Lyla Patel – Head of Education at TRAID: Top 3 Good Fashion tips
You lucky, lucky people! We have yet another great Good Fashion Perspectives speaker willing to share their top Good Fashion tips, and this one is a belter! Lyla Patel is Head of Education at TRAID, a fashion recycling charity working to make the nation’s unwanted clothes…well, wanted.
For every garment TRAID collects for re-use and re-sale in the UK, TRAID make a positive impact on someone’s life, somewhere in the world. Lyla Patel runs TRAID’s Education Department, working directly with thousands of children, young people, teachers and customers every year. Lyla delivers a programme of lectures and participatory workshops for all ages, designed to unpick the issues around ethical fashion, clothes recycling, the environment and world poverty. Here, she shares her top Good Fashion tips for buying better clothes:
1. Clear out your wardrobe and donate it all to TRAID. Once you have got rid of the clothes you never wear, don’t really fit and don’t really like you’ll be able to assess and value of the good clothes you have.
2. Shop at TRAID. Refill your wardrobe, but with handpicked second hand fashion. Try out more than one store, they are all different and constantly changing. Keep your eyes peeled for the legendary TRAID sales!
3. Skill yourself. Come to one of TRAID’s Sew Good workshops and mend, remake or upcycle a garment with us. Improving your skills will insure your clothes last longer, get a new lease of life and allow you to buy more great second hand stuff! If you like, you can join the mailing list: sewgood@traid.org.uk
— Lyla Patel
Head of Education, TRAID
http://www.traid.org.uk/
The Good Fashion Perspectives event is happening on the evening of Thursday, June 23rd at Studio 1, 49-59 Old Street, London and is an evening dedicated to sustainability and ethical fashion. Tickets can be purchased here http://goodfashion.eventbrite.com/
It was wonderful to hear Lyla speak at the Good Fashion Perspectives evening. Her enthusiasm, positivity and total dedication is infectious and Inspiring.
Her stories about the harrowing lives of children who work in the cotton mills in India brought into sharp focus that we in the U.K are living in bubble of consumerist fantasy, shielded from the harshness of reality and responsibility.
Hearing about The Children’s Parliament and the good that was being done with the support of TRAID filled my heart with joy. Keep up the good work.
Comment by Lucy Harvey — June 24, 2011 @ 8:53 pm