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September 5, just on time for the summer returns dictated by the imperfect European schemes, Antidote reopens the doors of the Morning Story. Guest of the meeting Camila Straschnoy, consumer trends researcher, strategist and fashion journalist for InStyle, Revista Apertura, Trend Watching and ELLE Mexico. Camila has years of study abroad: London, New York, Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Miami, where she currently lives. At the studio she approached work experience that allowed her to have a broad vision of the world fashion scene and to refine her expertise in publishing and public relations. Among her customers are Mercedes-Benz and New York Fashion Week, which will see her busy next week.
In addition to her work, Camila is curator, along with the founder Gabriella Smith of The Upcycle Project, in perfect harmony with the vision of Sophie Zembra and her boutique, Antidote, always at the forefront of ecofriendly themes. The mission of UpCycle Project is to sensitize citizens on the waste that the world fashion industry feeds. The first paradigm to be dismantled according to Camila is “the influence that social networks have on so-called vacuum cleaners – as they absorb – as defined by Jeff Goins, author of The Art of Work, to be opposed to the so-called sprinkler subjects – suppliers who share their contents. “One of the most powerful means of psychological marketing, social networks, influence in a blatant way the way people consume, imposing the need to appear with a latest fashion item made accessible to the mass by low-cost brands. The result is a huge production of products of poor quality that constitute the beauty of 24 seasons a year against the 4 traditional seasons, which in fact today are off-season season with anticipations of trends on the time axis that also vary by one year. Quality rather than quantity. That’s the problem that grips America in every sector, starting from what we eat all the way to what we wear. Of all the countries in the world, the United States alone generates on average 25 billion LBS of post-consumer textile waste each year and only an average of 3.8 billion LBS is recovered through donations and recycling and clothing made of polyester which take up to 200 years to break up in a landfill. “Although the structure of the fashion industry has already been damaged due to pollution, second only to oil, if we consider that up to 95% of the fabrics that end up in the landfill could be recycled, the process of change will still be very long”, says Camila.
In this regard, the UpCycle project is born with the aim of creating harmony between producers and consumers, as it promotes the idea that the concept of eco-sustainability and recycling must start from the base of the structure, designers. The project team collaborates with different local institutions: from ethnic retail shops, to organizations that want to make a difference, from fashion brands that donate their wasted materials, to dry-cleaning chains and to the same fashion institutes, among such as the very Italian Istituto Marangoni, sensitive to the theme, encouraging them to create UpCycled projects with materials that would otherwise have to be discarded.
Likewise, retailers must be able to guarantee the communication and accessibility of the recycled product in order to disrupt the fashion system and make sustainable products usable to which the various Fashion Weeks are still little oriented.
Currently the programs proposed by The UpCycle Project are the Fashion Evolve Couture and the Denim Project. In Fashion Evolve Couture established designers have the opportunity to contribute to influence the fashion industry by creating unique pieces of their kind, using forgotten or discarded UpCycling collections. The last collection has been exhibited and auctioned at Art Basel Miami Beach, the major tourist-social attraction of Miami and renowned destination of ‘pilgrimages’ from all over the world.
The Denim Project, instead, involves various students in de-constructing second-hand denim garments and rebuilding them in order to give them a second chance.
In terms of denim deconstruction and not only is the ascent aboard the Antidote crew intertwined by the brand W.Y.L.D.E. Founded by Clarissa Acario in 2013, the brand uses only 100% Made in France upcycling unique pieces and invites consumers to buy and wear clothes in a different way, combining attention to the environment in fashion, breaking down the standard brand images , digital marketing and media presence in favor of “eco-frugal” production with small stocks of limited investments in the marketing sector in favor of a transparent and poetic communication approach.
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