PILOT 2 (pt. 1): Small But Perfect
To kick off our second R&D phase pilot we joined up with Fashion Revolution Open Studio and the EU COSME funded Small But Perfect project to test our unique ID protocol (xyz.id v.0.2) within this European wide 30 month collaboration, which aimed to accelerate fashion SMEs transition to circular and sustainable business models.
“Systemic change within the fashion industry will come not from any one place, but through collaboration, education and innovation within the SME ecosystem”
Download this report by clicking on the above image.
The Small But Perfect EU COSME application was partially propelled forward and informed by the 2019 UAL, Centre For `Sustainable Fashion’s Support Report Mapping Sustainable Fashion Opportunities for SMEs, which itself was led by Prof Sandy Black, who had been a very generous and helpful supporter of our first Class 2020Vision pilot.
We naturally chose to join this SBP project as its underlying premise, that smaller fashion brands, working together in new ways, are well placed to lead the way with disruptive new business models, aligned perfectly with our mission. Additionally, the collaborative nature the project, teaming up different fashion SMEs to work together on new designs, was ideally suited to further testing and developing our prototype ID protocol.
We gave our prototype IDs to a selection of fashion SMEs, all collaborating with each other in various different ways, to try out and use as part of their individual projects final development phase. These IDs were then used as part of a selected cohorts first showcase during Fashion Revolution Week, held in Stratford at Get Livings The Lab E20, East Village’s new flagship space for sustainable events, designed by Christopher Raeburn.
We also held a focus group and workshop with the SME designers and other industry experts, to consider and discuss concepts around digital IDs more generally: fungibility, ownership, data, circularity, value and values. More specifically, it focused in on ideas and feedback that can help us further improve and develop the design of our solutions to make them a better fit for market, alongside capturing other knowledge around the concepts of ‘fashion 2.0’ - a fast emerging paradigm shift away from the traditional industry, which was built around the perverse incentives of high-volume, low-margin, exploitation and waste.
The focus group and workshops were conducted by David Leigh (xyz.exchange CEO and ‘Fashion 2.0’ lecturer at LCF), Eleanor Rockett (IP Educator at UAL and a Digital Fashion researcher at the RCA), Samuel Membery (award winning RCA graduate, entrepreneur, fashion designer, consultant and design lecturer at LCF) and Andrew Bravin (Fashion and media law partner at Sheridans Law).
*IDs deactivated until mid-June 2023.