The Coats X GFF Sustainability Competition challenged GFF member graduates to create an upcycled garment where the stitching is a key feature. This could include the reworking of a singular garment or the piecing together of a number of garments to create something new & exciting where the stitching is seen as part of the outfit’s design on the outer side of the fabric/garment construction.
After much deliberation, industry judges for the Coats X GFF Sustainability Competition reached a decision on the UK and International winners! We’re pleased to share them with you today.
UK
Winner - Maddie Ryall - De Montfort University
2nd Fiona Cheung - De Montfort University
3rd Menna Evans - Cardiff Metropolitan University
International
Winner - Elisa Amo - Bunka Fashion College
2nd Akiho Ka - Osaka Institute of Fashion
3rd - Alore Niemi - College of Creative Studies, Detroit
Congratulations to Maddie and Elisa, as well as our runner up winners too. Below, you can check out Maddie and Elisa’s winning submissions.
Maddie Ryall - De Montfort University
“The title of my FMP collection is called ‘Ode to cool grannies”. When deciding the concept for this collection I looked more at myself and my life rather than anything else as I feel throughout my degree, I haven’t had a project or concept ever relate to me personally. So, I looked at who I am and why I am here and that took me back to my very own cool granny. My love for sewing came from her. We would always do it together as a hobby when I was younger, and I feel like my love for it has followed me ever since back then. I chose to do textiles for GCSE and continued on at college with a fashion and clothing BTEC course and here I am now, in my final few weeks as an undergraduate fashion design student. “
We also featured Maddie’s work as a GFF Talent this month, so to read more about her work, check out the feature here.
Elisa Amo - Bunka Fashion College
“Dedicated to my headstrong grandmother who taught us the meaning of art and family, this has been the most emotional and sentimental project I have ever worked on. When she passed away, she left behind the fabric she used for garment making. She would not waste a single inch of fabric, to the point that she left bags full of tiny kimono fabric scraps.
I wanted to keep her tradition by reattaching them with a technique called patch-working. I also wanted to recreate her landscape paintings by sublimating them to the lining. Since the day I started working on this project, I felt like she was next to me teaching me the importance of gratitude and the very meaning of ‘MOTTAINAI’ (”What a waste” in Japanese*).”
More about Coats
Coats has a wide range of sustainable and eco-friendly sewing threads, yarns, zips and trims. Coats EcoVerde is the first globally available 100% recycled line of premium corespun and textured sewing threads, delivering the same proven level of performance as the industry’s leading non-recycled threads.
Waste plastic is collected from various industrial and post-consumer sources. Used plastic (PET) bottles are a significant proportion and an example of how this works. These are collected, sorted, cleaned, ground to flakes and then melted down and extruded into the fibre and filaments from which EcoVerde sewing threads are made. Because it consists entirely of recycled plastic fibres, Coats EcoVerde has a significantly lower carbon footprint than virgin fibres. To ensure growth, now and in the future, it is important that we use resources efficiently and explore innovative solutions.