What if reducing our waste and our environmental footprint went through the relocation of natural textile fibers and an ethical and transparent textile industry?
Design for resilience Studio is a textile research workshop based in Braine-L’Alleud (Brabant Wallon, Belgique), for a zero waste, zero plastic, and an healthy lifestyle, founded by Vanessa Colignon.
We want to allow everyone to reduce their environmental and social footprint, by reducing our waste and the spread of micro-plastics in nature through the creation of clothing and accessories in natural, local and solid fibers, produced in circuit- short and with respect for the living.
« In a single wash cycle, purely synthetic textiles lose up to 730,000 microfibers, finds a study from Plymouth University in Great Britain. »
Source: Greenpeace – Microplastics: cosmetic particles and textile fibers
The relocation of production, brought about by a strengthening of European environmental standards in the 90s and the attractiveness of low-cost labour; not benefiting from any social protection in countries where lax environmental regulations do not allow to protect the nature, health, land and drinking water of the inhabitants of the producing countries has allowed the advent of fast fashion such as we know it today, to the detriment of living beings and the planet.
Today, we can no longer tolerate this race for productivity and the resulting toxicity of production. This is why we are focusing our forces in particular on the relocation of the production of natural, resistant and ecological textile materials in Belgium and on innovation in the craftsmanship of naturally ecological materials by working in particular with one of the last hosiery factories from Belgium.
Producing in a short circuit allows us to guarantee respect for workers and living things, while limiting our dependence on fossil fuels.
Concretely, we carry out textile research to create natural materials and products composed solely of plant and/or animal fibres that have the least possible impact on our environment and on workers.
To do this, we source natural materials as locally as possible from ethical production that respects the living world and animal welfare. In parallel to the development of our products, we are carrying out research and experiments in order to eventually relocate the entire production of these materials.
To achieve this, we have selected naturally ecological materials, linen, hemp and wool. Of a higher quality than conventional materials, their production and processing are the least energy-intensive in the textile industry.
We are currently carrying out research into the relocation of the processing of wool from Mergelland sheep breeds, which are the most robust and can remain outdoors all year round without the need for medical treatment, which can be a major source of soil and water pollution.
Since the summer of 2020, we have received support from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation to carry out this project and will tell you more soon.
Through our textile research studio, Design for resilience, we wish to participate in the transmission and re-learning of know-how, the creation of employment and the protection of the environment through sustainable, compostable or recyclable creations at the end of their life.
In addition to the work of reflection and collaboration that this work requires upstream, achieving our prototypes requires above all a capacity for flexibility that requires both a desire to cohabit with the living and to live with the rhythm of the seasons.
In the long term, we hope to be able to participate in the relocation of an ethical and natural textile industry, through the re-establishment of local spinning mills, but also the liberation of hemp seeds which affect both our food sovereignty and our emancipation.
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