An exhibition of upcycled clothes taking place during Fashion Revolution Week will encourage Galwegians to recycle, upcycle and choose ‘slow fashion’ when it comes to styling their look.
The display at COPE Galway’s boutique on St Augustine Street, Galway will take place from Monday 23 April until Sunday 29 April and will feature reconstructed clothes by local creative Eimer Greaney, a trained pattern cutter.
Eimer Greaney made a conscious choice to be a charity shop customer and uses her purchases to create a wardrobe of upcycled clothes.
She also blogs on alternative fashion and offers free patterns on craft-sharing website Craftsy. She has donated a collection of her ‘Upsew’ label items to the COPE Galway Charity Shop to sell and her work features in the exhibition.
Shop manager Allison Currah said: “We are very grateful to Eimer for coming up with the concept for the exhibition and donating items from her label.
“Recycling clothes is at the heart of what we do at the Shop and I am delighted to host this event as part of the international Fashion Revolution Week.”
Fashion Revolution Week developed as a global movement in the wake of the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh when 1138 people died and 2500 were injured as a result of a fire in an unsafe garment factory.
It led to questions around the whole ethos of the fashion industry from exploitation of workers to environmental pollution.
The bright & spacious COPE Galway Charity Shop is becoming a popular source of re-usable original material for discerning wearers of fashion. “What we wear and how we wear it is our own decision”, explained Eimer Greaney. “Your own signature way to dress should be fun and it should be ‘yours’. If you choose to sew your own clothes, it can be quite empowering. There is a supportive online sewing community out there.
“A lot of women will comment that when buying clothes off the rack it is about you having to fit the clothes; they blame their own shape or size when they don’t fit, whereas in fact it’s really the clothes that are wrong. Once you make your own clothes they will feel a much better fit than any store-bought ones.”
So how does one become a fashion revolutionary? Pick up a resource sheet and have a look at the beautiful remade clothes on display and for sale at the on St. Augustine Street during Fashion Revolution Week (23-29th April).
