HUNDREDS visited Chester for the sustainable fashion showcase at Chester Fashion Week 2023.
The organisers of the 2023 summer shows whose summer launch sought to set a new standard for environmental credentials challenged both the purpose and the role of fashion week by developing a set of sustainable requirements for participating brands and designers while combining Chester's Fashion History with the festival as part of the citywide heritage festival celebrations.
As the largest fashion event in the North, Chester's Cheshire Fashion Week drew hundreds of fashion, heritage and sustainability enthusiasts combining with the Chester Heritage Festival celebrations to celebrate the City's decades of sustainable practices, ideas and stories.
The event, which took place at Chester Town Hall, placed an emphasis on community and social responsibility rather than impressing international press and buyers in order to achieve its sustainability mission. The Chester Fashion Festival was a huge success thanks to a collaboration with Chester's Grosvenor Museum, Chester Heritage Festival, Hair Heals Organisation, and textile educator Rachel Davies.
Visitors were invited to browse a free exhibition supported by the Heritage Fund and Chester Fashion Contemporary showing memories from 'Browns of Chester' which showcased changing trends through collections from Cheshire archives of fashion shows from Paris to Chester by Pierre Balmain and the transition from real fur to banning the fur trade and adopting sustainable practices.
The exhibition also featured pieces from the Grosvenor Museums curated clothing and Rachel Davies textile educators' one-to-one talks and displays of upcycled and deadstock clothing.
The main stage at Cheshire Fashion Week then featured conceptual designs, all focusing on sustainable fashion and setting itself apart from the main fashion weeks - New York, Milan, Paris and London.
Cheshire Fashion Week CEO Claire Namukolo Raven said: "A big risk was taken by us to launch our summer shows in order to bring visitors to Chester and show Cheshire in a positive light by combining many elements that would be seen as polar opposites, such as fashion, heritage, community, history, and sustainability.
"There is a sense of inconsistency in displaying collections at glamorous fashion shows that were made in poverty and practices that are unsustainable. Therefore, we feel that we have played an important role and are setting an example. Our summer shows transformed the way fashion weeks are conducted by working with chains and sustainable designers who are not reliant on child labour and factories where clothing is produced in safe and fair conditions.
"Therefore, hosting Looks Chester, Harry Sutton, Apparel By Mo, A.T.K Fashion House, Shane Moore Designs, Brian De Carvalho, Formerly Known As, House Of Zana and chain retailer White Stuff, all of whom promote fair labour, was a pleasure."
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