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“Sustainable fashion” may sound like an oxymoron, given how at odds current industry trends seem to be with the overall global movement toward an environmentally responsible future.
But a former electrical engineer in Atlanta is betting that with a lot of education and cross-border collaboration, glamour and glitter don’t have to mean litter.
Atlanta’s Tanjuria Willis from Sept. 24-28 will preside over the latest edition of Atlanta Sustainable Fashion Week, a series of fashion shows, workshops, design showcases and seminars exploring how innovators are envisioning a brighter future for an industry often blamed for its role in filling landfills and driving greenhouse gas emissions.
The initiative has a decidedly international flair, given that much of the leading thinking on the issue has come from outside the United States, Ms. Willis told Global Atlanta.
Americans, she said, should “learn from the people that are willing to teach you how to do it,” she said of Europeans and others that believes are driving environmental policy. “We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re just trying to make it feasible for everyone to have a car.”
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re just trying to make it feasible for everyone to have a car.”
Tanjuria Willis
Ms. Willis, who has worked with the Consulate General of Canada and the French-American chamber in the past, is working with experts from Germany and France to present “Fashion Utopia,” a book and photography exhibition punctuated by conversations on fashion as a tool for catalyzing social change across Atlanta, Berlin and Paris.
In addition to that event with the Goethe-Zentrum and Alliance Francaise, she is also in the process of organizing a trade mission for companies to the Netherlands, which is sponsoring the organization’s “Met Gala style” opening reception Sept. 24.
“It was always my vision to make this global,” Ms. Willis said. “This issue is a global issue. It’s not a local issue. It can’t be. It has to be addressed from a global standpoint, and we only get there if we work together.”
Also the founder of eKlozet, a luxury consignment boutique aiming to keep used clothing in circulation for longer, Ms. Willis walked a winding path to the world of fashion.
An electrical engineer by training, the Chicago native worked in nuclear power plants, which were often situated in underserved communities. An ethos of climate and energy justice emerged for the North Carolina A&T graduate, but it was only later that this would dovetail with her love for clothing.
As she was consulting in the electricity sector, she got a side job at a Buckhead shoe store, gaining some insight into the way the fashion business worked. Then an illness that befell her daughter at six months old (she’s fine now) got Ms. Willis thinking about how the choice of everyday textile materials can affect health.
What she found in her research was shocking: Plastics that when washed or heated released more microplastics into drinking water. Cancer diagnoses starting earlier in otherwise healthy people. Processing chemicals used for production and transport. The emergence of fast fashion, with disposable clothes sourced and delivered from across the world.
“Then I got angry,” Ms. Willis said. “I think I got angry, because I felt like the one thing that, to me, can be the biggest disruptor is that thing that nobody knows (about), but it’s happening, and we wear clothes every day,” she said. “Clothing is made to be so superficial that we don’t think about the effects that it has on the largest organ on our body, which is our skin.”
Founded in 2014, eKlozet became a way to educate people on the value of higher-end materials and to show that incremental change can make a difference without sacrificing style and comfort for the “burlap bag” that many assumed eco-friendly products would entail. Taking part in the City of Atlanta’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative and Women’s Export University programs, she gained an even more global perspective.
As the business assembled a like-minded community, Ms. Willis decided to put on an event, adopting the fashion-week format that has been made popular in other cities, but tweaking it to help consumers discover responsible brands and spark discussion about industry practices.
“I wanted it to mimic kind of a New York Fashion kind of thing, but from an eco-friendly standpoint,” she said.
That was 2021. Four years later and beyond the pandemic, this year’s programming touches are a shoe deconstruction session, a screening of the Patagonia film “Shitthropocene,” and exhibit of work from Nancy Judd, an artist who sculpts couture pieces from upcycled materials under the “Recycle Runway” moniker.
Ms. Willis first encountered Ms. Judd’s work at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where it was being exhibited under the airport’s extensive art program. Now, the two are working together to create a permanent home for Ms. Judd’s masterpieces at what Ms. Willis hopes will be a Conscious Couture Museum in Atlanta.
Atlanta Sustainable Fashion Week also boasts a repair cafe, vintage store runway shows and a marketplace of responsible brands, which Ms. Willis said has attracted designers from Canada, El Salvador and beyond.
“My goal is to really create an international feel and for ethical designers to have a home.”
Learn more at https://www.sustainablefw.com.
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