Yahoo Sports Eden Tan Stirs Emotions With Boundary-pushing Zero Waste Collection
LONDON — It took Eden Tan a little over a minute to become one of London’s most talked about up-and-coming talents as his Central Saint Martins graduate collection went viral on the internet — and netted him the L’Oréal Professionnel Young Talent Award top honor.
What made him win was not only that the concept for his collection was out of the box, with each look crafted out of an uncut roll of fabric, but also because he managed to stir emotions during the presentation.
More from WWD
After more than 100 designers presented their out-there creations, the audience at the graduate show was met with whole rolls of fabric still attached to the garments being unfurled in the middle of the runway. Each look was met with delighted whoops, wows and even a few tears.
According to Tan, his collection, titled On Borrowed Fabric, was created with the goal of pushing the limits of zero-waste fashion.
“These garments are going to exist for five or maybe 10 years, and then they’ll get cut up later in my career. I relish the idea of cutting them up and turning them into the most mundane objects. One of the fabrics is actually meant for covering mattresses, so I might actually cover one up and turn it into a mattress one day,” the designer told WWD in an interview.
By strategically cutting, pleating and airbrushing the fabric on a roll, Tan offered a green dress, a gray hoodie with matching sweatpants, a washed denim top with jeans, a striped blazer, a tartan pleated skirt with a bow tie top, and a blue and white stripe dress.
“What I want to do is make a collection that doesn’t remove any fabric from the roll. I want to make a collection of clothes that could be as easily reprocessed into new garments as if the fabric had never passed through my hands,” he said.
The emotionally charged audience response was part of his plan.
“I wasn’t oblivious to what came out. I was quite aware of the effect it was having and it was all for a purpose. As creators, not creating something is always the most sustainable goal. Making a collection that resonates with people is the top priority because if that doesn’t happen I might have not made the collection. The clothes don’t necessarily exist, in a practical sense. I played into the idea for the show, to be able to make the collection more legitimate,” he explained.
Sustainability is a theme he has been championing for years. On top of his graduate collection, Tan has been working on a slew of upcycling projects and he shares them with the Instagram account @LetMeTinker.
“The first thing I made to sell was a small handbag out of a pair of jeans. Now I’ve got an eyewear project and a T-shirt project that has been in development for three years. I’m also making 17 bags at the moment for my customers. So I have over 1,000 patches to cut for that,” he said.
While these smaller projects represent the practical side of Tan’s design ethos, the graduate collection embodies a more conceptual side.
“I hope the conceptual side of my practice is able to propel the more real side which sells products that try and have as big an impact on helping the planet as possible,” he said.
Sustainable fashion has been a hot topic in recent years, but Tan believes that the word upcycling has lost its meaning in the fashion industry, and “we need to come up with a new word for it.”
“The traditional model of fashion is you take a square fabric because you have your patterns, you cut the patterns, and you have the rest thrown out. It can be quite wasteful. Most sustainable fashion only focuses on using sustainable fiber, instead of really enjoying the process of changing,” he said.
To him, turning waste into products that people want to pay for can better save the planet, and he really enjoys the problem-solving process.
“All of my work is about just working through the problems. Every problem is an opportunity of making something exciting or making something new,” Tan said.
Born in Hammersmith, London, to a Malaysian Chinese father and an English mother, Tan’s parents have a profound influence in shaping his creative vision. In particular, his father who “just saves, [is] very frugal and a bit of a hoarder,” as he is an artist who doesn’t want to waste resources and uses right down to the last scrap of paper for his sketches.
From his mother, he got a critical eye on his own work. “I never feel like my work is about me. I’m just the tool, the doll instrument that works through the problems,” he added.
As a designer, Tan said he always starts with the material. “For me, this collection is about designing within the constrictions of fabric,” he said, adding that the aesthetic of each project develops organically, rather than being fully dictated by his intention.
Tan said he also enjoys spending time in the studio and factories and studying how things are made on an industrial level, and how he can tweak the existing system to produce unexpected outcomes.
“How can we make a collection that speaks truth to how the materials are made? That’s what inspires me,” he said, adding that he hopes by doing so to bring attention to the parts of fashion that are often undervalued and overlooked.
Looking ahead, Tan said he would like to go see “what’s out there” for a few years and perhaps move away from London, before considering applying for a place in MA Fashion at Central Saint Martins.
Best of WWD
