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Pitch

Impact Fashion Week (IFW) encourages students to set a new paradigm for interdisciplinary design, equity, and climate solutions.


Description

Summary

Impact Fashion Week (IFW) is encouraging youth & emerging designers to use sustainable materials & invest in labor rights initiatives. We are campaigning to spread awareness w/ emerging collegiate designers about responsible sourcing and conscious consumption, especially those from/reinvesting in frontline communities. Through IFW we’re able to reinvest proceeds into grassroots eco-justice organizations/initiatives.

There is a disconnect between the value proposition of reinvesting into sustainable communities. Sustainable economic development starts locally with young people, especially new designers. Just like the #farmtotable movement for food, the #fieldtocloset movement for (fashion) design has an enormous effect on sustainable communities whether that means self-sufficiency of farmers, or women & families. If we can identify better ways to reinvest in our friends and family, with a cooperative mindset, we can all succeed.

Solution:

We need a single campaign w/ direct-to-consumer engagement that non-profits, businesses, & individuals can invest in. Promoting fashion impact investors, and CSR initiatives w/i the design industry is important to the sustaining of local economies.
During Impact Fashion Week, we’ve had panel/roundtable discussions, interviews, and fashion shows/showcases. We must develop an international Sustainable Design Coalition that supports, unites, & reinvests in eco-justice initiatives, as well as co-develops multi-stakeholder solutions for interdisciplinary education & design.

Community:

We are the first grassroots, international, Ethical Fashion Initiative to promote UN Sustainable Development Goals while sourcing fashion concurrently with bioregional development within same continent. We advocate for sustainability and equity in manufacturing. 

We promoted a fashion designer from an underserved community when her collection showed in New York Fashion Week's #PlusisMore campaign.


What actions do you propose?

Short-term future:

We need members and more fashion founders and impact investors!

We want to begin hosting Impact Fashion Week in different regions, & launch an interdisciplinary campaign!

We'll host a girls coding camp, debut a collection, + promote the DC Fashion Tech Lab as a community network/resource.

Long-Term future:

IFW will recruit a collegiate working group to host Impact Fashion Week at different campuses.

We will also launch an interdisciplinary sustainable fashion and coding camp to teach girls about sustainable fashion & wearable tech.

We have a growing list of innovative fashion/climate/labor campaigns, sourcing services, makerspaces, & certifiers, and we have recommendations for how to develop collaborative/affordable membership opportunities and a web sourcing technology through app development to support sustainable sourcing, lean startup development, transparency, philanthropy, a national campaign, and a design coalition.

We're promoting two web apps and one sourcing app.
One that focuses on engagement and enrolling youth leaders into a committed Fashion Influencer community such as Stargazer.
A reincarnation of the Nike Plus/Fit app that engages youth to engage in sourcing, learning about their fitness and volunteer activities, and their fashion preferences including questions about comfort fabrics and price ranges.
Developing a scholarship program for brand ambassadors who do the most work in community building (a REAL LIFE/GENUINE form of what is professionally called "public engagement") would do the trick of engaging customers while learning about niche industries.

We're also promoting a wearable tech element. We have inspiration including a collection design for Washington Mystics inspired by the wearable tech scene, textile prints inspired by the the Hubble Telescope using eco-dyes, and biomimicry.
By attending the National Maker Tech Faire at my school this Father's Day, I connected with a bunch of fashion/tech companies and wearable tech facilities in one fell swoop, and immediately after attending a networking event sponsored by members of both the SOCAP community and the fair trade/performing arts/A/V tech community.

We hold meetings on Sunday and celebrate the intentional community that brought us together. We cconstantly work harder to cometogether and build real friendships away from the Maker Tech Faire, the silicon valley of the SouthEast, and all the things that unite us, but are equally separate and deserving of equal focus, passion, and unity.

One documentary that inspires our lead designer discusses neurology and locating the "soul" and seemingly equates soul with "imagination." Which is a proper description of the Sanctuaries community which also has a mixtape inspired by this sense of interfaith unity.

We have a Sundown event equivalent to a professional display mixed in with semi-professional open mic. It's spiritually interesting and emotionally cognitive enough to unite changemakers and students alike along one clean line, similar to Oprah who hosts "Super Soul Sundays." The lead designer of our fashion/tech scene enjoys the comparison, because her bestie is a farmworker named Gail who will be promoted through portraiture in our SOCAP event.

Support MY Project because...

We are developing an entire coalition with real fundraising opportunities. We are not supporting/promoting just one project as the end-all-be-all of climate change reduction.
Mosts projects will require ongoing support, we have already piloted an event series as well as considered tech-integrated approaches such as map app development and a website canvas to supporting climate leaders that will provide ongoing residual financing if feasible to work on.

In order to move forward, I want MIT to

  • Sponsor an Impact Fashion Project at your school.

  • Provide technology-integrated support through web development.

  • Sponsor our girls coding camp. We need materials for STEAM education and development of our first wearable tech fashion collection. 

By taking these steps,

  • Impact Fashion Week will become a regular model of open-ended discussion, cross-pollination of issues and solutions that includes fundraising events for actual real-world climate change causes.

  • By starting a coalition, you will be committing to implementing results-oriented problem-solving, and working with interdisciplinary leaders in fashion, sustainability, and tech.
    Whether financing new textiles or new technology, we must provide incentives for designers to use them. With a multi-stakeholder coalition of certifiers, we can combine patented resources in a web infrastructure and encourage underserved designers to use for integrated solutions.

  • Sponsoring our girls coding camp will enable an underserved community to be more familiar with opportunities at the intersection of manufacturing innovation, fashion and sustainability. 

What Else?:

We also need more members! We need other universities to host Impact Fashion Week events w/ the IFW coalition.

Well-known ngos we want to engage, copromote & see sponsor/partner with us include Fashion Revolution Day,  Ethical Fashion Initiative, DoSomething.org, Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, EcoHermanas, Parley for the Oceans, the Hemp Industries Association, the New Economy Coalition, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, G-Star Raw, Nike, Adidas, H&M.

Here'sa  slew of makers/designers that INSPIRE our lead design/fashion-tech professional:
Leah Bueschley - Please sponsor my work with a SewElectric textbook and AdaFruit conductive thread, leds, and micromachinery!
Lea Borromeo - Please sponsor my event. She is The Other Me, having worked ahead of time to produce film on the issues of trading cotton instead of hemp.
Lea Goldman - Please sponsor my event! You are The Anna Wintour "Other Me."

The fellow black female "other mes" blend textile production, materials resourcing, and fashion: Maddey Maxey and Project Runway winner, Dominique Streater.

I'm equally and passionate and dedicated and would like to see proper delegation of a committed coalition of fashion tech evangelists who never stop making positive change.

Email ethicaldistrict@gmail.com if your organization or school would like to be a sponsor/partner.


Who will take these actions?

We need global leaders and climate change reductionists in national non-profits, and economies of scale to co-sponsor our events.

Members of: Impact Fashion's Media and Design squad, local collectives, and local universities; some working out of TechShop Arlington, others working from screenprinting studios and lazer-cutting facilities including feminist hackerspace networking events.

We will design partnerships and execute projects in the hopes to support designers, and connect them with buyers starting with North, Central, and South America to develop closed-loop systems, and a fashion-conscious marketing system that ignites a change in storytelling, user-interaction, and design infrastructure.

We engage end users with respect for Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, and expect to keep designing a whole-systems approach.

We're connecting the business of fashion to environmental health and the general beauty and consumer products industry through targeted conscious living events promoting research initiatives of the Environmental Defense Fund.

We're promoting anti-oxidant-rich agro-solutions such as hemp which supports environmentally-conscious, closed loop solutions in the greater American continent. 

We have a very deep repertoire for promoting solutions-oriented events that draw upon community involvement, community-building, and discussing important topics in environmental justice and climate change mitigation. From Rural Coalition to TechShop Arlington, we're creating a serious commitment to profiling impact investors in this community by continuously networking with grassroots efforts that have ignited change in our international ImpactHub, StartingBloc, and SOCAP community.

But we still have so much more work to do that requires an artistic effort from the creative community.

This IS the fashion week of the FUTURE!
We will continue to hold networking/fundraising events and study the use of agriculture in climate science and a materials revolution.


Where will these actions be taken?

Starting in the US and the larger American continent, we will sponsor climate change-related fashion events. American includes North, Central, and South American countries, so Made in America should be promoted to properly address systematic oppression, hemp development, and the relationship between polyester, recycled plastics, bioplastics, agriculture, carcinogens and health.

Latino-Americans, Native Americans, Black Native Americans, Caribbean-Americans, and the entire African Diasporan tend to be unprolific in delivering climate solutions and we believe including them in the discussion is important.

If possible, we will develop a #neweconomy working group for Sustainable Design.This working group will include a fashion committee, a building materials committee, and a permaculture design committee. 

We will apply to send members of our organizing committee to climate negotiations, and community sustainability events.

 

WE have worked with people over the ENTIRE American continent and believe our work is equivalent to the work of the Ethical Fashion Initiative as a 100% grassroots underpaid effort that deserves recognition by the International Trade Commission. 

We've already lobbied and developed farmworker justice legislation on Capitol Hill and need further support to keep lobbying.


We will continue to expand and build outward to deepen our commitment to support others including "Look at those STEMs" as a title in mind for a STEM-focused fashion event meant to support fundraising fashion, tech, and materials leadership.
 


What are other key benefits?

We have made significant change on little to no budget.

Our budgetary constraints are like that of a tiny non-profit startup created by someone with a full-time job and volunteers who regularly engage in climate panel discussions and riverkeeping organizations as anti-pollution advocates.

We have only promoted by representing marginalized  communities and we will continue to support intersectional feminism and resistance to the stats quo.

That's the only reason you've never heard of us before, we are a revolution that has not been televised.

Currently supporting local efforts in cooperative purchasing building alliances with local grocery stores for our upcoming fashion show.

We collaborate indirectly with cooperative development in Africa and are interested in supporting like-minded initiatives for shea butter and hemp clothing in Uganda and South Africa.

As impact investors the story continues w/ every textile sample, we're getting closer to launching our collection.
 


What are the proposal’s costs?

$50,000 for a huge climate and social justice fundraising event including performances by native youth and professional hip-hop climate warriors, sponsored by innovative manufacturing design organizations.

$12,000 for the an inter-generational hip-hop community climate panel in the form of a TedxTalk inviting Pharell, Michelle Obama, and indigenous performers of UN climate negotiations to speak, converse about international trade agreements, hemp development, energy divestment, and innovative problem-solving. We're dedicated to including a diverse representation of ethnicities and climate reduction and ethnic eco-justice principles.

Every year we will kidnap a UN country's fashion week, starting next year, and make it our own! So-called sustainable fashion has been stealing from native and frontline communities for years, climate change affects frontline communities worse due to lower air quality, keystone oil pipelines, fracking, discrimination and worst of all, corporate greed.

WE Need Funding For OUR REVOLUTION!

We will support fair trade companies to ignite a semi-annual climate negotiation.

By collaborating performing arts professionals and members of the local DC impact investing community including Sanctuaries as well as the maker/tech community we will make our impact investing element central to the organization.

Organizing with Peace Corps, Shea Butter coop advisors, and national image and styling companies we will make our style global.

We are currently unmatched by any other proposal, no other has as many frontline communities already developing canvassing schemes to sell sustainable products and fundraise for change.


Time line

1-2 Years:
Develop web interfacing, wearables, maker installations, build your own 3D printer workshops. Promote bioplastic filaments made from algae by 3D printing professionals.

Hold Fashion, Tech meets Health event series across the region.

Do tech-integrated installations using local collegiate design collectives to design web interface and installation decor including makerbot technology, lazer-cutting, featuring wearable technology.

5 Years: By 2020

Send me to a COP23 Climate Negotiation.

Hold Impact Fashion Week at your school.

Expand across the region to New York City.

35 Years: By 2050

I am currently a cooperative procurement officer and I am supporting individual changes within world-renown sustainable businesses to reinvest in youth climate justice advocates in underserved communities.


Related proposals

This campaign is fueled by people-power. At the level of schools and community organizations, the grassroots plan described here is already underway.  See Make Climate A Top Priority for Action by Every US Citizen and Organization.

The mobilization adopts the strategy described in Award-winning CoLab proposal "Unleash the energy of millions by making climate action simple, relevant and fun" (2015).

A concert is a form of mass-media that galvanizes purchasing power, "can produce relatively rapid results" and appeals to all. It is the best way to fundraise for the global climate movement in a way that "unleashes the energy of millions to make climate action simple, relevant, and fun."

This is grassroots campaigning and celebration supporting youth climate advocates requiring in-kind support.


I mentioned proposals because I'm inclusive, but I am a designer and systems-thinker developing an inter-generational community
I support UN Sustainable Development Goals.
 

 

 

 


References

We are a high impact high ambition coalition!
We are headquartered in the nation's capital and are inherently dedicated to resourcing progressive leaders and artisans who are progressive supporters of lobbying activities and international infrastructure.

We support family and cooperatives.

We agree with sustainable reinvestment into developing countries' climate mitigation funding.

We are responsible for resolving problems in developed nations, increasing our divestment from fossil fuels, and increasing our efforts in local economic development in agriculture and design.

Developing countries have the responsibility to prevent themselves from following the same path and MUST invest in climate change-reducing infrastructure and climate mitigation technologies WITH the help of developed countries.

We are in negotiations with members of the Presidential Advisory committee for Investment in Africa and Echoing Green Fellows. We received recognition from the Earth Island Institute and plan to reinvest in their New Leaders Initiative.