A BANDON female founder has launched a new business that partners with repair, up-cycling and zero waste experts to run circular economy workshops for companies.
Ailis Crowley is the powerhouse behind Fash Forward and won two of the top prizes at the recent Ignite Awards and Showcase event in UCC.
Ignite is open to anyone who has graduated from a third level institution in recent years and has the passion and ambition to work on an idea that has the potential for economic, environmental or social impact.
Ailis studied international commerce in UCC after which she moved to London to work for Yahoo in marketing and sales. After seven years at the company she returned home to study a higher diploma in sustainability in enterprise at UCC.
Her light bulb moment to set up Fash Forward came when she travelled to Sri Lanka.
‘I came across a brand that was collecting colourful rice sacks that had been dumped on beaches and that upcycled them into luxury weekend bags and other fashion accessories. On the same trip I passed many landfill sites with piles of waste, and thought could the same creativity be applied to all waste?’
And so Fash Forward was developed with a mission to ‘make zero waste fashionable.’
‘Our workshops benefit companies by boosting employee engagement in waste reduction. They can range from upcycling waste material into something like a laptop charger bag, upcycling plastic into plant pots, or showing what can be done with waste food,’ she said.
‘To date we’ve worked with many Cork-based companies and universities to deliver workshops, and we have capacity to work with more companies and drive more impact. Our mission is to save one million items from landfill by 2030.’
Her advice to anyone trying to live more sustainably is to download the ‘Good On You’ app, which allows people to check the sustainability rating of high street fashion brands.
‘Learning the skill of repair is also important as it means that items can be fixed, rather than buying new. One of our repair partners, Cork Repair Café, hosts regular meet-ups on repairing items from electrical household items to laptops. When it comes to food choosing local food produce reduces our impact due to no air miles in transportation. Additionally local produce like vegetables tend to have less packaging reducing plastic waste,’ she said.
