By Kat Sark
Roskilde Music Festival Tents, photo by OUR SHIFT
How do we change or innovate fashion in the age of a global climate crisis, when decoloniality, diversity, ethics, and inclusion are needed more than ever, and when making more fashion is harming the planet and people? According to the new slogan and the name of a fully upcycled fashion collection of the team behind the Copenhagen-based brand OUR SHIFT (comprised of creative director and designer Milan Florián Flíček, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Copenhagen and CEO Barbora Surá, a graduate of Copenhagen Business School), “Make less, thanks!” is the answer to many of the current challenges fashion faces. But their clever and provocative catchphrase is only the beginning of their brand and fashion culture. Unlike other brands, they actually walk the walk, instead of just talking the talk - i.e. they put conscious and deliberate actions into their fashion activism and creativity.
Their upcycled fabrics come from the tents left by the visitors of the annual Roskilde music festival that would normally end up in landfills or burned as waste, including the tent zippers and windows, washed and repurposed materials, reused and tailored into raincoats, jackets, pants, suits, and dresses, playfully and masterfully enhanced with deadstock fabrics mindfully sourced and creatively reimagined as functional, innovative, and stylish.
The beauty of making less, producing only on demand, upcycling, and coming up with creative and innovative solutions to challenges of responsible design, construction, material sourcing, and circularity is the first step in addressing the challenging future of fashion. Constantly pushing the creativity of upcycling, collaging, blending materials, textures, styles, and stories into new creations is their current answer to how to be creative, resourceful, mindful, respectful, circular, and ethical in this new fashion culture.
Their collaboration with Fashion Revolution Denmark, the “Good Clothes Fair Pay” campaign, and other collaborations with activists and initiatives (like stop burning clothes) in and beyond Denmark and EU is a testament of their values and commitment to change. Their mindful inclusivity is evident in their practices of research, knowledge mobilization, and creating interesting platforms for dialogue and education. They are changing not only the business models of fashion and creating new creative design templates, but also actively engaging with and promoting more diversity and decoloniality in fashion through the diversity of their models in terms of gender, race, size, and age inclusivity of their clothes, representations, and provocations.
Through their choice of venue - a wide open space at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) with lots of natural light, and a long, wide catwalk that ended in a circular atrium around a fountain, they were able to eliminate class-boundaries and set up the chairs for their audience so that everyone could have a front-row seat. Their egalitarian approach to fashion design practices, presentations, and collaborations is a template that young and aspiring designers can use and build on as a blueprint for innovating fashion as a business and as a culture.
And finally, educating larger audiences, consumers, producers, industry stakeholders, and different publics is another of their commitments to real change. Organizing and participating in panel discussion, consulting on innovation, and using their research backgrounds to make everyone think critically about fashion is another important part of their engagement.
The innovation and beauty of their clothes speaks for itself. Their designs range from practical raincoats and outerwear (ideal for rainy Copenhagen weather) and waterproof bags and accessories, to skillfully draped and sculpted festival couture that is not only one-of-a-kind in terms of originality of design and style, but also ethically upcycled from festival tents and waste materials that inspire thoughtful dialogue and creative provocations for a new generation. If you wear their avant-garde, sculptured and layered designs, and use their upcycled bags and accessories, you will be the coolest person not only at any music festivals, but also in everyday life.
How do we change or innovate fashion? OUR SHIFT created a successful, functional, and sustainable template to inspire others to follow in their steps and build on it to continue innovating and improving fashion through design, activism, and creativity.
OUR SHIFT:
Milan Florián Flíček
Barbora Surá
David Dienaar
Aleksandra Juc
Amanda Lindhard
Kamil Milc
Klara Khunova
Rodrigo Melo
Photos by Kat Sark