Undress Brisbane

When: Friday 17 August 2012
Where: X&Y Bar, Fortitude Valley
Organised by: Undress Brisbane
Recap by: Brisbane Ambassador, Amilia Cunningham

After working a 10 hour day running an event at work, you’d think the last thing I would want to do would be to go to another event, but having heard great things about Undress Brisbane, I didn’t want to miss it.

Now, to be honest, my knowledge of the fashion industry comes from a couple of magazines, and that recent US reality show, Fashion Star. To sum it up, I pretty much know nothing. I particularly didn’t know how unsustainable some industry practices were.  So I went along to Undress 101: Sustainable Fashion Network Night for The Fetch Brisbane to scope out what’s happening in the sustainable fashion realm.

Downstairs at X&Y, the music was pumping and the mojitos were cheap. My sidekick and I were amongst a small, happy group of mostly women, to hear all about sustainable fashion from three guest speakers.

To quote Undress Brisbane themselves, sustainable fashion is about being friendly to the environment, and responsible for our resources.  With that in mind, they’ve created a number of events to showcase fashion, designers and organisations where sustainability is core to their values.

The first speaker up in the Q&A session was Louise Falzon, from sustainable fashion label, A Pot of Tea Under a Tree.  Inspired by her grandmother, Louise knew at a young age that she wanted to be a fashion designer. But as she studied fashion, the realisation hit that industry practice was too incongruent to her own personal values and style. After a bit of soul searching, traveling and plenty of drawing, Louise began her own fashion label, and now creates beautiful custom pieces using only sustainable fabrics and mostly sustainable design practices.

After a brief break, we were introduced to the next speakers, Rozina Suliman and Brooke Nelson from Reverse Garbage, a not-for-profit co-operative promoting environmental sustainability.  They have a warehouse in Woolloongabba, selling offcuts and discarded industrial materials that may have ended up as garbage (tip: if you love to search DIY on Pinterest for inspired craft ideas, I encourage you to head to Reverse Garbage to see what you can pick up). Rozina and Brooke talked about the ethos of the organisation and how they’ve expanded to include Reverse Emporium, where they sell beautiful items that have already been repurposed from random bits and pieces in the warehouse.  Reverse Garbage also runs a series of workshops, for both kids and adults, to educate people about the environment in a fun, arty way.

So, summing up, what did you miss? A fun girl’s night out with a great message about how we can all be a little more sustainable.

The next Undress Brisbane event is the annual fashion show, on October 13 2012.

About Amilia: Amilia Cunningham coordinates professional development events for QUT Business School students.  In her spare time, she loves to tackle big projects, her most recent one – building her house.  In her downtime, she’s an avid pinner, and loves nothing more than hanging out with her nieces and nephew.