New Order of Fashion | Work in progress

There's always plenty of work in progress in Eindhoven Design District. In this edition:New Order of Fashion. While clothing bins are bulging, creative director Harm Rensink came up with a sensible destination for our worn sweaters and shirts. With the New Order of Fashion platform, he's going to mine for used textiles to spin new yarn and create new designs with them. 

In this Work in Progress: a conversation about misconducts in the fashion world, the channelling of anger and a call to the municipality, cultural organizations and the business community to support the initiative.

What is New Order of Fashion?

"We are an international platform for fashion talent that collaborates with fashion houses and textile manufacturers. Our goal is to stimulate the industry to take a more sustainable path in collaboration with young fashion talent. In recent years we have done so under the name Modebelofte, with a major exhibition each year during Dutch Design Week. Last year we shifted our course and changed our name to New Order of Fashion."

What's changed for you guys? 

"We experienced a lot of anger among young fashion talents about the polluting side of fashion. Why are man and nature structurally exploited for our way of dressing? As a platform, we have been looking for a way to address wrongs and to better channel anger.”

Last year during DDW, New Order of Fashion already showed its new course. With the exhibition "The End is Near, Time for New Beginnings" it wanted to make the world aware of other ways of dealing with materials for clothing. This project is a follow up, by sourcing raw materials locally."

Tell us about your current project?

"Simply put, we want to turn old clothes into new clothes. Everybody's cleaning out their house right now. We want to use this period to pick up clothes at the door. We're going to spun yarn again and set up a new clothing line with young designers."

So we'll be able to buy something made out of our old clothes?

"Yep! We're thinking about designing nice and comfy basics. Nothing too crazy. It should appeal to a wide audience. We think it's important to show one-on-one what the result of your effort to recycle is, that 'waste' can be a very high quality product and reduce excessive consumption. During DDW 2020, we want to present the first tests in our workshop.”  

Who else is on board?

“Two people who are closely involved in the project are Timmy de Vos of  Textiel Race / E-waste Race, a super cool team in Eindhoven specialized in waste education, and fashion designer Alicia Minnaard. Also the textile processing company Wolkat in Tilburg is participating and will spin the yarns and weave new textiles from the collected clothes. But we are looking for even more people who can help.” 

Great, that would be our final question: how can we help you?

“We would like to appeal to local organisations and companies to support our project. In particular we’re looking for playful ways to collect clothes from people’s homes. It would be awesome to have live performances accompanying the collecting campaign. So folk orchestras and party DJs, if you support our mission, please let us know!”

Would you like to share your work in progress?

Send us an email!