Scandinavian Designers To Create Clothing From Milk

While here in the US, designers both big and small are starting to warm up to the idea of making fashionable clothing from recycled goods, they may soon be trumped by their counterparts across the ocean.

According the Wall Street  Journal Online:

“Per Aage Sivertsen, winner of this spring’s Oslo Fashion Week designer award (Naløyet) in February and creative mind behind the Norwegian “eco-lux” brand FIN, plans to make part of next year’s spring/summer collection from a gauze-like fabric based 100% on milk proteins. Making fabric from milk frees up land that would otherwise have been used to grow cotton, a crop vilified for its intense water consumption and high pesticide use.”

However, Mr.Silversten isn’t alone in his quest to make the fashion industry a more environmentally safe and socially conscious place. In addition, the three other nominees for Oslo fashion week’s Naløyet award this year— Leila Hafzi, Elton & Jacobsen and iiS — have also heavily incorporated environmentally sustainable and fair trade practices into their textiles. These designers are actually working as part of a larger movement in Scandinavia  as members of NICE-the Nordic Initiative Clean & Ethical, which was created last November to promote Scandinavian countries as leaders in the booming sustainable and ethical fashion industry. While it would be nice to see a similar coalition form in the US and Britain to ensure fair and environmentally responsible practices are upheld, many Scandinavians believe it is simply in their nature to think of others.

Amid this time when the fashion industry in America is pulling out all the stops to ensure its survival, it’s nice to see others in the field  contemplate the sustainability not just of material fabric but that of our society at large:

Stine Hedegaard, Danish Fashion Institute development coordinator:

“One of the first things I learned [in my doctoral project on corporate social responsibility and fashion] was that people don’t always do what they say. It’s not going to come from the consumers. It’s got to come from the designers themselves.”

WSJ:”Is This Style’s Sustainable Frontier?”