SUSTAINABILITY

Fashion is the core of SAFD’s work. But our fashion concept is not created from an understanding of rapid trends and the increased speed in the industry. On the contrary, our focus on fashion and clothing means an insistence that clothing should reflect the time we live in and be a mirror of the values, cultures and people we surround ourselves with. It’s not just clothing or textiles – it’s fashion. Therefore, maturity is at the heart of our way of educating designers; they must understand themselves and their work as part of a larger context that can not only help to rethink our relationship to clothing, consumption, materials, production, recycling and the body, but also overall can help to challenge our way of dressing us or our conversations about what is right or wrong. When creativity is coupled with craftsmanship and relevance, it enables designers to create quality products that make sense for both the planet and consumers.

At SAFD, we take our time. It is a basic principle that we do not just run after the latest trends or smart buzzwords if they do not make sense to our school, our teaching or our students. This means that we work hard to contextualize everything so that it hits the spot with our students. Likewise, we know that textiles have a huge imprint on both the planet and the people who produce them. Therefore, thoroughness and respect for materials is a crucial cornerstone of our teaching; we want to reduce waste, reuse as often as possible, rethink what can be done and go exploratory and thorough by asking the questions others forget on the go. We believe this provides a strong foundation for teaching our students the techniques and methods that are quite elementary in creating quality clothing. At SAFD, the focus is on the work of the hands, the work with and the creation of the fashion clothes themselves. That is why the teachers at SAFD are some of the fashion industry’s great profiles – especially when it comes to slow design, the great craftsmanship, the design and the respect for materials, people and the planet.

The fashion industry has been a co-creator of a consumer culture that has grown so massively that it gradually only contributes negatively to us and the planet’s development. The increased speed of fashion, the increasing number of collections and the speed with which new products are going to the stores has meant that the quality – both in the durability of materials, production, sewing, sales – has generally dropped significantly. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial that our teaching is based on quality. Because creating quality that lasts – for a long time – is one of the most important factors in lowering the negative impact of the fashion industry. That is why our teachers are professionals and designers with a deep knowledge of textiles, their composition and their possibilities and limitations. That is why our teaching is designed so that the students understand the scope of what it means to make quality fashion clothes – and so that they can be independent, creative forces themselves. Therefore, it is our perspective that luxury is not about price, but about thoroughness – that thorough, informed choices have been made in the creation of the clothing, the composition of materials and fit, that the clothing is created to be used and that it can last, preferably for a lifetime or more. That’s luxury. It’s quality. It is our cornerstone.

We have acted in a structured manner and have mapped out our most important areas of focus when it comes to working towards a sustainable future. We have done this because we want our efforts to make sense, but also to give us an overview that is both accessible and manageable in a busy day at a small educational institution. Therefore, we have divided our responsibilities into overall main categories, where each category has specified an overall direction as well as some of the goals we want to meet within the next few years.

The areas are:
Resources, Teaching, Partnerships and Publicity

SAFD is a smaller educational institution, but nevertheless it is crucial that we sweep our own door in our resource consumption. Therefore, we have looked in and set the following goals for how we can minimize our own footprint and the resources we derive as a result of our physical premises, our purchases, etc.

Teaching is the core at SAFD and is where our principles stand out most clearly. Through constant dialogue between students, teachers and management, we create a flexible space for development and learning. The teaching is organized on the basis of creativity, thoroughness and with a focus on craftsmanship. The teachers each contribute their approach to sustainability, which overall spans the entire value chain from material knowledge to design and recyclability. In this way, a broad knowledge is created as well as the opportunity for critical reflection under expert guidance.

SAFD is deeply connected to the Danish and European fashion industry, with other institutions and brands and companies employing our educated fashion designers. Therefore, partnerships are a crucial part in our continuous development. We actively seek to create partnerships with other educational institutions, knowledge partners and companies. Through partnerships, we develop our own competencies, contribute to the development of the industry, strengthen the sustainability agenda and ensure the transition from education to work.

SAFD is rooted in the Danish and international fashion industry. By hiring teachers with extensive experience and their own practice, students gain direct knowledge and concrete tasks and issues that reflect reality outside the school’s doors. At the same time, we as an educational institution must contribute to the conversations about the sustainable development of fashion and we must raise our voice and our efforts to create even more focus on how SAFD works to ensure that change. Therefore, we need to ensure more focus on public work so that we can set agendas that make sense. It can be through industry collaborations, attitude work and PR, social media, fashion shows and events or teaching the public in techniques that reflect a sustainable future and a care for the good quality.