Fashion with a conscience tries Africa for size

Fashion with a conscience tries Africa for size

The first rumblings of this groundbreaking new trend have been heard at New York fashion week, where Edun, the "socially conscious clothing line" launched last year by Ali Hewson, wife of Bono, held a party for its new collection, attracting a starry crowd including Lou Reed and Robert de Niro - all the more impressive considering the event clashed with the Superbowl.

Edun's ambition is to introduce the issue of sustainable employment into the moral vacuum which surrounds high fashion. "Apparel manufacturing has been declining in Africa for over 10 years. In total, Africa has lost 6% of world trade since the 1970s," said Hewson at the event. "If they could regain 1% of that, they would earn $70bn a year. They currently receive only $22bn a year in aid."

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Edun, which is co-designed by New York designer Rogan Gregory, of the high-end Rogan Jeans label, aims to restore apparel manufacture to locally-run factories in sub-Saharan Africa.

The response to Edun has been "amazing", said Hewson. "People want clothes that they can feel good about, as well as feel good in. There is potential for real power in a grassroots movement."

There are, however, difficulties in balancing the goals of the company with the requirements of the fashion marketplace: some garments, such as tailored jackets, are made in Portugal as the skill base is lacking in Africa. As yet, Edun is a small project - an African factory making a run of Edun garments might employ a couple of thousand people for a month at a time - but the appointment last week of Christian Kemp-Griffin, formerly global vice-president of Lacoste, as chief executive officer points to ambitions to grow the business.

Hewson and Gregory hope that once they have established a successful for-profit business model, other fashion labels will be encouraged to replicate it.

Trendwatch: Smocking

For a designer to put an outfit on the catwalk on a model is one thing; for her to wear the same outfit herself for her end-of-show bow is quite another. To model the look yourself, in front of the assembled fashion industry and several hundred photographers, is a very public show of support. Thus has Diane von Furstenberg given her blessing to the new catwalk love affair with smocking, taking her bow in a jade green dress. Smocking, most often associated with old-fashioned children's party dresses, is enjoying a renaissance on the Manhattan catwalks: at DKNY, smocked dresses were worn with thick black tights and baker boy caps.