The Salvation Army call for the fashion industry to have a Sustainable Conversation
Last year, the trading arm of the charity, Salvation Army Trading Company’s (SATCoL) Redesigning Fashion collaboration with students from Winchester School of Arts featured a collection of used textiles that students repurposed to create new high fashion garments.
This season sees the campaign up the style stakes by calling for the collaboration to be extended to a much-needed Sustainable Conversation. The new Sustainable Conversation fashion campaign forms part of a wider SATCoL initiative to engage the fashion industry in discussions around second-hand fashion and ways that we can give used textiles a new lease of life.
A group of innovative Year 2 Fashion students from Winchester School of Arts were given items donated to some of SATCoL’s 8,000 clothing banks across the UK and the opportunity to be creative and submit their upcycled garments as part of their final project.
To celebrate the success of the range, high-end fashion photographer Catherine Harbour alongside a star-studded glam team including fashion stylist Abby McHale and award-winning makeup artist Lan Nguyen-Grealis, edited the must have looks and created a series of trend-led images. The photo-shoot features a series of striking outfits pinned against The Salvation Army colours in the background. The campaign is another step towards supporting the fashion industry to be part of the change they would like to see both socially and environmentally and will reveal more collaborations with industry leaders over the coming weeks.
As the largest charity owned textiles collector in the UK, SATCoL divert over 250 million items to good uses and over the past ten years alone have raised over £80 million for The Salvation Army and our corporate partners’ charities from the resale of the items received. The Salvation Army provide practical help for people in need, such as specialist support for survivors and potential victims of modern slavery, shelter for those experiencing homelessness and so much more.
Through various reuse and recycling schemes with fashion retailers, SATCoL lessen the impact on overflowing landfill sites by extending the useful life of products and minimising waste.