Meet The 3 Asian Designers Carving out a Sustainable Future in Fashion
Sustainability is the new buzzword in the fashion industry, with young fashionistas increasingly asking questions about how and where their clothing is produced.
According to the United Nations Climate Change Division, the textile industry produces more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than the shipping and aviation industries combined. The Clean Clothes Campaign states that out of the 100 billion items of clothing produced each year, 60% end up in landfill within 12 months.
The Hong Kong-based Redress Design Award is a key player in the push for more sustainable practices in the fashion industry, and towards aiming for a circular economy. This involves reusing and upcycling fabrics, as well as considering the entire life cycle of a product.
“Circular design is foundational to a sustainable future for fashion,” said Jessica Wei, Senior Director of Sustainability at Tommy Hilfiger Asia Pacific and Redress Design Award 2024 judge.
The annual award collaborates with up-and-coming international fashion designers to bring their scalable and consumer-ready collections to the world stage.
Asia's young designers are proudly at the forefront of the push for more sustainability in the fashion industry. The Beat Asia spoke to three rising Asian designers in the 14th annual edition of the Redress Design Award competition at CENTRESTAGE, to discover why they believe sustainability in fashion is so important.
Tiger Chung
Redress 2024 Winner Tiger Chung, is based in Hong Kong. Chung holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA Hons) degree in Fashion Design from Nottingham Trent University, and a Higher Diploma in Fashion Design from Hong Kong Design Institute.
Chung's collection “The Wanderer/無依者” reflects on the wealth gap and disparities within fashion, taking inspiration from the distinctive clothing and lifestyles of “street wanderers.”
Chung said they are motivated by a vision of fashion that is more inclusive and reflective of the real world, “Sustainability to me is like a new normal, it’s kinda like a subconscious thing, it’s common sense for everybody.”
Upcycling is at the heart of Chung's work. For their Redress collection, Chung collected commonly discarded items such as towels, curtains, sofas, and mattresses from hotels and airlines. They also gathered discarded couches from recycling points in Hong Kong.
Asked about the benefits of using pre-used fabrics, Chung shared, “I like [these] fabrics, they have a natural fading, they are yellowish, so I don’t need to do extra treatment, or dye on it."
In addition to upcycling, Chung emphasized the practical functionality and convenience of their garments with a focus on sustainability. To maximize longevity and durability, they use zero-waste patterning and incorporate smart design adjustments which ensure the garments are suitable for various body types.
Tian Ruyin
Redress 2024 Runner-up Tian Ruyin believes fashion buyers have an important role to play in furthering sustainable practices in the fashion industry. The Chinese-born designer noted, “We need to balance the sustainable and the commercial because garments not only need to be sustainable, they [also] need people to be interested in them and want to buy them.”
Ruyin’s interest in fashion started at a young age, observing her mother’s garment trading business. During her first internship in merchandising and quality inspection, Ruyin witnessed significant fabric waste in the industry. This experience transformed her passion for creating unique garments into an eco-conscious mission to reduce production waste.
Ruyin’s Redress Design Award collection, "STRIP STRAP STRIPE," is inspired by a desire to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s disease, which her grandmother suffers from. Her collection reflects her grandmother’s disordered memory; strips of fabric represent her grandmother’s memories.
Pieces of fabric are folded to signify the chaos of her grandmother’s mind and transformed into three-dimensional, wearable garments.
The designs are vividly bold and eye-catching. Ruyin applies a low-impact, innovative pattern-cutting method to create visually striking strips and jagged lines that define her work. She also sources from end-of-roll fabrics to create her garments.
Going forward Ruyin hopes to create a sustainable clothing and lifestyle brand that brings people together. “My brand is a style community and people can join this community and contribute to sustainable fashion together," she shared.
Su Anli
Taiwanese designer Su Anli became aware of the pollution caused by garment manufacturing whilst on work placements in the fashion industry. She returned to Shih-Chien University in Taipei with a new mindset and began working on strategies to create a positive environmental impact.
Her collection "Disappearing Space" is inspired by the loss of green spaces worldwide due to pollution and climate change. Her designs are visually striking – spiky uniform geometric shapes create symmetrical harmony, with blue, green, and white fabrics evoking architectural patterns.
Anli deploys the principles of origami to create garments which can be assembled and detached from the body. This offers consumers a versatile range of styles and functions within the piece and makes the items easier to repair and recycle.
Anli stresses the need to focus on zero waste strategies, “I am constantly refining methods that minimize or eliminate textile waste, designing for low environmental impact in my creative processes.”
Redress 2024 Prize Winner Tiger Chung Champions Circularity
The Future of Sustainable Fashion
The high-quality collections on display at Redress 2024 show that the future of sustainable fashion in Asia is in safe hands. When asked to sum up this year’s competition in one word, Tiger Chung nailed it by saying, “exposure.”
Getting to this stage was no small feat for Chung. Their collections were evaluated by a panel of ten esteemed global sustainable fashion experts, including Orsola de Castro, Author and Co-founder of Fashion Revolution Kévin Germanier, and Xiao Xue, former Editor-in-Chief of Elle China.
Founder of Redress Christina Dean, says, “This competition win is a broader victory for the industry, which needs urgent injections of creativity from designers, and more engagement from consumers if we’re to tackle the growing waste crisis raging globally and particularly in Asia.”
Redress Prize-Winners Look Ahead to Future Opportunities
As part of the prize for winning Redress 2024, Chung will have the life-changing opportunity to join the Tommy Hilfiger team and work on a groundbreaking sustainable design project for retail. They will receive a development fund of HK$50,000 (US$6,400) to propel their sustainable fashion career and private mentorship sessions from Tommy Hilfiger, who sponsored the top prize this year. Chung was excited to receive the award, “I can’t believe that I’ve won! This is a huge opportunity to showcase circular solutions on a global stage.”
“Fashion is rightly criticized for its negative environmental impact, which is a huge concern for designers like myself. But we intend to change this — and make fashion better for the planet,” Chung shared.
Chinese designer Tian Ruyin secured the runner-up position, winning a mentorship with sustainable fashion designer Orsola de Castro, a HK$15,000 ($1,900) grant, and a lockstitch machine.
Both Tiger, Ruyin, and the People’s Choice Winner Silvia Acien Parilla from the UK will have the pleasure of joining the Redress Alumni Network, which provides over 300 alumni designers worldwide with continuous career assistance, contacts, and opportunities in sustainable fashion.
What’s Next for Redress Hong Kong
Redress is teaming up with Tommy Hilfiger to showcase the Redress Design Award 2024’s emerging Chinese sustainable fashion designers at Shanghai Fashion Week. These collections highlight Redress’ mission and Tommy Hilfiger’s commitment to creating fashion that ‘Wastes Nothing and Welcomes All.
Jessica Wei, Senior Director of Sustainability, Tommy Hilfiger Asia Pacific, and Redress Design Award 2024 judge said, “Tommy Hilfiger is thrilled to inspire the next generation of designers towards circularity, including welcoming the talented Tiger Chung on board our team to work towards sustainable solutions together.”
Christina Dean said some of the competition judges had been moved to tears by the courage, conviction, and determination of the Redress finalists. “These designers are ridiculously brave,” she said, “The designers are telling us to change our mindsets; that waste is actually a resource, and the fashion industry is definitely waking up to that.”
Check out the Redress Design Award 2024 Grand Final Fashion Show on the Redress livestream here.
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