The Rediscovery Centre, the National Centre for the Circular Economy, hosted Ireland’s first Circular Fashion Conference on the 26th of April 2019. This innovative conference brought together designers, suppliers, retailers and makers to discuss how Ireland can move towards fashion circularity.
At this conference attendees heard from Irish and international speakers that inspired changes to the Irish fashion industry. It looked at how the fashion industry can design out waste, pollution and keep materials in use rather then be sent to landfill.
What is Circular Fashion?
Ireland’s First Circular Fashion Conference
Safia Minney MBE
Founder People Tree
Safia is an award-winning social entrepreneur and internationally recognised for the company she founded, People Tree, the pioneer of sustainable fashion and food. She led the business as Global CEO for 20+ years in Japan and the UK.
Safia is recognised by the World Economic Forum as an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur and is a leading influencer in Sustainability, Anti-Modern Slavery and Fair Trade. She set up her consulting business to promote leadership for sustainable business and responsible supply chains. Safia also works closely with CEOs as an Executive Coach strengthening leaders and teams to deliver on sustainability and doing the right thing.
The True Cost Movie featured Safia’s work and she has made many documentaries and short films. Safia is author of 9 books, including, ‘Slave to Fashion’ campaigning to eradicate modern day slavery and ‘By Hand’; ‘Naked Fashion – The Sustainable Revolution’; and ‘Slow Fashion – Aesthetics meets Ethics
Dr Dorothy Maxwell
Sustainability Director
Brown Thomas and Arnotts, Selfridges Group, Ireland
Dr Dorothy Maxwell is 20 years working in sustainability with businesses and government in Ireland, EU, Asia Pacific and the USA. She has an extensive track record in sustainable fashion having run the first Sustainable Clothing Roadmap (SCAP) for the UK government, been Sustainability Director at House of Fraser, Walmart, Nike and now Brown Thomas Arnotts. In 2017 she became The Prince of Wales’s Responsible Business Ambassador for London.
An alumnus of UCD and Imperial College London, she has a PhD & MSc in Environmental Science. She lectures on sustainable business at Imperial College London and authors books, blogs and articles. Books published include Valuing Natural Capital: Future Proofing Business & Finance (Greenleaf Publications, 2015) and “Business and Sustainability – A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, due July 2019).
Carrie Ann Moran
Rediscover Fashion
Carrie Ann Moran is Head of Rediscover Fashion at the Rediscovery Centre, Ireland’s National Centre for the Circular Economy. She is a national leader in circular fashion and combines high-end fashion design with environmental mindfulness. Carrie Ann has expertise in lecturing, fashion design, styling, social enterprise, environmental management, sustainability and law. She is committed to bringing awareness of the environmental impacts and ethics within the fashion industry and works towards circularity and transparency.
Vikki Brennan
CEO
Proudly Made in Africa
Vikki has a background in commercial procurement and ethical international trading. Graduating from Trinity College Dublin with a Masters’ degree in International Relations, Vikki’s area of interest has always been in economic development and human rights. Her current role allows her to pursue these interests and contribute to the economic empowerment of workers and entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to her role at Proudly Made in Africa, Vikki was Head of Brand Outreach at the Bangladesh Accord Foundation in Amsterdam. She has previously held roles at high street retailer Primark, moving through the ranks from menswear fashion buyer to Senior Ethical Trading Executive in London.
Joanne Rourke
Resource Efficiency Officer
Eastern-Midlands Waste Regional Office
Joanne supports businesses and public sector organisations in the transition to a circular economy. Joanne has many years’ experience working in the environmental sector, particularly in waste management. She holds a PhD in Environmental Communication and a Hons. BSc in Environmental Science.
Jonna Haeggblom
circular.fashion
Head of Marketing and Communication
Jonna Haeggblom is Head of Marketing and Communication at circular.fashion – a sustainable change agency creating product and system innovation for a circular economy in fashion and textiles. circular.fashion was founded on the mission to make circular design easy and accessible for brands and designers and to increase the share of garments being recycled today. The circular.fashion system is a digital platform for circular design and closed loop recycling. With a sleek and smart tracking solution the platform enables a transparent flow of information between material suppliers, brands, customers and recyclers to collaboratively realise a circular economy for fashion and textiles.
Jonna holds a B.Sc in Business and Economics and a M.A in Sustainable Fashion. She has experience working in the fashion industry for brands with a strong focus on sustainability such as Kerber and Filippa K. Since 2017 she is working for circular.fashion where she spearheads the development of the platform and its circular design tools, as well as conducting training and workshops with brands. Her master dissertation was conducted in collaboration with Mistra Future Fashion, a leading research program on circular economy and systemic change in the fashion industry. The main focus of the research is emotionally durable design and how we, by acknowledging the psychological lifespan of a garment as being a key element in the sustainability puzzle, have the potential to develop design strategies, creative communication and shape new innovative business models that ultimately redefine what fashion is and can become.
circular.fashion was recently awarded the ‘Global Change Award’ by H&M foundation. Read
more: https://globalchangeaward.com/news/e1-million-grant-to-sustainable-fashion-innovations/
Courtney Smith
Fashion Stylist
Courtney is one of the most exciting and ambitious fashion talents around today, generating an international buzz around her ongoing projects. Working as a stylist, creative director & fashion contributor to a variety of TV shows over the last ten years she has built a reputation for her talent, charisma and drive across all fields.
Her client list includes brands such as Louis Vuitton, Brown Thomas, Primark, H&M & Parfois, while her editorial shoots have been featured in Irish Tatler, Elle Croatia, Hunger, Sunday Times STYLE and Tatler Man
Aisling Byrne
The Nu Wardrobe
Aisling is the founder of The Nu Wardrobe clothes-sharing community and champion of the circular economy. While studying Music at Trinity College, Dublin she spent time in India which was the catalyst to start The Nu Wardrobe as a way to provide an accessible and affordable alternative to fast-fashion. She is a firm believer that sustainable solutions must be accessible to all.
After graduation, she worked as a strategic media planner and was also on the founding team of the One for Ireland annual charity campaign. She has guest lectured on the topics of Sustainable Fashion, and Entrepreneurship at Trinity College Dublin and the National College of Art and Design, and has represented Ireland and The Nu Wardrobe in both national and international entrepreneurship competitions.
She is currently based in London working full-time on The Nu Wardrobe and in 2018 was listed as one of Ireland’s 30 under 30, 2018 by the Irish Independent.
This conference is kindly sponsored by EMWR
