How it Started: Project Fashion Fixed 2023

Local artist, denim expert and mum Kerry Gibson looks around at the student work on the gallery walls in Lincoln university and fizzes with excitement, "They really are motivated students. They dedicate their time and they're committed. We've got that little army of students that care."

She's talking about the results of Project Fashion Fixed 2023, a series of lectures and events that she has masterminded and worked on with the team at Lincoln University to build awareness of how fashion impacts the planet. The project is open to students at high school or in further and higher education in Lincoln. A whopping seventy students signed up, and little wonder - they got to work with and learn from an exciting line-up of guest lectures, including former editor of Elle Magazine Andrew Falconer.

Kerry Gibson, Denim Textile Artist and PFF CEO

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On the project, they learnt about who made their clothes, where they come from and what happens when they're finished with them. They were then asked to produce a creative outcome that is reflective of what they've learnt. At the end of the project local businesses and creatives come together to celebrate with an all-day event of food, music and fashion in the heart of Lincoln. It feels super local, but Gibson understands the impact is global, "It's about fashion, but it's much more than that. It's about understanding, everything that we take from the Earth."

And Gibson certainly does. At the age of 48, after raising two children and buying and reselling jeans on eBay for many years, the idea for the project was sparked when Gibson undertook a master's in Fashion and Textiles at Nottingham Trent University. She says, "When the children were growing up, for years and years I'd be like oh I'm selling on eBay, really embarrassed, and the children were embarrassed of me. Then all of a sudden, I went back to university and I told people what I was doing and they were like that's so cool, so relevant - it was hilarious."

This interest in denim was particularly influential in Gibson's studies, which focused on the lifecycle of denim. She continues, "I thought I knew all there was to know because I was like a second-hand queen, but I just found out loads more information."

In a bid to impact some of that wisdom to her peers Gibson set up the Fashion Revolution Society while she was a student, and soon discovered there was plenty of interest from her fellow students. Then came Covid, which put the FRS on hold.

However, not one to be easily deterred, she says, "When we came out of lockdown, I just really felt like we wanted to still do it. So last year, I did it, it was just a non-funded, just give it a-go project." Last year was a huge success with around 60 students getting involved and a big event to celebrate everyone's hard work. "I managed to get a bit of funding to pay for the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. We had stalls, we had a catwalk, we had DJs. Then in the evening, we had bands."

Images of work from the exhibit.

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Following the success of Project Fashion Fixed 2022, Gibson was determined to make it all happen again, and this year's version is even bigger. Event photographer Sophie Lavender said on this year's iteration of the event, "It was so well put together with lots of stuff to see including stalls with vintage fashion, clothing, a craft area, an alterations table, vegan cooking demonstrations - with no meat substitutes, the catwalk which was great, DJs, open mic etc. It was great to support the local crafts people and creatives and musicians. It gave a platform to share."

Creative writing student Jade King, who took part this year, says, "The final event was amazing, full of people I hadn't ever seen or heard of before, coming together. The whole day had just the best energy, it was a brilliant way to celebrate our hard work on this project." And at the exhibition, the energy from the participating students was plain to see: from interactive upcycling projects to poetry, film and thought-provoking photographs, there was a variety of media on show. Many of the students were eager to talk through their work and their feelings about the project as a whole. Photography student, Caroline Calvert Skinner, says, "The whole experience has been super interesting and a great way to start an open conversation between us students." While King says, "The project has allowed me to gain a sense of unitiy within the Lincoln environmental community."

Many of the students are keen to credit Gibson. Creative advertising student Owen Freer says, "Kerry is so driven, always on top of stuff, down to earth and ultimately just hard working."

There's a good reason for that hard work. Gibson says, "It's all about really serious, heavy stuff, like climate change, you know, the fact that we're just taking the mickey out of what we're taking from the planet and not caring."

It is a challenge but Gibson doesn't shy away from it: "So, I'm teaching all the heavy stuff, but then let's strip it and make it accessible, let's kind of spread the word and make it not so kind of doom and gloom. I want to make it accessible, activism through creativity in a different way."

And that according to Caroline, has been successful: "Kerry encouraged us all in a number of ways from simply just getting work handed in to exploring topics that we were interested in and the different ways we could present them that demonstrated out individualism."

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