Cop26: Meet nine fashion designers making real change

From upcycling to educating, Fashion Open Studio has enlisted nine pioneering designers for a series of online workshops to mark the United Nation Climate Change Conference

Is it actually possible to reduce the fashion industry’s impact on the environment? Nine pioneering designers from five continents are showing that it is. Masterminding a series of solutions to some of the challenges facing their own communities, they demonstrate what we can learn from local indigenous knowledge and how to work within the limits of our natural resources.

In the lead up to Cop26, the designers were asked to respond to the climate change talks’ themes of adaptation, resilience and nature for a series of online workshops created by Fashion Open Studio (the initiative set up by Fashion Revolution) in partnership with the British Council. If you happen to be in Glasgow between November 4 to 11, you can take part in workshop events around the city, or to watch previous events and find out about upcoming workshops online, check out fashionopenstudio.com/events. In the meantime, here are the nine names to know:

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How Kamala Harris made wearing pearls cool

As the pearl’s standing increases with that of women, a progressive new generation is reimagining Margaret Thatcher’s one-time trademark

The pearl, insignia of traditional femininity and conservative values, has swung to the left, becoming the badge of the US’s new Democrat establishment. Kamala Harris, the vice-president, has made pearl necklaces her trademark, teaming them on the campaign trail with Converse trainers rather than twinsets. At last month’s inauguration, Jill Biden’s dress had a pearl-embroidered collar, while Jennifer Lopez performed wearing cuffs of Chanel pearls on both wrists. A Facebook group encouraging women around the US to wear pearls on the day to honour Harris’s accomplishments drew a membership of 350,000. The poet Amanda Gorman, star of the ceremony, continued the trend by wearing a crown of pearls for her appearance at the Super Bowl this week.

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