Crafting the Future

FRIDAY 1 FEBRUARY | Upper Stage

09:30-10:30 | Registrations

10:30-11:00 | Thank you Notes

11:00-11:15 | Opening Remarks | Orsola de Castro, Founder & Creative Director of Fashion Revolution

11:15-11:45 | The Power of the Consumer | Marina Spadafora, Fashion Designer

11:45-12:15 | Policy & Transparency in Fashion | Tamsin Lejeune, CEO at Common Objective

12:15-12:45 | CONSEQUENCES \ Vivienne Westwood and Sustainability in 2018 | Brigitte Stepputtis, Head of Couture at Vivienne Westwood

12:45-13:00 | Short Coffee Break

13:00-13:30 Shirt Stories: Fast and Slow Materials, Models and Mindsets | Rebecca Earley, Design Researcher at University of the Arts London

13:30-14:00 | Innovators & Disruptors
Stavros Karelis, Onassis Creative Consultant, Founder & Buying Director Machine-A

14:15-15:00 | Networking Lunch

15:00-15:30 | Personalized Couture & Basic Principles of Sustainability | Christos Petridis, Chief Creative Officer at Maison Faliakos, Venediktos Adipas, Creative Director at Maison Faliakos

15:30-16:45 | Lightning Talks

Dimitra Kolotoura, Founder Zeus + Dione

Needle and Thread | Angeliki Giannakidou, Director of Ethnological Museum of Thrace

Slow Fashion - Big Impact | Garyfalia Pitsaki, Co-Founder of 3QUARTERS

Born to Die: Planned Obsolescence of Function and Desirability | Christopher Brellis, Designer

Shedia Art: Restarting life | Chris Alefantis, Editor in Chief of ‘Shedia’ street paper

Weaving a Social Tapestry | George Kalivis, Project Director at Victoria Square Project - Maria Juliana Byck, Artist and reFashion Designer

16:45-17:15 | Q&A

17:15-17:45 | Panel Discussion | Moderated by Tamsin Blanchard, Fashion Journalist and Editor

& Efie Falida, Journalist

Orsola de Castro, Founder & Creative Director of Fashion Revolution

Kendall Robins, Senior Programme Manager Architecture, Design, Fashion, British Council UK

Dimitra Kolotoura, Founder of Zeus + Dione

Alice Potts, Onassis Fellow

Film Screening

18:30-20:00 | Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist
Admission is free, on a first come first served basis. Entrance tickets will be available 1 hour before the screening.

Welcome by Nicole Alexandropoulos, Director of Athens Fashion Film Festival

Saturday 2 February

12:00-12:30 | Registrations

12:30-14:30 | Parallel Workshops

Fashion and Quality | Marina Spadafora, Fashion Designer | Foyer +5

Circular Design Speeds: Creative and Strategic Approaches for Fast and Slow Circular Fashion and Textile Design | Rebecca Earley, Design Researcher at University of the Arts London | Foyer +3

Fashion Journalism Masterclass | Tamsin Blanchard, Fashion Journalist & Editor | Foyer +4

15:00-17:30 | How to Be a Fashion Revolutionary | Orsola de Castro, Founder & Creative Director of Fashion Revolution | Foyer +5

18:00-21:00 | DiscoMAKE Party | Curated by Matthew Needham | Foyer +2

SPEAKERS

Orsola de Castro, Founder & Creative Director of Fashion Revolution

Orsola de Castro is a pioneer and internationally recognised opinion leader in Sustainable Fashion. In 1997 she founded From Somewhere, a label designing clothes made entirely from pre-consumer waste: disregarded materials such as surplus and production cut-offs. In 2006 she co-founded the British Fashion Council pioneering initiative Estethica, which she curated until 2014. In 2013, with Carry Somers, she founded Fashion Revolution, marking the disaster in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 24 April 2013, when the Rana Plaza factory collapsed killing and injuring thousands of workers. Raising public awareness of the continuing social and environmental catastrophes in our global fashion supply chains, Fashion Revolution has become a global campaign with participation in over 90 countries around the world. Orsola is a regular key note speaker and mentor, Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College, as well as Central Saint Martins Visiting Fellow and Practitioner in Residence for the Fashion MA.

Marina Spadafora, Fashion Designer

Marina Spadafora gained a reputation worldwide for her own collection that featured sophisticated knits. Since then she has collaborated with labels such as Prada, Miu Miu and Ferragamo. Marina's work has always included a strong social and environmental focus, believing that ethics and aesthetics can coincide. Her motto is "Fashion with a mission." She has been Creative Director of "Auteurs du Monde," an ethical fashion brand entirely made by producers who belong to the World Fair Trade Organization. Marina has worked closely with the Italian ‘Vogue’ Director Franca Sozzani for Fashion for Development, an initiative that works directly with the United Nations to bring development to emerging economies through fashion. Marina is the Italian Country Coordinator of Fashion Revolution. Marina has received the United Nations Women Together Award in 2015 and has done a TEDx talk on sustainable fashion in 2014. Currently Marina collaborates with Luxury fashion brands to implement responsible strategies in their companies.

Tamsin Lejeune, CEO at Common Objective

Tamsin Lejeune is the founder of the Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF), the global industry body for sustainable fashion, and the CEO of the Ethical Fashion Group and CO, a platform that helps fashion professionals to do business better. For 12 years Tamsin has been building a global movement in the fashion industry, spanning 141 countries. In 2015, Tamsin was named by LinkedIn as the most engaged woman in UK Fashion and Retail.

Brigitte Stepputtis, Head of Couture at Vivienne Westwood

Brigitte Stepputtis is the Global Head of Couture at Vivienne Westwood with over twenty-five years of experience in the fashion industry. She joined the label in 1990 and has since contributed to the success and growth of the brand, particularly the Gold Label collections.

The Vivienne Westwood Couture service was launched at the Davies Street Boutique in Mayfair in 1995. She has overseen worldwide couture presentations, exhibitions, advertising shoots and fashion shows. She is implementing Green Carpet projects and initiating, supporting and coordinating various commitments of the brand's sustainability strategy.

Brigitte is Director at the Ethical Fashion Forum and member of the DeFINE project advisory board. She is also a member of the Medinge Group, a think tank of brand experts and co-author of “Brands with a Conscience” published by Cogan Page in 2016.

Professor Rebecca Earley, Design Researcher at University of the Arts London

Rebecca Earley is Professor of Sustainable Fashion Textile Design and co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Circular Design (CCD) at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She began researching sustainable textile design in 1999 with the Textiles Environment Design (TED) unit at Chelsea, developing design strategies, curating exhibitions, facilitating workshops and creating original materials, models and prototypes. In 2005 she curated the ‘Well Fashioned: Eco Style in the UK’ exhibition, and in 2007 she was nominated as a Morgan Stanley Great Briton for her contribution. Between 2010-2017 she was Director of the Textile Futures Research Centre at Central Saint Martins. Becky now works with organisations to embed sustainable design research – in particular circular design speeds – with clients such as H&M, Filippa K, and VF Corporation. She specialises in creating slow and systemic design solutions for fashion textiles, often using polyester as the base material. She currently works on two Swedish-based projects with Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) – Mistra Future Fashion and Trash-2-Cash – where the guidelines for circular design were first tested and are now being written in full with CCD co-director Dr Kate Goldsworthy.

Stavros Karelis, Onassis Creative Consultant

Onassis Creative Consultant Stavros Karelis is the founder and buying director of the independent store Machine-A. He is known for supporting young design talents by stocking them alongside established brands. Karelis is also a judge for NEWGEN, the British Fashion Council’s emerging talent scheme. In 2009, Karelis opened Machine-A, advised by Anna Trevelyan, his business partner and the store's fashion director, with the aim to showcase quality emerging designers alongside established fashion brands on the shop floor.

Christos Petridis, Chief Creative Officer at Maison Faliakos & Venediktos Adipas, Creative Director at Maison Faliakos

Maison Faliakos, established back in 1981, was the first that brought French air to the fashion Athenian salons of that time, straight from Paris ateliers. Τhis was possible because of the founder, Costas Faliakos who studied, learned and worked in Balmain’s and Jacques Esterel’s studios.

Nowadays, Christos Petridis, Chief Creative Officer and Venediktos Adipas, Creative Director, through their interaction, are re-shaping and deploying to the maximum the fashion heritage elements and rare haute couture techniques of the House, while adding new codes, modern ideas, and a whole fresh approach of what defines today’s exclusivity.

Pioneering in fashion for more than 35 years, Maison Faliakos embodies classicism and the finest tailoring with visionary ways to feel unique, as haute couture should always be.

Angeliki Giannakidou, Director of the Ethnological Museum of Thrace

She was born in Agios Nikolaos, Halkidiki, in 1947 and has two sons and six grandchildren. She graduated from Teachers College in Alexandroupoli and has been researching and collecting material relating to the folk culture of Thrace since she moved to the city in 1967. She founded the Ethnological Museum of Thrace in 2002. Her research interests focus on the culture, history, and communication networks of Thrace and its environs, and she has written and edited various publications relating to Thrace. She also writes articles and gives talks and lectures on Thrace around Greece, visiting cultural associations in Thracian villages to support the people of Evros Regional Unit and help them redefine the value of their homeland. All the products in the museum shop are her own work; seeking to preserve and popularize Thracian folk culture by presenting it with a contemporary aesthetic, she took a leading role in their design and production. As the general director of the Museum, she works there daily.

Garyfalia Pitsaki, Co-Founder of 3QUARTERS

Garyfalia is an Architect, Diploma NTUA, MSc TU Delft, involved in architectural and art projects that reshape the understanding of urban living and space. In her design projects she explores the linking moment between architectural design, technology and crafting in a bottom-up urban engagement. After living and working for several years in the Netherlands, she brings back to Athens the Dutch creativity and optimism of start-ups. In 2015 she founded together with her brother John, photographer and web-designer, the upcycled luxurious accessories brand, 3QUARTERS. A brother and sister duet with a common love for design, sustainability and handcrafts, they promote local, engaging and ethically sourced and made design.

Christopher Brellis, MA (RCA) Design Innovation and Management

He trained as a product designer at the Royal College of Art in London, where he started his professional design practice, Antidot Design Studio. Since 1998 he has been a lecturer of design and a practicing designer in applied design solutions for the corporate and cultural sector in Greece and abroad. In addition, he has collaborated with many organizations as a consultant in service design, design thinking advocacy, audience participation and startup mentoring. His professional and academic interests are focused on process design and methodologies for innovative, creative and efficient problem-solving of design challenges in service and product design. Furthermore, he is adept at design thinking, design management practices and design research methodologies, focusing on maximizing user experience. He has over 15 years in team management and creative leadership and is an inventor and signee of 10 international patents.

Chris Alefantis, Editor in Chief of ‘Shedia’ Street Paper

Chris Alefantis was born in Melbourne, Australia, where his parents immigrated in the mid-50s. He is a journalist of more than 25 years of experience. He is the founder and Editor in Chief of ‘Shedia’, Greece’s only street paper, which launched in March 2013. ‘Shedia’ – as all street papers worldwide – is a social enterprise and self-help model that provides an innovative solution to urban homelessness and unemployment. It offers people a dignified way to earn their own living and support themselves and their families. In addition to employment, ‘Shedia’ aims to offer its vendors on-going social support and training opportunities. ‘Shedia’ is a member of the International Network of Street Paper. In 2006, he founded the “Kick Out Poverty” campaign in Greece, incorporating the Greek Homeless Football Club. It is an initiative which uses sport – and in particular, football – as a way to energize homeless people and support them in their quest to rebuild their lives. Since 2007, The Greek Homeless Team is a member of the international social and sporting movement “Homeless World Cup”.

George Kalivis, Project Director at Victoria Square Project

George Kalivis was born in Athens in 1993. He studied Architecture (DArch_UTH), and his field of activity involves dealing with architectural design, contemporary artistic practices and theoretical exploration. His research interests are centred on the association of concepts such as: media and visual cultures, space and gender, body and normalization, archives and knowledge, defamiliarization and representations, race and discrimination. Recently he collaborated in the architectural design of the exhibition "Stefanos Lazaridis: cynical romantic" (SNFCC, 2018) and in the artistic curation of the exhibition "Geometries" (AUA & OCC, 2018). He also participated with two artworks in the show "The Diary of a Seamstress: An Imaginary Biography" (a.antonopoulou.art gallery, 2018). He is currently a member of the Victoria Square Project team as project director.

Maria Juliana Byck, Artist and reFashion Designer

Maria Juliana Byck is an ethical fashion designer, poet, artist, experimental filmmaker, and social practitioner engaging through video, installation, performance and place-based collaborations. Through workshops and social interventions, she activates different social spheres to encourage cross-cultural and inter-generational exchanges. By mapping ways of navigating, understanding, and projecting aspirations onto the cityscape, Maria is developing a multi-disciplinary practice that combines sustainable methodologies through creative reuse with collaborative economies. She is currently working in partnership with Victoria Square Project and Khora Freeshop on a reFashion project and creative reuse skill shares focused on stemming waste and exploitation in the global textile industry. Maria is originally from California and is now based in Athens, Greece.

Alice Potts, Onassis Fellow

Alice Potts studied her Masters in Fashion: Accessories Department at The Royal College of Art in London. She pursued this degree in collaboration with expert biomedical engineers at Imperial College London. Alice has a combined background of chemistry, mathematics and fashion that influence her practice, focusing on the sustainability and future of fashion as a second skin. She discovered and perfected a technique for accelerating the growth of sweat crystals over two years of trial and experimentation, and developed new biopolymers for bioplastics in hope to introduce it for fashion as well as medical purposes. Alice’s research is a work in progress balanced between art, sustainable practices, and medical science. "Sweat covers us in similar ways to clothing like a second skin, but what I find most beautiful about it is that it removes global and political labelling. Through my work, I want to show that the labels society gives us don’t define who we are, and shouldn’t create such divisions between communities. Everyone’s sweat is unique and so is each human being, no one is exactly the same and shouldn’t be judged by globalization factors, but who they are internally." Now Alice has moved to Athens to pursue a fellowship programme with Onassis Stegi to further develop her work.

MODERATORS

Efie Falida, Journalist

Efie Falida studied History at the Ionian University and is a journalist. She lives in Athens and works for the culture section of ‘Ta Nea’, a Greek daily, writing on aesthetics, fashion and architecture. She took part in Maria Papadimitriou's “Firma Gypsy Globales” (2014) as the author of the artist's art book of the same name. In 2015, she helped stage Tassos Vrettos’ “Wor(th)ship” show as well as writing the exhibition catalogue. She has also curated the following art and fashion shows: “GR80s: Greece in the Eighties” (2017) at Technopolis, the Athens City cultural space, “Doulamas the Magnificent” (2017) at the Kanari 4 art space, an annex of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, and "The Diary of a Seamstress: An Imaginary Biography" (2018) at a.antonopoulou.art.

Tamsin Blanchard, Journalist

Tamsin Blanchard is a journalist with over 25 years of experience working for national newspapers and supplements including ‘The Independent’, ‘The Observer’ and ‘Telegraph Magazine’. Most recently she was fashion features director at ‘Tank’ magazine. She has contributed to a range of titles including ‘The Guardian’, ‘The Gentlewoman’, ‘10 Magazine’, ‘Hole & Corner’ (as editor at large) and Vogue.com. She has written several books including “Green is the New Black” published in 2006. Her next book is due to be published in 2019.

Tamsin has been first year tutor for BA Fashion Journalism at Central Saint Martins and is currently a visiting tutor at the university.

She has been involved with Fashion Revolution since its inception and is a member of the Fashion Revolution Global Coordination Team. As head of special projects, she curates the Fashion Open Studio program, works on a series of monthly events for the Maiyet Collective, as well as coordinates the annual Fashion Open Studio events each Fashion Revolution Week.