Explore the conscious design of kimono – the ultimate sustainable garment

Made of large panels of fabric, Kimono production creates minimal waste. Join Cassandra Belanger from The Zero Waste Design Collective for a discussion around sustainable fashion inspired by this design.

Cassandra and V&A Dundee Curator Kirsty Hassard will look at both the historical context of the garment and how we can take inspiration from it in today's fast fashion-centric marketplace.

Presented in collaboration with V&A Dundee as part of the Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk exhibition, running from 4th May. More details about the exhibit can be found on the V&A website.

Meet the speakers:

Kirsty Hassard is a curator, and fashion historian, and co-curator of Tartan at V&A Dundee, and previously worked in the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion department at V&A South Kensington. Kirsty has worked on a range of exhibitions including Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk, Night Fever: Designing Club Culture, Mary Quant at V&A Dundee, and Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion at V&A South Kensington. She has published on women and work, and the relationship between fashion and print culture in the eighteenth century.

Cassandra Belanger is the founder of The Stitchery Studio, Co-founder/Director of the Zero Waste Design Collective and a founding member of Sustainable Fashion Scotland. She is the Resident Sewing Instructor at the Central Scottish School of Craft and a Fashion and Textile Lecturer at Glasgow West College. Her research interests center around sustainable fashion, textile design education and fashion systems for a post growth economy. Her design and teaching practice explores issues such as zero waste, waste colonialism, transparency, colour therapy, feminism, sizeism, and body image. Cassandra is committed to decolonising her teaching and design practice.

The Zero Waste Design Collective has been at the forefront of global discussions in the field of Zero Waste Design and Zero Waste Sewing since its establishment in August 2020. Committed to reducing global textile waste, ZWDC has fostered a vibrant international community through open-source monthly Community Calls, engagement on social media, a dedicated blog, workshops for universities and communities, industry consultancy and the creation of e-learning courses.