The project is one of four social enterprises providing training for the long term unemployed at the Rediscovery Centre, Ireland’s National Centre for Circular Economy located in Dublin.
Programme Manager for Rediscover Fashion, Arran Murphy, says: “One of our most immediate ways of applying the principles of circular economy is by diverting textiles from landfill, taking them into our workshop, repurposing and reusing them for our designs.”
Murphy explains that she is passionate about the teaching and training element of the job, about the conversations that can take place in these contexts and the communities that can arise.
“I am really interested in how people interact with clothing and textiles, in our behaviour as consumers and in the empowerment and undiscovered potential that comes with learning new skills, or should I say, relearning old skills! The skills that we teach through our workshops and the mindset we are trying to promote are ones that the majority of people would have had just a few generations ago.
Arran would like to see a shift away from fast fashion, to a more seasonless industry and for brands to adopt and embrace circular design and production models and practices as a means to reducing the amount of waste, pollution, exploitation and over-consumption currently being created by the fashion industry.
“I am very interested in the stories of clothing and textiles, in the idea of extending their storyline and rerouting them away from the linear narrative of waste and landfill by channelling them through imaginative redesign and repurposing processes, creating whole new chapters for them by applying the principles of circular design. This process is fascinating to me, I thoroughly enjoy designing within these parameters, though it can be challenging at times - a lot of trial and error!”
rediscoverycentre.ie/rediscover-fashion/
Ireland
