production management platform – SupplyCompass enables brands and their manufacturers to produce better, together. In 2016, Flora moved from London to Mumbai to start SupplyCompass. She lived in India for 2 years to build the business on the ground, spending much of her time on the road researching and visiting 300+ manufacturers and suppliers. SupplyCompass’ mission is to reimagine, rebalance and rebuild global supply chains; they want to change how things work and enable a new way of designing and managing production that works for people and the planet – not just profit!
DIANA KAKKAR is the Founder and Chief Executive of MAES London, a luxury garment manufacturing studio that specialises in designer womenswear. With over a decade’s industry experience she launched the business to make premium manufacturing more accessible to fashion designers. Diana is a fashion designer herself and has over 10 years’ experience in garment making; she understands the time, effort and expenses incurred by designers and has put together a highly skilled team that deliver beautifully made garments in a cost-effective and ethical way. She’s passionate about creating closer links between designers and manufacturers, whilst finding a growing demand for sampling and small-scale production here in the UK. MAES stands for “SEAM” spelled backwards.
ESTHER KNIGHT is the Founder of Fanfare Label, a sustainable women’s clothing brand transforming the way people buy, wear and discard clothing. Esther has previously worked for many high street & designer brands, including Vivienne Westwood. Working her way up to buyer level, Esther saw first-hand the pressure that fast-fashion companies place on their suppliers and contractors and began working on a solution, combining her industry expertise with her desire to promote sustainable fashion with eco-conscious practises. Fanfare Label reduces waste by turning clothing and textile waste into premium product. With circularity, longevity and recycling at its core, Fanfare Label offers customers timeless, seasonless pieces that are made to be cherished.
SOPHIE DUNSTER is the Founder of Gung Ho, a London-based ethical and sustainable fashion brand. Coming from a “zero carbon” family background, sustainability has been part of Sophie’s life from an early age. Starting out, she wanted to become a political artist but after discovering a world of silk screen printing when studying in Brighton, she realised her drawings could become a walking ‘talking point’. This way, it wasn’t a piece of artwork hanging on a wall for a limited amount of people to see, it became someone’s first impression of you – and Sophie believes that fashion shouldn’t just make you look good, but showcase your values too. Gung Ho’s collections exemplify this ethos – each collection highlights a different ecological or social issue and 10% of the profits are donated to a charity that works with the cause. The collections are also ‘seasonless’ and are made fairly and locally from sustainable fabrics.