Joelle Van De Pavert is a Dutch designer and is a graduate student from ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands and currently works as an assistant designer of sustainable women’s clothing from Amsterdam, Vanilia. She took the materials from the sales of the designers’ stock and also from the fabric storage warehouse, then processed them and did not forget to give a touch of her design to be of higher value.
Van De Pavert said that the inspiration for the collection is her own behavior as a consumer. She was once a consumer who shop excessively and sometimes she is still driven by satisfaction to keep buying. During her studies in fashion design, she has learned how to appreciate good clothes through sewing, design and hopes to inspire behavior change through her exploration of textile waste. She hopes to be able to push for a change from one of the most challenging human problems of this era, namely excessive consumption.
She is one of the finalists of the 2017 Redress Design Award held on September 7 at Centerstage, Hong Kong, China and according to her the thing that inspires her the most is about how to confront herself as a former consumer who has learned to respect something timeless. For collections made for Redress design awards, She uses material that can be manipulated and changed so that it can create feelings and stories that never end. She also uses design techniques such as zero-waste, up-cycling, and reconstruction in the design.
Environmentally friendly design techniques that are carried out are to recycle and reconstruct various types of material. According to her, there are 3 things she has learned from the challenge, the first, she has discovered the world of sustainable fashion.
Before the Redress Design Award, she was not familiar with the concept of sustainability, so this was the most interesting aspect when developing the next collection. The second thing is the experience that makes her deal with herself as a designer and find the reason why she wants to become a designer. The third thing is to get an extraordinary experience because we can learn about approaches and other perspectives on the sustainability of all the other finalists at the redress design award.
Joelle Van De Pavert and Sustainable Fashion
Van De Pavert believes that sustainable fashion can move from a niche into mainstream in the fashion world when people have become more aware of sustainability so that in the end they can change their behavior. Everything must be done together to become mainstream.
In addition, she also argues that the biggest misconception about sustainability that it is for a particular group of people or exclusive. It’s rather boring and sounds like “old”. This is not true because there are more thing can be done with a variety of sustainable fashion design techniques. A designer can also be very creative because of various limitations.
Joelle Van De Pavert and her advice to the next generation
Van De Pavert advises the next generation of fashion designers to show the world what they can do with what they consider sustainable. Even if they don’t know much about the topic of sustainability, they have taken a big step. Just do it, she said that firmly.
The effort and work of Joelle Van De Pavert make us more aware of the importance of knowing the negative effects that the fast fashion industry has on the environment so that we as consumers can think twice what needs to choose when shopping.
