Fashion goes green – film premiere
SUSTAINABILITY – ENVIRONMENT – SLOW FASHION – INNOVATION – TRADITION
This documentary film examines the cultural heritage of Brno’s textile industry and shows how history blends into the present; how this heritage reveals itself in the contemporary city and its new textile projects. Who are the people creating textiles in Brno today? Where is the industry heading? Does Brno have a future as a textile city? Does its impact extend beyond the city limits? Is this just a local scene or are there potential openings beyond our region and country? In what respects is South Moravia rich and unique? The main driving idea of the film is that Brno and the South Moravia region have gone further than might appear at first glance; we discover that we form part of something that is new, and relevant at a European level.
The main thread of the storyline is: history – tradition – innovation – sustainability.
This is the first in a series of documentaries in which we not only narrate the chronological history of the textile culture in Moravian Manchester ¬– there are TV shows that have done that already – but, taking history as our starting point, we take our investigations to the next level: we capture at work the unique personalities behind some of South Moravia’s best projects, the people who push the boundaries of the textile Brno. We examine the complexities of their technical and artistic skills; their experiences; their personal statements expressed in projects that are full of love for textiles, drawing on their roots but shifting their vision towards the future, towards circular design. In brief, from one episode to the next we investigate the DNA of tradition and the innovation taking place in slow fashion in South Moravia – a unique case in our country. Importantly, the documentary seeks evolutionary parallels in textile industries and developing textile traditions between South Moravia and locales abroad that have a similar heritage and, in certain respects, shared textile traditions with Brno. We focus on Chemnitz and Leipzig – similarly to Brno dubbed a Saxon Manchester – where development and innovation in the textile industries survive to the present day.
Developing the main concepts – environment, innovation and tradition, in other words, sustainability and the textile DNA of the city of Brno – does not depend solely on exclusive interviews; we draw on the historic records of German textile factories in Brno, contemporary textile factories and sewing workshops, fashion shows and new projects and hubs in Czechia and Germany. We feature the work of Nadace Veronica, a foundation whose public education remit involves garment projects and collaboration with students of fashion, and studies of the new roles of contemporary fashion designers, examining their new responsibilities. Contemporary Brno is reflected in its new, sustainable textile projects: Brno šije, a local slow fashion project; a new course in ecotextile design at the Secondary School of Art and Design based on the principles of sustainable fashion, the only one of its kind in Europe; new approaches to educating future designers; and the Czech branch of the Fashion Revolution. The final piece to the mosaic shows how new generations ought to be educated in circular design.
In collaboration with the organization Noční motýl, Moravian Gallery in Brno, Grassi Museum in Leipsic and financially supported by the Czech-German Fund.
The film will be in Czech language with English subtitles.
Tickets for 100 CZK available at venue half an hour before.
