Interview with Maeve Downing, Founder and Lead Organizer of Patchwork: The VSB Climate Fashion Show

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Can you share a bit on how you came to develop a passion for the environment and sustainability? What led you to create events educating students on the subject?

I think my passion developed from an early age. I really loved animals and being out in nature as a child and still do. If you love something, you protect and care about it. My mom, Sarah Murray, has also always been adamant about taking care about the planet as best as we can and so that has influenced me as well. I think that climate change is something big and hard to tackle, which leaves people often in a paralysis of sorts, I think that education is really the first step. I can’t solve how much waste is produced by the fashion industry, but I can educate other people so together as an educated and caring community we can make a choice to try to change the system.

Your next event on April 25th is Patchwork: The VSB Climate Fashion Show? How did the idea for this event come about and what is the focus of the fashions that will be shown? 

This idea came after working with a school club I help lead, Greening Windermere. We do sustainability related events and activities at my school Windermere Secondary School. We had done a bunch of textiles-based initiatives, a clothing swap and fabric wrapping for Christmas. I noticed the interest from my school and thought that we could expand it. 

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Every single person interacts with fashion in their day-to-day life, but they don’t understand the impact that clothing has on the world and the environment. I decided that we could use a fashion show as an opportunity to highlight this issue in a creative way. We didn't give our designers a theme beyond employing sustainable practices. All our designers prioritized using upcycled materials, deadstock or more environmentally safe fabrics. All of them minimized scraps or utilized scraps in the making of their collections, so I think the focus of the event is going to be a feeling rather than a look.

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What are the challenges you face creating an event like this? Is the work split between a team? 

Some of the challenges we faced were trying to get enough people, and the right people. Another was finding a space that fit our purposes from within the Vancouver School Board. It needed to fit a good amount of people and have it work as runway. Kitsilano Secondary is going to work perfectly!

I am very lucky to have a team that is working to make this event happen. I would not be able to make this happen without them, and the other 100 volunteers from high schools across the VSB. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful team, I honestly cannot express my appreciation for this group of people.

Team Members - 
  • Delara is a designer and my co-organizer.
  • Diego of DGMprods is our Media Lead.
  • Veda is our backstage lead.
  • Arwen is our makeup lead.
  • Vanessa is our hair lead.
  • Alina is our hair and makeup lead.
  • Kayla and Tiffany are our front of house leads.
  • Taya is our setup and take down lead.
  • Niobe and Claire are the MCs.
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How do you organize and manage such a large group of designers (16 in all - with 14 collections), find enough models, choose music, and all the other details required to put on a fashion show?

I think communication is really the key piece in organizing an event like this. We are very lucky to be able to use the Teams app from school, so it was easy for all our volunteers to transition from using the app for schoolwork to using it for event coordination. I also think being able to admit that you made a mistake is a very important piece of managing a large group. 

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Things will change, you will hit problems and if you are able to go back and let everyone know that you got the info wrong and that you will have the right info soon makes a difference. We were very lucky with models as we decided to have the designers invite their friends to walk, it made the organizing easier and strengthened the community that we are building at Patchwork!

When and where will Patchwork be held? How can readers get a ticket to attend?

Patchwork will be held at 6pm on Friday April 25th at Kitsilano Secondary School. Ticket are only 5 dollars! We have a ticket page on our website HERE, as well as a link to the ticket page in the bio of our Instagram.

Links - 

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