Simone Cipriani, Andreas Kronthaler, Vivienne Westwood, Federico Marchetti at the launch of the Ethical Fashion Africa Collection | Source: ITC

FLORENCE, Italy — Simone Cipriani spearheads the Ethical Fashion initiative of The International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. Connecting “the world’s most marginalised people to the top of fashion’s value chain for mutual benefit,” it enables communities of artisans and micro-manufacturers — the majority of them women — to thrive in association with the talents of the fashion world by fostering local creativity, enabling female employment, and promoting gender equality in order to reduce extreme poverty, according to a detailed brochure published by the ITC this month.

Of her recent collection with the Ethical Fashion Initiative, unveiled during Pitti Uomo last month and now available on Yoox.com, Vivienne Westwood said “it’s quite incredible to think that we might save the world through fashion.”

But ethical fashion remains a somewhat fuzzy, idealistic concept, which has proven difficult to implement in practice. It also remains a niche market, even if consumers are becoming more conscious about their purchasing habits and sales of ethical fashion are growing. According to Mr. Cipriani, its widespread adoption will require a wholesale mindset shift for the fashion industry, which must eliminate waste from a fashion system that remains bloated with excess product and underpays those at the very early stages of production.

Mr. Cipriani’s official title is typical of bureaucratic nomenclature: Head, Poor Communities & Trade Program, Chief Technical Advisor, Ethical Fashion. But make no mistake, this is no ivory-towered diplomat. Cipriani spends most of his time in the field — the slums of Nairobi and rural communities around Africa — laying the groundwork for ethical fashion at the front lines and building ties to fashion houses in Europe in order to make his vision a reality.

I caught up with Simone Cipriani on a quiet rooftop terrazza during one of his rare visits to his native Florence for the launch of Vivienne Westwood’s Ethical Fashion Africa collection.

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Huishan Zhang A/W RTW 2011 | Source: Huishan Zhang

LONDON, United Kingdom — One of the greatest aspects of teaching at Central Saint Martins (apart from walking its hallowed halls) is having a first look at the strong talent that the College manages to attract from around the world, and then witnessing (often with amazement!) how that talent develops over time. The strongest students take advantage of all that CSM has to offer, and in the process, discover their own design voice and signature.

One such example is the talented, Chinese-born Huishan Zhang, who attended one of my very first lectures at CSM a few years back and graduated with a BA in Fashion Design & Marketing in 2010. Since then, Huishan has been proactive about keeping in touch as he made decisions about both the business and design direction he wished to take with his own brand. He is a young designer who listens to the advice offered to him by an informal group of well-connected mentors who he has personally sought out to advise him. Listening is a skill sorely lacking in many young designers, who years later often say, “I wish I had listened…”

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Harry Wang | Source: Shiatzy Chen

PARIS, France — Long before the question arose about who would create the first Chinese luxury brand, Wang Chen Tsai-Hsia set up Shiatzy Chen to explore her tailoring skills and budding interest in serving the local luxury market in Taiwan.

Fast forward thirty years, and Ms. Wang now has a business with a turnover of more than $60m and growing, built through hard work, perseverance and — in the Chinese tradition — the support of her family, including husband Wang Yuan-hong, and their son Harry Wang, who now acts as the brand’s chief executive.

Mr. Wang believes the business can grow to $200m in revenues by 2020. But rather than focus on growing the business in the West as so many brands from emerging fashion markets tend to do, he has his sights set firmly on Asia. Extending from the brand’s home base in Taiwan to China and Japan is first on his list. Mr. Wang has also brought Shiatzy Chen’s fashion shows to Paris, forcing him to up his communications game and consider the brand’s role and customer targets in a global context.

I caught up with Mr. Wang during the last round of Paris shows to learn more about Shiatzy Chen and to benefit from his firsthand insights on the evolving nature of luxury in China.

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