SUSTAINABILITY
WHAT SUSTAINABILITY MEANS TO US.
Sustainability has become central to our mission at FS. We advocate change in the fashion industry and aim to amplify the voices making sustainability accessible, to create a platform in our community to learn with one another, and to take direct action both in St Andrews and beyond.
Throughout our history, we have strived to stay on top of the current of the fashion industry, to reflect not the trends but the movements driving fashion forward. As the climate crisis continues to threaten our lives, and indeed more acutely the lives of those in the global south, certain brands, organizations, and people have recognized the need for dramatic upheavals in fashion production and consumption. From the treatment of garment workers to the textiles making garments themselves to the lengthening of our clothes lifespans, every actor along the lines of production and consumption play a part in improving or maintaining the norms. We hope to invest in a more sustainable world through the domain of our everyday wear and personal expression, and to celebrate the passion, creativity, and resilience within.
This year is a significant one for us in many ways. We are welcoming the transition into a post-Covid world, balancing new guidelines and ways of interacting with each other while commemorating the landmark of thirty years of FS shows. For sustainability in particular, this our second year in operation, and our first year managing sustainability pledges for a live fashion show and running in-person events related to sustainability education.
OUR GOALS FOR FS2024
EDUCATION
Education is the most vital aspect of our F4TE initiatives. We seek continuous learning with our community and guests about all aspects of sustainability in fashion through partnerships, lectures, panels, articles in our F4TE Journal, and for the first time, in-person sustainability workshops.
TRANSPARENCY
Transparency means public disclosure of credible, comprehensive and comparable data in order to enable accountability so that action can be taken to better improve our sustainable standings. Bringing awareness to the practices of our designers, sponsors, and our own organisation, we seek to give our audience a comprehensive understanding of the impact made by all those involved in FS.
EQUALITY
FS is an equal opportunity organisation with a culture of high performance and continuous improvement. We work to bring attention to the inequalities within the fashion industry and to challenge them by actively encouraging all those interested in joining our organisation to further cultivate their passions. We also also seek to promote businesses and brands run and founded by people of color (POC).
INCLUSION
We recognize that in order to grow most sustainably, it must come from group and community efforts, and thus believe inclusivity is at the heart of sustainability. F4TE by FS strives to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable to participate and learn, and where ideas and opinions may be shared.
IMAPCT
The fashion industry is an enormous site for greenwashing, the centering of sustainability narratives as a marketing tool without following through on commitments or acknowledging major sustainability issues elsewhere in the organisation. F4TE by FS strives to create an impact which we may be able to both see and trace. In Spring 2022, we will be publishing a Sustainability Report to acknowledge and celebrate what we accomplish this year, and to highlight where we could have done better. This is both to ensure transparency, and to create a trajectory toward making tangible change.
F4TE JOURNAL
The F4TE Journal is a new installment created by the Sustainability Team of the St Andrews Charity Fashion Show. The weekly articles will discuss a wide range of topics from the foundations of slow fashion to the new technology of algae- or food waste-based textiles. Alongside a writing component, each article will include brands and organizations we believe celebrate or emphasize respective facets of sustainability in fashion. Each Friday, we will be uploading our articles here on the Sustainability tab of our website. Through these posts, we hope to educate the St Andrews community and amplify the enormous potential of the ever-expanding and increasingly influential domain of sustainable fashion. We are open to and encourage your opinions and ideas as well. If you have something you’d like to share with us, you can fill it out here (or below), or email us at sustainability@standrewsfashion.com.
St Andrews Charity Fashion Show is a registered charity in Scotland (No. SC050426) which seeks to advance the arts and environmental protection by holding events, workshops and panels to promote awareness, knowledge and involvement in these areas; and host fashion, music and other events to raise funds for distribution to charities and other community organisations to be used exclusively for any of the charitable purposes provided for in section 7 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005.
