Design for life: On the ethical fashion mission with ETHIPOP

Paris might be the spiritual home of haute couture and catwalk fashion but it’s also popping with wonderful ethical designers who want to combine the city’s fashion heritage and artisanal sewing skills with helping the planet. There’s Lunetist who make vintage glasses into modern eyewear, Ypsylone who promote a feminist manifesto through their ethical fashion range and sustainable menswear brand Saudade Of Paris. ETHIPOP helps support them all, like a proud mother hen.

“Knowledge and craftsmanship is so important in Parisian fashion so things are moving forward,” explains Laura. “Many organisations and brands are starting to pop up, much more than last year, which is encouraging. Brown has worked in Parisian fashion for the last three years after studying at Institut Français de la Mode, but left her role at a department store to found ETHIPOP.

Earlier in March, ETHIPOP was invited by fashion brand KORINE AND UN WOMEN to organise an event to celebrate HeForShe’s first arts week in Paris, (HeForShe being the UN gender equality initiative spearheaded by Emma Watson). Laura brought together seven ethical brands to create a dance performance that looked at gender and equality in fashion called  ‘Art inspires, Fashion tells, Street Act’. Those brands included Ypsylone, Saudade of Paris, Darris, Eli Grita, Holostoria, The Recuperable. By Anaïs Dautais Warmel, Saudade Of Paris and Ypsylone. 

Laura is also working on a Summer of Love festival for later in the year and growing her workshops to empower ethical fashion designers in France. It’s all setting the scene for an ETHIPOP school, where creatives will be able to take programmes that teach and encourage entrepreneurship.