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Anna Rose: You're listening to Life Solved from the ºÚÁϳԹÏ. This series is full of groundbreaking new ideas as we hear from the ºÚÁϳԹÏresearchers we've caught in conversations on their lunch breaks. At Portsmouth, our scientists, researchers, theorists and academics are used to combining ideas from across different fields to come up with solutions to some of the biggest problems facing our world. Our love affair with fashion has lasted centuries, but given the pressures of modern society, how can we make sure clothes production meets a modern agenda?

Elaine Igoe: You know, we kind of see clothing as this sort of an inanimate object that just exists for us. You throw it on each day. And we may have a favourite shirt, we may have a favourite dress or a favourite pair of shoes. They wear out and we get rid of them.

Anna Rose: Today, Dr Elaine Igoe tells Emma Fields and John Worsey about the ºÚÁϳԹÏproject to reinvent our relationship with clothes and create sustainable fashion, too. And we hear from researchers across the university who are leading a conversation on how we can rethink economies, human rights and technology.

Rory Miles: I suddenly started to pick up other people in the university also really interested in bringing forward solutions and actually linking them together and having these interesting discussions on that space.

Elaine Igoe: PO1. Locals know it as the postcode for central Portsmouth. PO1 is also the name of Dr Elaine Igoe's project at the Fashion Textiles Material Features Research Group.

Elaine Igoe: We're working with local organisations looking at their waste issues and thinking about how we could use some of that waste in order to create ºÚÁϳԹÏmade, ºÚÁϳԹÏdesigned clothing – hence the label. So actually moving away from the idea of kind of the traditions of fashion trends more into the idea of developing clothing which we cherish and keep for a long time. We're aware of who's made it. It's a place-based social enterprise initiative which revolves around the idea of not only designing and producing sustainable products but also upskilling and educating the local community.

Anna Rose: The goal is to create clothes that are sustainable, fashionable, and that their users know where they came from and maybe even who made them.

Elaine Igoe: We want to kind of have sort of small capsule collections.

John Worsey: Yep.

Elaine Igoe: Which again, have been hopefully created again, because we want to support not only sustainable in terms of environment, but also people. So we want ethical production. So we're supporting upskilling, we're supporting education through the manufacture of these clothing and not just contributing to the huge, huge problem of waste created by fast fashion and the current fashion system.

Anna Rose: And fast fashion is a big problem. This industry generates more carbon than the flights and maritime shipping sectors together. Consumers are buying more clothes than ever before, but not keeping them as long. And all this adds up to a huge impact on our environment, not to mention the harmful social impact of some international production processes. Elaine explained how fashion students are challenging convention and sharing their skills with local producers with the aim of creating a thriving local industry.

Elaine Igoe: They're designing in a way that really demands of them a different way of thinking. So beyond just getting fabric off of the roll, which is a conventional way of approaching design. They're thinking about deconstructing products, rethinking the way that different materials have been used in the past, and putting them into new contexts in fashion and textiles. And also thinking about the products that they're designing, should have a connection to the consumer so that they're going to keep them for longer – they'll mend them.

Elaine Igoe: So the students are using this as a kind of challenge for them as designers. And ultimately we want to move towards the students becoming almost design consultants. So they create some designs which we then are hoping to develop some contacts with community groups and organisations to offer new skills within the local community of sustainable practises, sustainable manufacturing and design in the local community, whether that be the deconstruction, sewing skills, design skills, negotiation skills. And so that will also be educating the local community as consumers as well. So hopefully, by being brought in and being part of a discussion about reusing waste in order to make fashion and textile items, as consumers themselves, when they're making those choices about how to spend their money, they're making more informed choices as well.

Anna Rose: And thinking differently about how products are used isn't the only challenge.

Elaine Igoe: The idea of, yep, sending back your products, you know, there are huge businesses already doing that where you can return your item after you've had useful wear out of it, and then the company will be re-mending it and selling it or recycling it in some way. But that's kind of one kind of transition towards better futures in fashion textiles.

Elaine Igoe: You know, the-- some really innovative work is going into kind of new fibres and biomaterial and innovation at the scale of the fibre. I'm really thinking about that in terms of the circular economy, the whole life cycle of the garment from its moment of creation and who is making it and the ethical base for that through to the materials that it uses, the impact that it has on its life cycles, and wearing it and washing it. So we are seeing kind of youthful trends towards buying second-hand and vintage clothing. A lot of the work that we've done in support for the Fashion Revolution campaign here at the university has included things like clothes swaps, which are encouraging students and staff and the community to come in and swap their clothes for free. And often that results in some really nice conversations about where that person bought that item.

Elaine Igoe: We're also interested in making sure that designers are working upstream. So not just at the point of producing a product or dealing with a waste issue, but actually looking at practices earlier on. So, for example, are there ways that fashion brands or-- or, to be honest, kind of any sort of organisation really could use a designers eye to minimise waste and to really think about their kind of social impact if you like. But the actually remembering that material products, whether it's a car, a coat, a building, they're designed objects and often designers for a long time have been disconnected to the context, the impact that those products that we've been part of producing have in the world. And kind of reaffirming the designer's relationship to their products and making them have a bit of responsibility for the impact that those products have or those objects have in the world is really important. And-- and again, throughout the education here at the ºÚÁϳԹÏ, that's what we're trying to encourage them to remember.

John Worsey: Yeah.

Elaine Igoe: So, you know, it can feel very exciting to design this beautiful garment that looks amazing and makes the person feel great, but we have to remember we're designing something that goes beyond that feeling of making someone look or feel great. That this product exists off of their back as well, designed for that purpose as well, for that existence beyond just making someone look great. Yeah. Educating designers about their responsibility, their social and global impact is really important.

Anna Rose: Sustainability goes hand in hand with reducing the amount of waste that's actually being produced along the supply chain of an industry. But the success of all this depends on challenging buyers to embrace a new ethos.

Elaine Igoe: You know, this industry has to change because it can't continue operating the way that it does. Well, I think you kind of touch on that idea of how fashion is sold to us as well has to change. So you know that-- the idea of seasonal trends which come and go, that's become so compressed and such a quick turnaround. And we're seeing kind of high street brands with new product in their shops constantly. And online brands, particularly, don't have the cost of the retail store.

John Worsey: Yeah.

Elaine Igoe: With a really high turnover of new products and that just isn't-- is literally unsustainable.

John Worsey: Yeah.

Elaine Igoe: And I think also consumers have come to sort of a saturation point with that. The use of polyester and plastic-based fibre is enormous and has an enormous impact on the existence of microplastics within the marine environment through laundry. Actually, fashion has a huge part in exploring how we can reduce that environmental impact. So, yeah, we're kind of not scared to take on a bit of a challenge.

Anna Rose: Leila Choukroune is a Professor of International Law and director of the ºÚÁϳԹÏ's Democratic Citizenship theme. She told us how her focus can complement Elaine's work on the international level.

Leila Choukroune: As you know, Elaine is more of a designer. She's looking at how you make clothes really. And I'll be looking at the environment within which clothes are made. So for me, it was interesting to look based on the fieldwork I've done with many partners on the ground in India and Bangladesh and Pakistan, in Africa to a lesser extent, to look at how these clothes are made from a human rights and a legal perspective. And in doing that, we've come across a number of labour issues, labour violations, including the question of slavery.

Anna Rose: Where Elaine is interested in local production and upskilling to educate a community of fashion consumers, Leila's interest is in the human rights angle of textile and garment supply chains.

Leila Choukroune: In Bangladesh in India, a large sector