I met third year fashion comms student Olivia (Liv – as she prefers to be called) Rhind in the Italian pizzeria Morelli Zorelli on Western Road in Hove, it seemed like an odd choice with traditional Italian music blaring through the speaker and the smell of freshly made pizza wafting through the tiny restaurant, but nothing is conventional about Liv. The embodiment of cool girl, she was wearing an oversized blue shirt with grey trousers and a white lace scrunchie almost the size of her head, hair slicked back into a bun. Her love for fashion started at a young age as most passions in life seem to do and she credits her father with encouraging her to experiment with style “I had a little sketch book that I used to draw designs in”.
Fast forward to present day and on the precipice of graduation Liv has a clearer idea of where she wants to forge her career within the industry “I want to go into social media and marketing for a clothing company as well as styling”. She reflected that it was her recent “dissertation on sustainability and fast fashion” that ignited that interest in brand building in an ethical and holistic way. Climate Change awareness is inescapable in our society today, with the rise of fast fashion in the last 10 years and increased accessibility. “The fashion industry is the second biggest polluter and people are recognising it now and a lot of big brands are recognising how bad the fashion industry is when it comes to sustainability, brands such as Stella McCartney debuted the mycelium leather bag in 2022 which is made from fungi” said Liv, she was sat up right, hand clutched tightly around her pint of Moretti as she went on to say: “but to be honest, it is not enough it is literally just scratching the surface and to be truly sustainable we need to stop with the over producing of clothes but at the moment fast fashion is so in demand and it’s a privilege to have sustainable fashion, so there needs to be more accessibility for slow fashion in general which is 75-80% more expensive than fast fashion”.
Liv's fashion philosophy is something she holds herself too and she dished out her top three tips that she lives by when it comes to being a more ethical consumer of clothing. Tip number one according to Liv is to shop second hand- she said: “Try and have an outfit that is mostly second hand, most of my wardrobe is 70% second hand so that is either vintage, Depop or charity shop”. Tip number two is perhaps the most important one Liv suggested as she said: “Educate yourself, learn which brands are doing the work and what brands aren’t doing their part, research into where you’re buying from and their production lines”. Tip number three, Liv said: “Talk to other people, communicate and spread the word as fashion is really all about community”.
Community is sacred when it comes to the fashion industry and Liv believes it is that sense of community and culture that can push the industry to be a leader in combating its issues with sustainability “Fashion in our culture inspires people and inspires individuals and helps people” and it has been a source of inspiration for the current project Liv is working on her magazine “This is Not a Cookbook”. The magazine explores food in everyday life, not just the kitchen and investigates the way food and fashion can work hand in hand. Liv shows her commitment to sustainability and said: “Every piece of clothing or food that is used in my photoshoots is repurposed after, whether that is for compost , to eat or redirected to a charity shop because I have a no waste policy.” Her research into the cause Transition Towns such as Lewes is what motivated her to emulate that in her magazine, she said: ‘the cause teaches people more about growing their own food, making their own clothes such as dying it with natural dyes and it's about learning to be a community in helping fight for sustainability.”
Liv will graduate this summer and after completing a ski-season and enjoying a much-needed break from three years of university she aims to continue raising awareness for sustainability within the fashion industry as she said: “People often think fashion is just this silly thing about what clothes you’re wearing but the industry has historically shown it has major political influence and it has a responsibility to be accountable.”
‘This is Not a Cookbook’ is Liv’s final assessment piece for her course and will be available to the public in June.
Images credited to Olivia Rhind
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