The Scottish Fashion Festival held annually at the V&A Dundee and hosted by social enterprise incubator Scotland Re:Design (SRD), has become a landmark event attracting both established and emerging designers and creatives from across the nation to showcase their talent. In 2022 housing charity Shelter Scotland partnered with SRD to present the "Fashion for Social Change Award" and they are returning to present this year's award on Friday the 17th of November.

It's a collaboration which has become even more timely with recent evidence showing that Scotland's housing emergency shows no sign of being adequately addressed.  As Shelter  Scotland tells us social housing has almost gone, leaving homes too expensive to pay for or too cramped for our needs. Scots are competing for the same few properties and often having to move miles from families and support networks to find available housing. Those homes that are being built often aren't affordable, with those caught in the housing trap struggling to pay sky-high rents and spending years waiting for a social home.

Those facing the consequences of this broken system and finding themselves homeless are often from ethnic minority groups and people with disabilities, while forty five children in Scotland are made homeless every day.

I spoke to Richard Hudson, one of Shelter Scotland’s senior retail marketing managers ahead of the fashion show to learn more about this heartbreaking situation, about the HousingSOS that Shelter Scotland is sending out to our nation and its leaders, and how fashion and the Scottish Fashion Festival can be a vehicle for change.

This is the second year that you've partnered with Scotland Re:Design to present the Fashion For Social Change award. Why do you think fashion is such an important vehicle to use in your advocacy for social change?

We have over thirty charity shops in Scotland , so we have been thinking about how we can engage people who are interested in clothes and fashion, with Shelter Scotland's campaigning. When the opportunity came about to be part of a competition like this we thought we'd give it a go. The wonderful thing about the competition is that it covers three bases, our social cause, sustainability and fashion. By bringing all three together, it shows how fashion can be a positive platform for change.

You’ve previously partnered with sustainably aware designers such as Vivienne Westwood and brands such as AllSaints. They are obviously hugely recognized and established names so how important is it to give a platform to new creatives and young designers?

It is hugely important. We’ve already done a lot of work with students, including partnering with Graduate Fashion Week and working with Craft Week, and the designers of the future in further education.

Within charity shops we have a natural interest in sustainability and circular fashion. And for a lot of the fashion colleges that is now a critical part of their course. A competition like this means we’re reaching new and established designers and promoting the role of charity shops in extending the life of clothes and providing raw materials to upcycle and re-use.

With Shelter Scotland’s Fashion For Social Change award we link up each designer with a shop and the designer will then try to source materials and reuse materials we have in stock. We want to make sure that sustainability is at the heart of all of the designs. Our objective is to eventually engage with more colleges and universities, as this is a unique platform for many designers to show their work.

We weren't quite able to do that this year due to timings, but we’re looking to build on this for next year.

With sustainability now being at the fore and becoming such an important issue have you seen an uptick in your footfall and a different demographic coming into the Shelter Scotland shops?

That’s a really good question. We have seen an increase in the number of people coming into our shops. Who comes in, really depends on the individual shop's location. Charity shops are doing really well and Shelter Scotland shops are growing with more people coming in and more people buying. If it’s not for sustainability reasons, it could be to save some money or to find a vintage gem that you can’t buy anywhere else. We’re expecting to  become even busier as we enter the Christmas period.

You mentioned that you have competition entrants visiting specific shops that they've been allocated to source garments and fabrics. How rewarding is it to see new life being given to these discarded garments and to see them repurposed and reinvented?

It's fantastic because it gives inspiration to lots of other people . We want to promote sustainability and need to show people that if they are discarding clothes, don’t. There could be more life in them yet. You can either donate them to a charity shop, or uplcycle them yourself.

By taking some of our existing donations and turning them into something new, it will hopefully inspire more people to be more creative with their clothes.

We still need people to donate, of course, but what's really incredible about the competition is how the designers work with the shop managers, they really work well together. The designer shares their design and vision, and the shop manager will help find materials they can use to bring it to life.

Here are some examples from last year. Donations are often handed in using Ikea bags and in last year's competition, one of the designers integrated the bag into their design and actually created a frilly hem from the recycled bag. One of the other designers took lots of different jean materials and created a stunning new garment out of that. Another created a stunning suit and bucket hat out of T-shirts! It will be exciting to see what the new designers are doing with the shop managers.

How impressed have you been with how this year's participants have interpreted the brief?

We’ve had someone looking at quilting and patchworks using recycled materials. Someone using 3D objects and linking them to time and how we’re running out of time with the housing emergency. They're looking at collecting watches and integrating them into their design. Someone else is looking at building as a theme and the lack of progress. What's great, is that the group have been really engaged with the detail of the housing emergency within Scotland. They've delved into the brief and then come at it from lots of different angles. This really helps generate conversions.

Last year was the first year of the award. What positive outcomes have arisen from last year's competition which was in many ways a trial run for this year?

We got a lot of pleasure from last year. We were blown away by the variety and standard of the finished designs. Conor Blessing won it last year and he was a student at university, and it's been a really nice experience for us seeing him leave university and now doing his own thing and progressing. We’ve also kept in contact with a couple of the other designers as well and they’ve helped us run sustainability workshops in our shops, teaching people how to upcycle and repair and extend the life of their clothes. This really helps us embed sustainable thinking within our shops and with customers.

How difficult was it to produce a shortlist of eight finalists from all the candidates and what were you looking for in arriving at those eight?

It’s always difficult, when designers have put so much work into their designs. But we have  three key pillars to guide the judging. The cause, our message, and sustainability, plus the fashion and style they are looking to create. What has impressed us about all of the finalists is that they have all interpreted the brief in equally creative ways. It will be exciting to see what everything looks like on Friday. It’s the first time we will see the finished pieces and will be exciting to see how they have evolved and been completed.

Who is involved in the judging panel?

There are three people from Shelter Scotland and two external judges who will give us a good balance and wide experience.

Scotland's in the grip of a housing emergency so what sort of impact would Shelter Scotland like the event on Friday the 17th to have on both the awareness of that hosing crisis and tangible steps to address it?

We are campaigning for the government to build more social housing. There aren’t enough houses and they’re too expensive for people to afford. We hope the fashion show will generate conversations , increase awareness of Shelter Scotland and our work and inspire people to join the fight to support our campaign.

What pathways do you have in place to enable people to raise this issue with their MPs and authorities?

On the Shelter Scotland website we have just launched a HousingSOS campaign for Scotland and we’re asking people to sign an open letter demanding the First Minister declares a housing emergency. It’s over ten years since the Scotland government made a commitment to build more housing, but there's still record levels of homelessness. Forty five children become homeless every day . It’s statistics like this, after the government had made a commitment, why we are asking for this support.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with us about the upcoming fashion show and Shelter Scotland’s campaigns?

The exciting thing about this initiative is the amount of innovation that we are seeing. There can be a lot of negativity around fashion and I think that having this social element shows the amount of good that fashion can do. People often wear statement T-shirts, and this takes it to the next level, helping inspire designers to be more sustainable and that fashion can be a vehicle for change.

Finally, what can we expect from the event on Friday?

The designers are bringing their final designs to us at the Dundee V&A on Friday lunchtime. There will be a photo shoot in the afternoon with each of the designs being modelled. We are also taking the designers to a coffee shop in the afternoon so that they can all chat. Last year we had designers from many different backgrounds, from a mother and son duo to students and enthusiastic home crafters, to people who do this as their job. It’s great to bring everyone together and share their experiences of the project. There are twenty other designers showing in the evening and the Shelter Scotland Award is going to be up first. The winner will be announced then. We're really looking forward to it.

The Scottish Fashion Festival on the 17th of November promises to be the Scottish fashion event of 2023. One that celebrates the achievements of an industry which punches way above its weight in global terms. One which will demonstrate how successfully fashion is partnering with those tech companies who have made both Dundee and Scotland bywords for technological innovation. One that will be awash with glittering glamour as an audience of fashion fans and industry insiders throng the iconic V & A. 

And while it will be all of these things, it will also be a demonstration of how fashion can be a vehicle for social and societal change. The collaboration between Scotland Re: Design and Shelter Scotland to present the "Fashion for Social Change Award" brings together two organisations united by environmental empathy and a commitment to uplifting and empowering the most unrepresented and disenfranchised in society.

Richard asked me to mention that people can contribute to Shelter Scotland throughout the year by donating items to their local Shelter Scotland shop and that earlier this year the charity asked people to sign a Preloved Pledge and make a commitment to donate at least three times per year.