This week in fashion news from around the world; model Halima Aden quits the fashion industry, Balenciaga made a video game to showcase its fall 2021 collection, and more.
Halima Aden Quits Fashion Industry.
Halima Aden, a trailblazing Somali American model, has said she will step back from the fashion industry as it has forced her to stray away from her religious beliefs. The 23-year-old who was one of the first to wear a hijab on the catwalk took to her Instagram Stories to share occasions where she could not be herself.
She shared occasions where she had to miss prayer times or wear another item in place of a hijab for photoshoots or fashion shows. The model explained how being at home during the lockdown with her family led her to realise that she can no longer work in the fashion industry.
“I can only blame myself for caring more about opportunity than what was actually at stake,” she wrote, highlighting the struggle she faced being a Black Muslim woman in the modelling industry.
In her posts, Aden praised designers like Rihanna for letting her model with her hijab and condemned those who convinced her to wear pairs of means on her head in place of her hijab.
“I had to make those mistakes to be the role model you can trust,” Aden wrote to her followers. “Remember, I had no one before me paving the way so mistakes are part of the learning experience. I did good, but that isn’t enough. We gotta have these conversations in order to change the system truly.”
Biologists at Univerity of York to Turn Waste into Fashion.
Biologists at the Univesity of York are working on a project to turn household waste, crops, and old fabrics into greener textiles for the fashion industry. In collaboration with the Royal College of Art, this £5.4m project is working to make the heavily-polluted fashion industry more environmentally-friendly.
Prof. Simon McQueen-Mason, of the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, said the fashion sector in the UK is worthy £32bn a year but most clothing and almost all textile and yarn is imported. This project is working to change that.
“The clothing and fashion sector is currently one of the most polluting, responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewater,” he said. “Our approach will dramatically reduce the carbon emissions and wastewater from textile production. As a result, it will create a more secure domestic supply chain”.
The new materials will be created by scientists in laboratories in York who will break down old textiles, household waste, and crop residues into simple sugars using enzymes. These sugars will then be converted to cellulose and spun to create new textiles.
This fabric will then be made into clothes designed by students at the Royal College of Art.
Megan Thee Stallion Denies Claims of Using Stolen Designs for Fashion Nova Collection
Four-time Grammy-nominated rapper Megan Thee Stallion has addressed claims made by a designer that said she used stolen designs for her debut Fashion Nova Collection.
The designer, named Aazhia, took to Instagram last week saying the rapper used her unique TLZ L’Femme dress design to create the Chase the Bag Shoulder Pad Mini Dress for the new collection. The rapper, who is an advocate for protecting Black women addressed the issue in a Morning Hustle interview on Tuesday.
“A lot of times, people say that they talked to somebody from my team. I don’t know what year that was, I don’t know who, what are you talking about? And a lot of times, they won’t even bring me, they don’t tell me who they talking to,” Meg said in the interview. “If I’ve probably never heard of you. Like, I’ve never seen that dress before. But it’s been a dress that has been done a lot, like over the years. So I feel bad that people’s initial reaction would be to just come at me like, ‘Oh, you a Black woman! You’re stealing from Black women!’ And I’m like, ‘Damn, hold on, sis, ’cause like I don’t know you.'”
However, Megan said she would have had no problem addressing the issues if there had been a real misunderstanding.
Balenciaga Makes Video Game to Debut its next Clothing Collection.
On December 6th, luxury fashion company Balenciaga will debut its next clothing collection in a video game. The game named ‘Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow’ is an “allegorical adventure” set in the year 2031, in which “a hero avatar advances throughout distinct zones, motivated by tasks and interactions.”
“A theme of Balenciaga fall 2021 is human destiny, as seen by an interactive, gamified journey,” the house said. “The world may appear to be decaying at first, but it is far from a dystopian view, showing instead the slow return to a healthier balance of nature and industry.”
Shrewd and nimble players can transcend the “Afterworld” by winning the game. The reward?
“A real-life breathing exercise set in a virtual utopia. In the end, the hero has finally become (as it is referred to in Hero’s Journey analysis) a ‘Master of Two Worlds’,” Balenciaga said, apparently alluding to studies of archetypal heroes by the late American academic Joseph Campbell.
Regardless of the plot, the main focus of the game is the brand’s fall 2021 collection. For their pre-collection, Balenciaga tried to imagine what fashion might be like in 2030 in a conceptual way, and this idea was carried into what the game displays.
PresentedBy Footwear Brand to Expand to Dubai.
London-founded sneaker and streetwear reselling concept store, PresentBy is set to make its debut at Dubai Mall within Level Shoes.
The store will provide both old and new fans of the brand with a unique experience at the luxurious footwear and accessories department store in UAE. The brand which aims to provide premium reselling and consignment experience to customers who wish to score the most exclusive streetwear items long after a drop has been made is set to make the move in early December.
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