EcoLogica — Promotion Of Young Sustainable Ukrainian Brands
Aiming at high-quality promotion of young sustainable Ukrainian brands and popularization of a conscious approach to fashion, in July-September 2021, Association of Producers of Lviv Region (Ukraine) in partnership with Lviv Fashion Week and Zero Waste Lviv implemented the Ecologica project. The program is aimed at supporting Ukrainian sustainable fashion brands. The program presupposes free creation of quality promotional materials for the 5 winners: professional photo and video shoot of the collection; video interview with the designers, in which they tell about the values of the brand and environmental component; further promotion of the created videos and photos in social networks and in the media.
EcoLogica project is implemented under the auspices of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
The collections were selected based on the innovativeness and relevance of design, ethics, and environmental friendliness. In particular, special attention was paid to the following criteria:
- design aimed at minimizing waste and caring for the environment
- reuse/ recycling
- upcycling
- certification
- the use of sustainable approaches to procurement
- animal welfare
- the use of natural fabrics
- social indicators, production ethics
- attention to social issues in the collection
- eco-friendly packaging/ labels
- communication, ability to tell about the ecological/ethical component of own activities.
Young brands non.Lbs., FRAMIORE, MIMICRY clothing, MELMANA, and POSTUSHNA became the winners of the program. During August-September, promotional videos and lookbooks of the brands were filmed, as well as video interviews with the representatives of these brands; all materials are available on the Facebook page and YouTube channel of the project:
FRAMIORE is an export-oriented sustainable brand based on the concept of conscious fashion and ethical production. “I believe that every choice has consequences – either good or bad – that affect the way the world will look like tomorrow,” said Natalia Naida, brand’s founder, who represents the THANK YOU, EARTH collection in the EcoLogica program, which was inspired by the natural shapes and textures of the Carpathians.The collection is made of materials that do not harm the environment, with well-thought-out details, basic designs, and durable fabrics. The collection also has an important goal – for each item sold, the brand transfers 5% of income to the Peli Can Live charity fund, in order to plant trees and support biodiversity.
The collection MIMICRY Clothing shirt upcycling was created on the basis of high-quality clothes made of natural fabrics, which get a new life with the help of natural dyeing techniques. Mimicry is about contact with nature and the authenticity of the print: white shirts are dyed with the help of plants using a technique that has existed for centuries – plant pigments stay on the fabric after triple heat treatment. Designer Bohdana Voitenko adds prints on all the clothes herself.
non.Lbs. is a Ukrainian upcycling brand that creates clothes from vintage fabrics and recycled clothes. American bags of the 50s and 60s, in which salt, sugar, and flour were previously transported, were the main material of the spring-summer 2022 collection. The founders of the brand Natalia Stovpova and Anastasia Kolesnik are meticulous about details: buttons in the collection are made from second-hand clothes, threads from certified manufacturers are used, labels are printed on a typewriter on recycled waste paper, packaging is made of mushroom mycelium (boxes are decomposed in the ground in 2 weeks), remnants after sewing are stored for the manufacture of new products.
POSTUSHNA is a very young brand, founded by Yulia Postushna in 2020. POSTUSHNA clothes are made from recycled second-hand items; these are multi wear suits, which can be combined both with one another and with usual basic clothes; the fact that they are multilayered is the basic principle of their creation, as well as the principle of “functionality through the prism of aesthetics”. The upcycling collection was made on the basis of the used DHL uniform, which draws increasing attention to the problem of overalls recycling. Most of the world companies, from large corporations to small private companies, use work clothes (uniforms) for their employees, therefore, there is a problem: after the expiration date, a big number of overalls and protective equipment go to landfills.
MELMANA is an upcycling clothes and accessories brand created by the designer Anastasia Melnyk-Mankovska. In the Save Yourself collection, the designer referred to the archaic image of a motanka doll, the idea of upcycling chimes with the upcycling of motanka as an object (such dolls were made of worn clothes). Used natural biodegradable fabrics (linen, wool, viscose), upcycling (reuse of linen fabrics from Austrian national costumes found in thrift shops, woolen fabrics “from snips”), minimized emissions – remnants of fabrics are used to create accessories. The clothes are complemented by Lavazzabag bags made of packs left after Lavazza coffee, which cannot be recycled in Ukraine.
