Sustainable Fashion Week Atlanta hosts Conscious Couture Fashion Museum & Gallery for America Recycles Day – SaportaReport

Sustainable Fashion Week (SFW) Atlanta celebrated America Recycles Day on Saturday, Nov. 16, with its free event: Conscious Couture Fashion Museum and Gallery.

The purpose of the exhibit was to “educate visitors about the environmental and social impacts of the waste we incur and how we live on the planet, inspiring more eco-conscious choices,” according to Sustainable Fashion Week Atlanta. 

The free eco-conscious fashion event ran all day Saturday; programming included a community closet, a clothing repair station, a documentary screening, a panel about sustainable fashion, and a Recycle Runway museum exhibit from artist Nancy Judd, who creates clothing pieces from trash to emphasize conservation education.

SFW Atlanta is a multi-day event that highlights sustainable designers and brands who are committed to eco-friendly practices. Tanjuria Willis, founder and creator of SFW Atlanta, founded SFW Atlanta in October of 2021 with the goal of bringing awareness to how textile waste from fast fashion is one of the largest pollutants in landfills. 

She said that after doing some research, she came to realize a lot of landfills were adjacent to Black and Brown communities or other underserved communities. What’s more, overall, environmental issues were exacerbated by the industry.

“I felt that the conversation on fashion was so superficial that people were not connecting the dots to the toxicity of it,” Willis said. “Especially with fast fashion and cheaply made clothing. We weren’t addressing things like the chemicals in the processing and how that’s causing some of our health concerns that we see today.”

In the last few years, Willis said, she’s seen the beginnings of a shift in the fashion industry, with events like clothing swaps or thrifting clothes becoming more popularized.

“I’m really happy with my young people getting into thrifting — I wish more people would do it,” Willis said, “To me, it is the epitome of creativity: to take something and recreate something… that’s true authenticity, that’s a one of a one because you probably won’t have that shirt again, you probably won’t have those two pieces put together. So that creativity excites me and gives me hope.”

Willis hopes that in another two to three years, the conversation will broaden to include not only fashion but also how the industry reaches beyond that.

“It’s not just about the fashion; you’ve got manufacturing, you’ve got water contamination, you’ve got chemicals in the environment, you’ve got the energy [demand], you’ve got the microplastics in the ocean. It’s a whole conversation,” Willis said. “My hope is that not only consumers start to have that conversation, but companies start to have that conversation… the fashion [industry] connects the dots to all of those other pieces.”

According to the World Resources Institute, cited by the Geneva Environment Network, fast fashion is the second-biggest consumer of water, “responsible for 2-8 percent of global carbon emissions”. Moreover, 85 percent of all textiles are thrown away and end up in dumps. One-fifth of industrial wastewater pollution can be traced back to the industry, too, which is especially important when you contextualize that more than half (60 percent) of the materials used in the industry are derived from plastic production, meaning both the emissions from producing plastic and the microplastics that are being found in our bloodstreams and waterways are being exacerbated by the industry. 

Sustainable Connections 

With the fashion industry’s waste being such an interconnected global problem, it only makes sense the solutions come from that same spirit of global, interconnected sustainability.

Jacob Veerman, Dutch Consul General in Atlanta, said the consulate has a focus on facilitating business between Dutch companies wanting to do business in Atlanta and, vice versa, American companies who want to do business in the Netherlands. 

An underlying focus to doing successful business in either place, he said, is a company’s commitment to sustainability and social justice.

“This connects us to the sustainable fashion focus,” Veerman said. “From my past, when I worked with the Asia Development Bank in Asia, I saw with my own eyes how fashion — traditional fashion [industry] — is affecting the environment and is affecting the people who work in the fashion industry.” 

In some cases, Veerman added, he saw child labor as being exacerbated by the fast fashion industry. 

Veerman said he hopes to offer the Dutch sustainable fashion network to brands in Atlanta and hopes that knowledge sharing between the two can lead to positive change in the fashion industry.

Jacob’s spouse, Petra Veerman, is also working to ensure that both the Netherlands and Atlanta can learn from one another. She is working with Tanjuria Willis to facilitate a visit for Atlanta designers — though open to anyone — to visit the Netherlands this upcoming May and learn from sustainable designers there.

“I really believe in [Willis’] vision, and we’re looking to see if we can find collaborations between the people here and the Netherlands,” Petra Veerman said.

One of the biggest differences between the Netherlands and Atlanta that Petra Veerman said she has seen is the sustainable angle being more company-driven in Europe, while the movement is largely people-driven here in the States. She’s hoping continued collaboration can shift Atlanta towards being more company-driven. 

“The big challenge is creating awareness,” said Jacob Veerman, “A lot of people who buy fashion just don’t know, so creating this awareness can hopefully push them to be more critical in what they want to buy.”

SFW Atlanta is now the permanent owner of Nancy Judd’s couture collection. Willis said that they are currently looking for a permanent location for SFW Atlanta to both house the collection with a proper museum experience and to serve as a home base for SFW Atlanta for workshops and community engagement — everything from runway shows to community repair cafes and monthly marketplaces.

For now, though, it’s full steam ahead for SFW Atlanta. They are already looking ahead to SFW Atlanta’s premier event, aptly named Atlanta Sustainable Fashion Week, which will take place over multiple days in the Fall of 2025.

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