Last week we have take part at Forest for Fashion, in the beautiful town of Perugia.
The main event was a catwalk with dresses, accessories and videos made by the students of Istituto Italiano Design. It’s a rare thing to see in fashion high quality ideas and technical solutions to make fabric from trees and even cork.
Students surely worked hard, following all the making process, their inspirations of course came from nature but also from wood workers and forest workers garments, which was an original idea.
We had the opportunity to see – and touch – some textile samples: this kind of fabrics are really amazing, resistant, beautiful to see and they give a smooth sensation when you touch them. Fabrics made of cork in particular, “Tessughero”, also waterproof, produced by the portuguese company Granorte, are so ecologic, as a cork oak is harvested every 9 years, and the forests are on yearly, rotating harvest cycles.
We have found really interesting that an organisation like PEFC, that works on forest certification system to develop a sustainable forest management, met students and fashion world to grow together a more beautiful and sustainable world.
A great message of wood, and of an event like this one, is that a right forest management can rigenerate ecosystems, create work and, as we saw in Perugia, express beauty.