New Book Alastair Fuad-Luke

Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World

This book by Alastair Fuad-Luke, sustainable design guru and author of the Eco Design Handbook.

Design Activism explores the power of design  by analysing activist methods, practice and process. By reviewing global and local design solutions with reference to transformative design activism this book touches upon many contemporary debates and will be a valuable resource to students, researchers and designers.

Fashion Hactivism

I have been following the work of Otto von Busch, designer, theorist and activist. Hew has just completed his PhD entitled Fashion-able, Hactivism and Engaged Fashion Design at the University of Gothenburg.

Through self passage he collaborated with other designers to challenge traditional fashion design through a series of workshops to produce a series of open source toolkits of a “how to nature” – inspiring people to hack traditional fashion methods.

His work is provocative and inspires people to actively engage in the fashion cycle to take ownership. By making things our own – we can create new ways to produce, consumer and adorn fashion. I find his work empowering and his approach challenges us to re-evaluate fashion and find ways to relate to our clothing at a time when we are becoming disassociated and things convey less value.

I love his newly coined terms of Craftivism (craft meets political activism), Shopdropping (the art of reverse shoplifting), or Swap-o-Rama-Rama workshops.

His thesis and toolkits are available to download via http://www.selfpassage.org/

Guerrilla Fashion Show

Guerrilla marketing presents alternative ways to introduce ideas and products in public spaces. The concept encourages marketeers to use creative  methods to generate as much publicity as possible, attracting attention to a cause. The term  was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson (1984) in his book titled Guerrilla Marketing which been cited in many books, articles and campaigns since.

What is Guerrilla Fashion?

In the TV show Gossip Girl, the character Jenny (an aspiring fashion designer) hijacks a public event to present her work in a “Guerrilla Fashion Show” with the goal to attract the attention of NYC’s fortune 500’s. I have posted a video from YouTube this is purely fictional but conveys the concept!

At London Fashion week 2009 an alternative fashion show took place in the streets outside the London Fashion Week Venue, organised by Conscious Designers Collective – an Eco collective founded by ethical design labels Tammam, Miksa, Sew Last Season and Ria Roberts. The CDC are a non-profit organisation with the goal to spread the message about fair trade, environmental practices and sustainability.