Students shine at Fairtrade fashion show

Bexhill College fashion designers.Photo Lesley Shareif

Fairtrade wants better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. While the Fairtrade Foundation is better known for its work with coffee, chocolate and banana producers, it also champions the cotton industry, and to highlight this we were recently treated to an evening of fashion.

Style correspondent Bevali Francis reports.

The Fairtrade Fashion Show at Bexhill College is an inspired collaboration between the town, which is proud to be one of the 580 Fairtrade Towns in the UK, and the college. This year’s show was the sixth in what is now a firmly established annual event.

The evening not only champions companies that use Fairtrade cotton to make clothes but presented the students’ own upcycled and recycled designs. The students’ work was of a very high standard and outshone the professionals’ work for inventiveness, creativity, glamour, style and unique flourish. There were wearable dresses including a beautiful sequined evening dress by Emma Maidment Dunnet. For the more adventurous fashionista there was a stunning evening gown made from bubble wrap with colour cleverly added within the layers of the bubble wrap by Joeddy Polquit and my favourite of the evening, and the judges’ too, was a paper dress made from upcycled magazines and books by Evie Nott.

Some of the winning designs. Photo Lesley Shareif

I was also impressed with the standard of the wearable sculpture and jewellery pieces made from teabags and crisp packets. The fashion designs were enhanced by the stunning hair and make-up also created by students from the college. The students’ work was indeed impressive.

Companies that design with Fairtrade cotton also showed off their current designs and although colourful, there were rather a lot of t-shirts and not enough variety. I would have liked to see what the students would have done with the cotton; I am sure they could have added an exciting twist.

To finish the evening ex-Bexhill student Zahra Rose showed some of her current upcycled clothes using lots of bold fringing detail. Zahra is now studying fashion at university, works part-time for Miss Selfridge design team, and has already shown at collection at Dubai fashion week.

Also in: HOT Style