Nobody is born FashionWise, but grown into one. Wisdom means the ability to listen, educate oneself and be curious. Choose the right informed decisions instead of fast pleasures. Do you know what you are wearing? What is the actual ecological footprint of your latest fashion purchase? 

Caring, demanding and innovative view of the future are words with iconic meaning both for the fashion industry and consumers. Viru Keskus as the fashion centre with the highest visitor numbers has dedicated itself to creating and promoting a sounding board for important and difficult fashion issues. By setting up MoePaneel discussion platform in cooperation with the fashion design department of the Estonian Art Academy, some fashion professionals had the opportunity to share some exciting points of view and wide range of ideas with a wider audience: the head of the fashion design department of the Estonian Art Academy Piret Puppart, an expert of responsible entrepreneurship Stella Soomlais, a champion of strategic consumption Silke Lieser, the CEO of AS Baltika with impressive retail experience Flavio Perini and a creator of digital innovative solutions for textile reuse Ann Runnel. Exciting discussion topics were raised by the chief editor of Portail.ee Aljona Eesmaa.

“Now we have a great opportunity to make a restart to the system, start with new energy and penetrate to the deeper layers of a sustainable and transparent fashion business. This does not only mean product-based focus, but redesigning the whole business and creating new value for employees and the society,” stated Flavio Perini. “The crisis situation has emphasized problems that actually have been present for a long time. Now we need to evolve and grow as a community.”

Every consumer has a vote in deciding what our home planet will be like. The receipt for a purchase is that vote. Who should then get our trust and the money that feeds the business cycle? FashionWise is a confident person who knows what suits him/her and whose wardrobe is supplemented by informed choices, because there is always a choice. He/she knows how to ask the right questions, is interested and demands answers, to became better informed on how one can use one’s daily fashion choices to empower the fashion industry create more sustainable fashion and thereby care for the environment. “Fashion is self-expression and to my mind you must ask yourself who you want to be, both as a designer and a consumer. What are your principles and values? We also express our values with the clothes that we buy and use. Is sustainable production a statement that you can make today? We are responsible for our choices and as consumers also for whole life cycle of a clothing item. Everything starts with values and value-based choices,” Silke Lieser calls upon designers and consumers to think about their choices.

Ann Runnel points out that new technologies are being developed in textile reuse and circular economy, with imminent breakthroughs expected that would allow for notably enhanced textile reuse compared to current possibilities. For example today the post-consumer sorting of textiles is mostly done manually and this needs to be automated. Developing this technology is time and resource intensive and state institutions need to support it as well.

“Actually I have an exciting task that everybody should try. Make your own mini wardrobe of ten clothing items and aim to use only these items for two weeks. This gives a great overview of what you actually need and what are your favourite basic items to use as the foundation of your wardrobe. We need to value the quality of an item in the materials and the implementation, because that is more sustainable. High quality clothing items are used on average 7 times more than an item of poor quality,” Piret Puppart encourages everybody to determine their basic choices. 

“Viru Keskus as the leading Estonian fashion centre values quality in the trade environment, range of fashion brands and customer services, while also taking responsibility for raising difficult issues that have no fast solutions, but that need attention,” says Kristel Sooaru, Marketing and Communication Manager of Viru Keskus.

 As the saying goes, if you want to change the world, start from yourself

You can find the MoePaneel video here.