Frontline Fashion: Redress launches docu-series to shine spotlight on industry’s waste issue

Environmental charity Redress and TV director Lindsay Robertson have teamed up to launch the fourth season of Frontline Fashion, an award-winning YouTube docu-series following emerging fashion designers as they tackle one of the industry’s biggest issues: waste.

Set in Hong Kong, a hotbed for Asia’s ever-growing fashion industry, the five-episode series tracks the 10 finalists of the Redress Design Award in the days leading up to the grand finale of the sustainable fashion competition.

The series follows the designers, who hail from countries including the UK, Germany, Israel, Spain, Australia, India and Hong Kong, as they add the final touches on their waste-reducing collections, and prepare to show them in front of a tough panel of expert judges. Aside from preparing their collections, the finalists also gain invaluable insight from industry experts and leaders and get a glimpse of exciting innovations happening in mass manufacturing.

'We must use fashion as a force for good'

Christina Dean, founder and chair of Redress, commented: “We love fashion and the power it has to inspire. But today’s industry has lost its heart. Fashion contributes 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and we scarily watch on as its environmental impact sets to worsen. Frontline Fashion’s emotionally-engaging content delivers critical information - about the designers on the frontline fighting back to clean up fashion’s act - to consumers around the world. We must use fashion as a force for good.”

To add to the pressure, the finalists are tasked with creating a made-to-measure, up-cycled showstopper for second-time Frontline Fashion host and model Cara G McIlroy to wear at the Grand Final. McIlroy commented: “I am excited to be back as the host for another season of this game-changing series. Each cycle of the Redress Design Award gets bigger and bolder and it is inspiring to see these talented sustainable designers come together with a united mission.”

Canadian finalist, Abby Gaskin, said: “We don’t have time environmentally-speaking to consider why sustainable fashion is important. And it’s our responsibility to inspire other designers to design with the prospering of our planet in mind.”

The Redress Design Award 2020 is now open and accepting entries from up and coming fashion designers with less than four years of experience. Designers can also sign up for the new Circular Fashion Design Pathway Course before 19 February 2020. The course includes a four-part webinar series to support designers in their application process and finalists of the 2020 cycle will feature in Frontline Fashion 5.

Photo courtesy of Redress