Author: Timo Rissanen

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Fashion Praxis flag for lost workers

Sourcing Journal Online reports today on two fires, a garment factory in China and a textile factory in Bangladesh, that claimed the lives of six and three workers respectively. (The headline reports 11 deaths, however the source articles report six and three.) The Fashion Praxis Lab demands safe and just working conditions for everyone, everywhere, always. We hoped never to fly the flag since we began work on it in February, however upon reading the news this morning – during work on a book on labor, no less – we had to.

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Book-sprinting: fashion labor

The second book sprint by the Fashion Praxis Lab is onto its second day and we are engaging in fashion and labor. These are the six questions we are posing:

1. Who makes fashion? 
2. What labor is involved in attending to or using fashion?
3. What type of labor in fashion interests you? 
4. How is the labor of fashion made visible or invisible?
5. How do you see labor change or move? 
6. How does the labor of fashion feel as it is lived?
Feel free to respond in comments, or if in NYC, come and find us at The New School for a face to face conversation. We are in room B259 of 65 W11th Street until this Friday.
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Fashion Praxis at Sweat Equity

On Sunday March 6th, 2016, the New York Historical Society hosted the inaugural conference in honor of Jean Dubinsky Appleton, titled Sweat Equity: Women in the Garment Industry. The conference concluded with a panel from Parsons, moderated by Fashion Praxis member, Timo Rissanen. BFA Fashion Design senior Nora Maloney spoke of her thesis project, a collection of zero waste garments, developed with the support of her thesis instructors Lester Rodriguez and Jennifer Belton, and a fashion magazine focusing on sustainability. The magazine features interviews with Livia Firth and Andrew Morgan and work by fellow Parsons students. BFA Fashion Design junior Casey Barber discussed how participating in the Parsons Design Lab course, Design for Care, in fall 2015 is now informing her studies in her core courses, with a rich view of sustainability in fashion design. The panel finished by presenting the flag currently being made by Fashion Praxis – a flag we hope never to fly.