In 2019, Eco-Age began working on a project to develop a sustainable ecosystem for Armenia’s fashion and textile industry. The project, funded by the UK’s Good Governance Fund, and in partnership with Fashion Design Chamber of Armenia, explores opportunities for embedding circularity principles across the industry. The project involves a series of workshops organized by Eco-Age to facilitate collaboration and knowledge-sharing between experienced designers in the global sustainability space and Armenian textile actors. Supported by UK's Good Governance Fund, the project ran from 2019 until March of 2021. Recent workshops have featured designers, Bethany Williams, Flavia LaRocca, and Matteo Ward, who shared their personal experiences in sustainable design development, as well as entry points for embedding circularity principles across the industry. Such opportunities for exploration include raw material sourcing, capacity building for designers, and options for establishing a national textile recycling facility.

The Armenian garment production sector's value has risen by 23% from 2018 to 2019, indicating the potential to expand the industry's economic development, as well as that of the nation. If the contemporary globalized textile industry is to meaningfully progress toward a circular economy, then collaboration and knowledge-sharing opportunities must be facilitated at an equally global level.

Eco-Age and the Fashion and Design Chamber of Armenia (FDC) have embarked on a year-long project to help spur the development of Armenia's sustainable textile industry. In recognition of the garment production sector's recent growth, the Armenian government views expansion of the industry as a means of promoting the country's broader economic development. Eco-Age organized a series of events for key players in Armenia's fashion industry beginning in 2019 with a workshop, Basics of Sustainability, for Armenian manufacturers, and a training session on Responsible Materials and Key Certifications led by Eco-Age's Charlotte Turner. During the project's February 5th, 2021 workshop, British and Italian designers Bethany Williams, Flavia LaRocca, and Matteo Ward shared opportunities for embedding sustainability values into business based on their own experiences in the field. Each of the designers emphasized the significance of fashion design's role from the local community level to the greater global supply chain.

UK-based menswear designer, Bethany Williams, has worked with screen-printed recycled materials sourced from unconventional partners like toy manufacturers. Using fashion design as a socio-political tool, she promotes change in communities suffering from a lack of economic inclusion and/or stability. Willams had partnered with various charities to produce her up-cycled collections that are embedded with stories of the real people and communities behind the fabrics. A percentage of clothing sales are donated to the respective charities. The designer has also worked with female prisoners and the San Patrignano drug and alcohol rehabilitation community in Italy in the making of her Women of Change collection — crafted from deadstock yarns donated by Italian mills. At the Eco-Age-FDC workshop, Williams highlighted fashion as a vehicle for bringing on positive social change at the community-level. She spoke also on the opportunity that reliance on up-cycled materials creates for designers and how use of such materials ensures the uniqueness of each collection.

Flavia La Rocca's brand, DNA, centers modularity with its interchangeable and versatile pieces that can transform into tops, skirts, bags, bandeaus, etc. allowing customers to create wardrobes out of less. La Rocca retails directly to her customers, which enables a more convenient take-back system. At the Eco-Age-FDC workshop La Rocca emphasized sustainability's significance beyond materiality, noting the importance of fostering new ways of thinking, designing, producing, selling, and consuming that are capable of prioritizing people and planet. The designer also added that both brand marketing and material details are valuable communication tools for reaching the global community.

Matteo Ward, founder of WRAD, has developed non-toxic methods of treating clothing via technological innovation. He has utilized mineral dyes made from up-cycled bricks and graphite powder — two waste materials produced by tech companies. Ward spoke of the need for a systems-level shift, emphasizing the significance of design innovation that both challenges the status quo and helps to address humanity's true needs.

The Eco-Age-FDC workshops have fostered new connections between textile actors around the globe, enhancing collaboration and knowledge-sharing opportunities on circular principles and implementation across the fashion industry.

Photo credit: Bethany Williams, eco-age.com

Left image: recycled material screen printed with illustrations, and attached collars and pockets made of waste ribbon sourced from a toy manufacturer

Right image: garment made from deadstock yarns interwoven with waste ribbon