MA Fashion and the Environment
My practice encourages the fashion industry to further engage with unique fine fibres from alternative sources such as camel, yak, alpaca, llama, musk ox, bison and rare breed sheep, among others. This will ensure that biodiversity and genetic variation continues to flourish on earth within both wild and domesticated species. The use of various different uniquely performing animal fibres in fashion knitwear is not only crucial in order to avoid homogeneity in fashion garments, but more importantly for general ecosystem health as the loss of biodiversity is counted among one of the 9 most pressing environmental issues facing us today (Planetary boundaries, 2009). A knitwear collection using many of these unique animal fibres, alongside an educational guide to the sustainable benefits and impacts of the continued development of these worldwide fibre niches was created to highlight the importance of biodiversity in fashion fibre consumption. www.liz-spencer.com lizspencer83@hotmail.com -or- lizsureis@gmail.com