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Tuesday, 29 November 2011 01:23 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Sri Lanka’s apparel industry has long been established as a visionary garment maker, through its responsible practices and campaigns like ‘Garments without Guilt’.
A key point stressed at the recently concluded ‘South Asian Apparel Leadership Forum’ that affects the future of this influential industry, is the continuance of its global repute in sustainable apparel making by anticipating and responding to global market’s future needs.
Signifying aligning with the ethical fashion movement that is undoubtedly the future of fashion, Sri Lankan garment industry endorsed emerging ethical fashion labels at Sri Lanka Design Festival’s Apparel fashion show.
Red Cocoon – Sri Lanka’s first ethical fashion label by Mihiri de Silva, making fashionable and wearable clothes from materials salvaged from the industry’s material waste displayed its 2012 collection at the show.
Red Cocoon only sources materials from factories certified under the ‘Garments without Guilt’ scheme that ensures their fabrics are never manufactured using child or forced labour or in factories with discriminatory employment policies.
AOD’s fashion prodigy Lonali Rodrigo also became a part of the Sri Lanka apparel fashion show with her ethical label House of Lonali. Lonali uses apparel waste to create finished products that cause minimum pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and also reduces burning and sending waste to landfill by recycling them as clothing.
With the innovative manufacturing philosophies of these fashion labels, their products will have a very low carbon footprint – a growing demand in the international markets where the consumers show increasing interest in the origins of their purchases.
Sri Lanka Design Festival hopes to promote more futuristic movements and practices in the industry and emerging labels like House of Lonali and Red Cocoon, through its future editions.
SLDF was conceptualised and organised by The Academy of Design and SLDF is endorsed by the Ministry of Economic Development, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, Sri Lanka Apparel, Mount Lavinia Hotel, SriLankan Airlines, Textured Jersey, Coats Lanka, TradeCard, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, Norwegian Embassy, British Council, Sparklink Travels, Bates Strategic Alliance PR, Social M!dea, ADDIKT Design Movement, Images Group, CG Hairdressing, MTV/MBC and Fashion TV.
Pix by Angelo Samarawickrema