Thank you, Paula. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Carmen, my co-speaker, who I met three days ago. We put this together for you over email and phone calls, and it's a big challenge. Not the easiest topic. So we begin. >> He's somewhere else. >> Hey, you have something I can wear? >> Yea, there's Pro-Wear on the top and soda in the middle. >> A Coke machine in the vicinity caught his tattoo. Seemed to be heading for this particular domistile. [NOISE] >> No, you can't come in. >> Can too. >> Let's go get my billions. [MUSIC] >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Welcome to Costco. I love you. Welcome to Costco. I love you. >> So those scenes from Idiocracy straight from the brilliant, hilarious mind of Mike Judge, set hundreds of years in the future, might as well be our present day. The costumes, flimsy, synthetic, brand emblazoned, portrayed as conveniently dispensable and mindlessly disposable are emblematic of what surrounds us now. While there's comedic truth to equating fast fashion with the thoughtless ease of flicking it out of a tissue box dispenser, we are facing more real, and tragic consequences as a result of that. >> So, this is a true crisis in fashion and it's hard to talk about this topic. Especially when you're a designer and you're sensitive and we are critiquing what made us join an industry. But, here we go. Rana Plaza was built on unstable land, without proper codes on April 24, 2013. Visible cracks could be seen throughout the building. A local engineer recommended to close the structure, but the owner bribed his way to keep it open and threatened to fire workers. Can you hear? This is okay? I'm too close, okay. A power outage activated the generators on the roof, causing the building to shake violently. In under a minute, the eight-story garment factory collapsed, killing 1,137 people, injuring over 2,500 and leaving at least 800 orphans. Three years later, victims are still dealing with emotional trauma and struggling financially. Bangladesh is a densely populated country. Imagine the population of Russia squeezed into the area of the state of Louisiana. Second to China, it is a prime destination for cheap manufacturing. There are almost 5,000 factories in Bangladesh. Around 4 million workers employed. 80% of them are women. Of the 300 parliament members, 30 are factory owners. Fashion is a $25 billion industry in Bangladesh. The global textile and garment industry's worth about $3 trillion. And they work six days a week for an average of $0.29 an hour. To give you an idea, by the time a garment worker in the US breaks for lunch, you have already paid a month's wages in Bangladesh. This is a glimpse of the value chain. The Rana Plaza disaster is a wound that hasn't healed, but this tragedy was not in vain. It immediately sparked controversy, and turned the spotlight onto cheap fashion brands where price trumps quality. And the general public was aware and witnessing the who's paying the price behind the machine. It's certainly provoked a call to action around the issues that were being discussed around the ethical fashion circles for years. And the textile and apparel industry in this case is archaic, complex, inefficient, polluting, and is currently undergoing major changes. The manufacturing model in Bangladesh is low-tech, labor-intensive, highly unregulated, suffering from labor exploitation and environmental issues. In my opinion, educating a new generation of fashion designers has to become a dialogue. It is necessary to openly share the facts and address the blind spots in order to tackle the challenges ahead. It is also an invitation for the students to develop solutions around these issues. We are experiencing moments of consciousness. The linear economy model of take make waste failed. And today, we need to step into the circular economy business model, where we eliminate waste at the conception phase, apply design for this assembly, and re-purpose those materials. So the word neophilia was coined by the cult writer Robert Anton Wilson and neophilia drives fashion. So it's almost like a junkie statement. Perhaps our language also needs to evolve. I believe the words responsibility and accountability will redefine the future for a resilient fashion industry. Another objective should include a shift from hyperconsumption experience towards mindful consumption. And it simply means that we are aware of the impact of our decisions. Thank you. >> So when Pela assigned this dense and intense topic to us, and I thought I didn't know how I fit in exactly. But then I realise that at least the core and bones of my work for slow and steady wins the race could serve as a good contrast. Our collections range reinterpret everyday wardrobes and address those categories like a reference library. How can design be timely and timeless, individual and universal? I'm fascinated by the cultural anthropology of how we wear and why we wear design through ideas and concepts. And for example, here is the pearl t-shirt from our Lux collection that examines what luxury can be redefined as. So, it's the iconic everyday white t-shirt, but it's actually embroidered entirely of pearls. In another equation, the subversive challenge of rethinking the wedding dress, one that is actually only $100 that still distills all the rituals we identify traditionally about that particular dress, but without diluting the design and meaning. So, over six years ago, we created an installation as a reaction to the speed and proliferation of the fashion system at Saatchi & Saatchi. Everything serves as a living archive in the collection and all the designs. Each piece from the earliest to the most current is still available today as a testament that good design is always relevant. So the installation refocused the lens, in order to sustain the audiences attention back on to the design itself, to focus on to the design value of the object themselves. So we decided to use the still life as, kind of the earliest visual storytelling metaphor. As a presentation, over ten days, as an installation in the middle of hundreds of eight minute catwalk fashion shows during your Fashion Week. So think of this as a sensory savoring rather than a quick bite. So, I started slow and steady wins the race over 13 years ago at the age of 23. And starting at the age of four, my grandmother proudly taught me everything that she knew about clothing construction, tools that she learned when she was age 4 as well. So in a way if you want to add it all up, I'm carrying 130 years worth of knowledge. So recently, a friend of mine, we were talking, and he said something really interesting. He said the past is the future, when we were talking about what we were working on next. He was talking about music, but, in a way, I talked to him and I said, you know, it actually is relevant for everything. So I wanted to bring up for the last slide, this Massimo Vignelli quote. It was actually more of a list when he and his wife decided they were going to tackle clothing design. So I'm not going to read through it, I think it's beautiful as it stands. So it's a manifesto of clothes. And it's a manifesto and a reminder of how clothing can be and should be. So we're going to leave with what we can say, is the pendulum needs to swing back and we need a call to arms for a smarter approach. When did the scales tip in favor of those who were better at figuring out costs than those who could measure value? And when did it become acceptable to sacrifice dignity and integrity? Rana Plaza offered a moment of introspection and highlighted the importance of educating new designers on these issues from the start of their careers to create a guilt-free fashion system. Thank you. >> [APPLAUSE]
