Sarah Mayhew Craddock meets a designer who is keen to promote ethical fashion collections

The fashion industry is famed for being cut-throat, but the warning, “You’d better watch your back,” has different and equally sinister tones when considering ethical fashion.

Just as the catwalks of Oxford Fashion Week 2015 were taken down, an exhibition was unveiled in Gloucester Green’s Old Fire Station, showing a beautiful, though sobering, side of the industry.

Ethical fashion covers a host of areas, but is ultimately about countering fast, cheap fashion and damaging patterns of fashion consumption.

People may glibly jokes about their latest “Primarni” purchase, but designers like Feng Ho quietly wince at the thought of the processes that make disposable fashion so accessible, from factory conditions and workers’ rights to toxic pesticides and chemical use.

You may recall the headlines when the eight-storey Rana Plaza factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed in April 2013, killing more than 1,000 and injuring another 2,500 people, mostly female garment workers.

These are the kind of circumstances award winning ethical fashion designer Feng Ho is trying to counter through the clothes she creates in Oxford.

Hand-crafted in her studio, her latest capsule wardrobe collection is being launched with the Old Fire Station exhibition.

Feng Ho has scoured the globe to ensure every last detail of her new range is created with fairtrade and sustainability in mind.

She uses eco-friendly bamboo fabric, fair trade cotton grown organically in India and woven in Kerala, chemically safe bamboo silk made in China and organically grown cotton thread from Egypt and spun in the Netherlands.

And it doesn’t stop there. Feng Ho uses natural, organic dyes such as madder and pomegranate, to colour fabrics and, for the first time, has employed the most environmentally friendly form of printing to make efficient use of water, meaning minimal amounts of chemicals are released into the environment. Digital printing.

Some say everything comes at a cost, but I was pleasantly surprised to find Feng Ho’s beautiful creations aren’t as expensive as one might imagine.

She is justifiably excited to launch her new range and the garments remain recognisable by Ho’s trademark architectural multi-panelling, yet mark a departure from previous designs. Simplified silhouettes and geometric patterns take on classic, easy-to-wear shapes that appear both flattering and functional in a soft palette of blues and creamy whites that sing of spring and make garments suitable for everyday wear.

Born of Malaysian and Singaporean parents and brought up in Oxford, Feng Ho brings elegant elements of both East and West to her designs, an aesthetic that can be identified in textile prints she created for this new collection. Feminine hand-drawn triangles, spots and dashes are digitally printed on to hand-loomed and cross-weaved fabrics.

She says: “I’ve created my very first digital printed textiles design. The digitally printed fabric is created using water-based pigment inks that do not require fabrics to be chemically pre-treated.” She goes on to describe the idiosyncrasies of such inks that, like the cloths she is working with, take on a personality of their own as the wash and rub fastness is not very strong, so patterns on the fabrics evolve as they are worn.

Describing working with woven fabrics, she says: “When I look at the cloth, I’m amazed that it’s been made by hand, rather than by machine. There are very slight imperfections that add a rustic charm to the cloth and also a unique element to the final garment.

Oxford Mail:
Top drawer buys: Garments in the new collection

“I’ve also been influenced to use woven fabrics through my experience of working with fairtrade garment producers, who are more familiar with sewing this type of textile, so I’ve adapted my designs to work with their skills.”

Imparting her knowledge, skills and passions on the next generation of young fashion designers, Feng Ho has been working on a project with students from City of Oxford College, who have responded to her work by creating a window display at Arts at Old Fire Station.

Vanessa Esposito, a tutor on the extended diploma in fashion at the college, said: “The fashion industry is a global giant and fashion designers can influence many ethical practices within this industry, so it is important that our fashion students are aware from early on how they are able to make a difference.”

Also on display at Arts at the Old Fire Station until March 25 is Re-fashioned, an exhibition of work by four established, early-career artists, Sally Richardson, Lucy Brown, Bill Jackson and Shelly Goldsmith, who use garments and textiles as a base for their work.

Of all of the exhibiting artists, not a single one is cut from the same cloth. They are all highly-individual, highly thought-provoking, and will make you watch your back in quite a different way.

Garments by Feng Ho
Old Fire Station
Until April 25
Visit fengho.co.uk