Overview

Sustainable Fashion, Migrants, Embroidery: Ateliers of 'Social Integration' tells of community-led ‘solidarity ateliers’ engaged in sewing and embroidery activities which, in the Global North and Global South, are providing a vital alternative to neoliberal and neo-colonial fashion paradigms. On encountering several ateliers solidaires/sartorie sociali during her immersive fieldwork, for which she travelled to Morocco and Southern Italy, and contrasting her findings with her knowledge of parallel and analogous initiatives in London, Alessandra Lopez y Royo suggests that despite their different outlook and approach these ateliers can be inscribed within an ever-growing economy of solidarity and sharing. With a uniquely combined focus on sustainability, fashion and migration, Lopez y Royo examines how the ateliers foreground a powerful social inclusion agenda, encouraging migrants (and refugees) to collaborate, exchange knowledge, and foster communities on a level playing field with locals. Questioning widely accepted notions of ‘empowerment’ and ‘social integration’, and drawing on her background in archaeology and material culture studies, Lopez y Royo uses micro-studies to illuminate a broader path to a more inclusive, sustainable, and socially conscious industry, presenting a fresh perspective on repurposing and upcycling. In a world grappling with the need to shift away from fast fashion's wasteful practices, this thought-provoking exploration shows how slow-growth ‘solidarity ateliers’ can challenge the widely accepted notions of both ‘fashion’ and ‘social integration’.

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9781350284098

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As a disruptor and activist, Lopez y Royo encourages us to educate ourselves and find solutions to re-imagine the intersections between fashion, culture, migrant diaspora and future ways to grow a more just and long-lived fashion industry. * Clio Padovani, University of Southampton, UK *

Author Information

Alessandra Lopez y Royo (aka Alex Bruni) is a former university Reader with a PhD in Art History and Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS,) University of London. An activist committed to a diverse, inclusive and sustainable fashion, Alessandra has blogged and written for magazines and journals, and occasionally models. She is the author of Contemporary Indonesian Fashion: Through the Looking Glass (2019), the only English-language in-depth analysis of the fashion system in Indonesia, also published in this Bloomsbury series. Twitter: @alexb244 Instagram/Threads: @alexb244

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