Dressing in Labels: modemuseum Hasselt

When asked to sum up famous fashion designers, Paul Smith might not be the first name to pop into your mind. Although he is one of the few people in fashion who built up their company from A to Z. Even up until today Paul Smith is boss of his own company and never lent money to expand his company.

Since this week his exhibition "Hello, my name is Paul Smith" can be visited at the Modemuseum in Hasselt and therefor he gave an inspirational talk to a lucky crowd filled with creative people. In about one hour Paul Smith tried to explain how he got so successful.

I took away two big pointers from this talk. The first being that you always need balance in everything that you do. For example: Paul Smith started a very small fashion shop on weekends. During the week he worked paying jobs because the things you like don't always are that well paid and at the end of the month the bills have to be paid. This frame of mind made it possible for Paul Smith to grow his fashion shop slowly but gradually into a fashion imperium.

The second thing that Paul Smith stressed is that inspiration can be found everywhere. Buildings, paintings, landscapes,... can all serve as inspiration to creative people. Paul Smith strikes me as a very interesting, clever and funny man. He's a good talker and very nice towards the crowd.

NL: Wanneer er gevraagd word om een aantal beroemde modeontwerpers op te noemen, zal Paul Smith waarschijnlijk niet de eerste naam zijn die in je gedachten op komt. Al moet er wel gezegd worden dat hij één van de weinige mensen in de mode business is, die hun bedrijf van A tot Z zelf hebben opgebouwd. Zelfs in deze tijden is Paul Smith nog steeds zelf eigenaar van zijn bedrijf en heeft hij nooit geld moeten lenen om zijn bedrijf uit te bouwen.

Sinds deze week loopt de exhibitie "Hello, my name is Paul Smith" in het Modemuseum in Hasselt en daarom kwam de designer dan ook een inspirerende babbel geven voor een zaal gevuld met creatieve mensen. In ongeveer een uur probeerde Paul Smith uit te leggen waarom hij zo succesvol is geworden.

Ik nam twee tips uit deze voorstelling mee naar huis. De eerste is dat je altijd een balans moet zien te vinden in alles wat je doet. Bijvoorbeeld: Paul Smith begon een heel klein klerenwinkeltje tijdens zijn weekends. Tijdens de week deed hij allerlei betalende jobs omdat de dingen die je graag doet niet altijd zo goed betaald worden en op het einde van de maand moeten natuurlijk de rekeningen wel betaald kunnen worden. Deze gedachtegang maakte het mogelijk dat Paul Smith zijn kleine klerenwinkeltje langzaam maar zeker kon uitbouwen tot een mode imperium.

De tweede tip die Paul Smith benadrukte was dat inspiratie overal gevonden kan worden. Gebouwen, schilderijen, landschappen,... kunnen allemaal dienen als inspiratie voor creatieve mensen. Paul Smith kwam op mij over als een erg interessante, slimme en grappige man. Hij is een goede prater en was erg vriendelijk naar het publiek toe.

introduction

Paul Smith talked about being unique to have a successful business.

This red suit is an example of the balance in Paul Smith's business. The red suit symbolizes the creative part that you love to do but won't be sold that much. 99% of his clients his interested in a standard, qualitative suit.

The last part of the talk was about the different Paul Smith stores in the world and how they each are unique in design and decoration.

Last night I went to my first fashion event of the year at the incredibly beautiful modemuseum Hasselt. The evening was about ecological fashion. I was very curious to learn about this theme. When I think about conscious fashion designers, the first name that used to pop up in my mind was Stella McCartney because she refuses to use animal skin. But eco fashion is about so much more I learned last night.

The organisition from 100% schoon invited some guest speakers who work in various branches of the fashion industry. All the guest speakers are from Belgium or The Netherlands so my international readers won't know them. Nonetheless I think it's very interesting to read their view on eco fashion and how we all can change our mindset.

Before I went into this event, I thought the speakers would mainly talk about the fabrics and how they affect our environment but I was totally wrong. Each aspect in which you can have ecological fashion was spoken about.

The evening opened up with a bang, showing pictures from the devastating fire in a clothing company in Bangladesh last year and the rabbits which are used for their angora wool. I, and I think most other people as well, felt immediate responsibility for these injustices. As a fashion blogger, I life in a world of fast fashion in which trends come quick and go out of style even quicker. We all love the big chain stores who offer the latest trends for a very low price without ever thinking who/what has to suffer for this.

The first speaker, Jaklien Broekx, spoke mostly about which impact fast fashion has on human beings. Most of our clothes are made in India, Bangladesh, China and Cambodja. The wages are extremely low there, the average employee earns € 40 (!) per month. For these € 40 they have to work 16 hours per day, 6 days a week. To have a manageable lifestyle, the wage would have to be a least twice as much. People, who dare to speak their mind, have even been killed by the government,...
Wages are not the only problem. Another huge point of concern are the conditions in which these people have to work. Factories which are on the verge of collapsing, .. are not an exception.
The problem of the wages could easily be solved by raising the prices of the clothes. I hear all of you thinking: "Life is already expensive enough". But you would barely feel the price rase. Per t-shirt of € 29,00 a Bengalese employee earns € 0,18, which is only 0,5% of the total price. A duplication of the wages would only cost us a couple of eurocents extra.

The second duo of speakers was Jani Kazaltzis (stylist and guest designer for JBC) and Ann Claes (CEO from JBC). I think Jani said what most of us thought; "How do we know if the clothes we are buying are really eco fashion?" and "Where can we buy it?".
Jani suggested that conscious clothes should have a special tag so costumers would know whether they have bought something ecological or not. The fashion industry should have the task to hype these kinds of clothes and as a result of that the costumer might want to buy these clothes.
Ann Claes from JBC told us how her clothing company is very conscious about fair fashion and what they do as a company to realise this. Firstly their suppliers have to sign a "code of conduct" and are checked on this regularly. This code of conduct exists of international rules for better working conditions.
JBC also tries to maintain a long-lasting relationship with their suppliers, this way they have a better view how these companies work.
But JBC doesn't only look at the bad effects on human beings but also on the environment. They have long list of chemical products which aren't allowed to be used during the fabrication process.

Then two designers got to tell how they integrate eco-fashion in their brand. First up was Rachida Aziz from Azira. This is a very young brand with a real identity. Rachida knew from the day she started her own brand that it had to be ecological so the search for a supplier started. This turned out to be a very hard search. Eventually she came across this atelier in her country from origin; Marocco. This atelier employs single mothers, which is still a taboo in Marocco. These women get a very fair wage and avoided being obliged to prostitution in order to provide for their children.
A supplier is one thing, finding a store location is another. Rachida Aziz wanted to be located in the Dansaert region in Brussels, which is a fashion headquarter with lots of designer stores. This place is more than a store which just sells clothes. The brand wants to attract a wide diversity of people and put a stop to the normal beauty standards. Another way in which the designer tries to minimalize to waste products is by crowd funding. This means people get the chance to preorder pieces from the collection and have to pay immediately. Only the ordered pieces go in production so nothing has to be thrown away.
Check out this very interesting video to find out more about Azira.

Katrien Van Hecke was the second designer. She's a Belgian designer who has an ecological fashion brand and even visits Paris and London fashion week with her collections. I honestly didn't know her, shame on me. Katrien uses eco-friendly fabrics such as organza and colors them with natural products such as salt or curry. Her atelier is very small and tries to recycle as much as people. The designer reuses for example old newspapers. Like she said herself: "Most people think eco fashion looks like yoga outfits." but her collection proves otherwise. The designs were breath taking and definitely high end fashion worthy. Because she makes everything in Belgium and uses expensive fabrics the clothes have a high price tag as well. The yellow dress comes at € 400,00 and the coat at € 1.000,00. Unfortunately I and lots of others don't have that kind of budget to spend on one piece. Nonetheless I think designers such as Katrien Van Hecke can be groundbreaking for the next generation.

The last speaker was Wilma Mulder from Awearness Fashion. This is an organisation in Arnhem (the Netherlands) which promotes eco fashion in every possible way. They do this by organising events such as a fashion shows but also on a smaller scale by going to stores and asking the employees whether they know where the clothes they sell, come from. Awearness Fashion believes in storytelling to the consumer in every possible way. They are also very active on social media so check them definitely out.

So now I'm curious... Do you try to find eco brands to wear? Is this important to you?

Here are some pictures from the event, unfortunately they're very blurry!