Collections presented on PRAGUE FASHION WEEK
Autumn 2004 – author´s fashion show
Spring 2004 – author´s fashion show
Information
EARLY DAYS
- ART D’ECO was founded in Amsterdam by environmental and human rights activist Katell Gélébart. She started the brand while opening her first shop in Amsterdam in November of 1998. Her creativity is fuelled by a deep commitment to environmental issues. As a campaigner she has worked on deforestation, waste management, and nuclear issues whilst finding the time to put her views into action via ART D’ECO (ECOlogical ART).
- Katell states: “Paper and textiles in particular are disposed of when they can easily be transformed with very little energy consumed. Even processing textiles and recycling paper results in high energy consumption and waste production. There is therefore a real need to reduce the overall volume of waste that our society creates: only once we start seriously looking at re-usable solutions can the issue of waste be effectively dealt with.”
ART D’ECO TODAY
- Six years later ART D’ECO is a partnership of three eco-designers of which two are Ukrainian. Their workshop is located near Kharkov in eastern Ukraine. The designers produce two ready-to-wear collections each year, always inspired by new old, unwanted fabrics. And all these years they have never stopped producing a stationery range, adding new models when new old paper material was found.
- Founder-designer Katell keeps exploring the world for new ideas. Most recently she has spent time in southern India where the international township of Auroville (near Pondicherry) has welcomed her. There, within the Upasana design Studio (www.upasana.com), a new approach of re-using came to light: “There were all these exquisite little pieces of material such as silk, saree borders, brocades, and veils being thrown away as waste…. I just could not let them go. It inspired me to make collections using only small scraps of left over of fabrics.” She occasionally shares her creativity with fashion design students while giving workshops.
- Katell works in locations all over the world (France, Holland, Ukraine, India) and thus is open to many influences and mediums. These days she divides her time between Europe and India where she works with the non-governmental organization DASTKAR (www.dastkar.org) and its craftsmen. While visiting remote Indian villages and DASTKAR projects, Katell develops products combining western influences with traditional Indian designs, allowing the craftsman to produce goods that would be appealing to both the Indian urban market and western consumers alike.
EVENTS
- Katell takes part in regular fashion fairs and catwalk shows throughout the year. These include the Barcelona Fashion Week, Prague Fashion Week, and the Paris Ethical catwalk show.
- With her ART D’ECO collection Katell also presents her work in different environments:
- The Forum of the Cultures of the World, organized by UNESCO from May to Sept 2004, dedicated a window to ART D’ECO with the theme “Ethical Fashion”.
The Biennial of St. Etienne (France’s biggest contemporary museum) will present two of Katell’s creations made from used advertising material (Indian banners and Italian coffee bags) in November 2004.FUTURE
- Katell’s goal is to keep recycling and inspiring people to do so wherever there is an open mind for it: Weaving wasted textiles on Indian handlooms, making an “only-dress” collection in used bed sheets and many more unrevealed ideas…
- Recycling and Re-using means to give it a new chance, a new life, to put it in the cycle again, to give it a new value: economic and aesthetic, to innovate, to create new techniques of transformation of the matter. Recycling is the act of bringing useful and positive solutions which will improve the world.