Following on from the success of our Sustainable Fashion Conference, some of our Year 12 Art & Textiles students recently participated in an interschool project about making fashion more sustainable.
For the past few weeks, students from Oxford High School, The Cherwell School, and St Clare’s, Oxford, have taken part in this exciting project, brought together by Kim Polgreen, Low Carbon Oxford North (LCON), and Oxfam. Starting off with an introduction at The Cherwell School, the students came up with presentations about sustainability and fashion, and went on to have discussions about what they wanted to get out of the project and their ideas for an upcoming photo shoot.
On Saturday 6th, the students headed to St Clare’s to prepare for the photo shoot. Using old clothes kindly donated by Oxfam, they created incredible new outfits which they then photographed at the Oxford Museum of Natural History.
The 4th-year Biology undergrad students who joined in the event at the Natural History Museum said the following about the pupils: “We had such a lovely time speaking with the students about their work in sustainability and it was incredibly inspiring to be around such passionate and informed young people. We were all very impressed by not only how driven they all are but by how informed and engaged they are with sustainability issues from biodiversity conservation to divestment to fast fashion. My school never had anything near as strong a push for sustainability among students so it was very exciting to see how much has changed in the last several years in terms of understanding the urgency of climate change and biodiversity loss.”
The following Monday, we welcomed Cherwell and St Clare’s to our school. Here, the students got their tech skills going to produce digital posters promoting thrifting and upcycling, using the photos they took from the weekend. Despite most not having used Photoshop before, this was not a hurdle at all as all groups created terrific artwork!
Click here to read the Oxford Mail’s article about the students’ incredible work! Well done to everyone involved, and thank you Kim Polgreen, LCON, and Oxfam for this wonderful project.