People
Fashion: is this the new look for lifeboat crew kit?
Kaitlyn Joy’s recycled crew kit designs made quite a splash at Graduate Fashion Week – the equivalent of London Fashion Week for fashion students.
As you might imagine, you get a lot of creativity on the catwalk at the Graduate Fashion Week, but Kaitlyn Joy’s FLOAT designs stood out. Kaitlyn is helping to save lives at sea with her collection, although you probably won’t see lifeboat crew wearing it for rescues any time soon.
The student, from De Montfort University, made the fashion clothing from decommissioned RNLI crew kit and marine offcuts and promoted the Float to Live safety message. And she earned a highly commended from the judges at Graduate Fashion Week for her sustainable designs.
The RNLI was keen to support the unusual project (at no cost to the charity) as a way to reach younger audiences with our water safety advice. It also helps raise awareness of our charity with a new generation of people, to help secure our future.
‘We were inspired by Kaitlyn’s commitment to both zero waste and raising awareness of Float to Live, and felt it was a fitting second life for RNLI materials that had come to the end of their useful life with us,’ says Anna Frizzell, the RNLI’s Sustainability Manager.
We cornered Kaitlyn for an interview, still buzzing from her success at Graduate Fashion Week.
What inspired your Float designs?
The idea for Float originally came from childhood memories of heroes in uniform. I wanted to celebrate RNLI lifesavers, using 100% waste materials. I kicked off the project with a tour of Hoylake Lifeboat Station, where Coxswain Howie Owen showed me all the crew kit. I think he would be surprised to know he was such a big part of sparking the inspiration!
How important is sustainability in your designs?
I always like to use an element of recycling in my work. Fashion is notoriously a very wasteful industry and I don’t think you can shy away from sustainability now. I became aware of the RNLI’s pledge to go zero waste to landfill and thought it was worth reaching out to their Sustainability Team to see if they had any kit going.
What else inspires you?
I’m a bit unusual in the way that my designs come fabric first. I get inspired to design from the fabrics themselves. I think that waste materials always have so much more character than fabric on a roll. It’s heartbreaking to throw anything away.
How do you make fashion clothing from crew kit?
It was a challenge. I didn’t want to end up just redesigning the crew's kit. I started by creating unusual silhouettes which pushed the garments to a fashion landscape. I repositioned key elements of the kit in unexpected places. I also based my garments on more casual clothing such as the sail trousers which were inspired by jogging bottoms, it made them become more wearable in a day-to-day setting. I’ve already had people asking for a pair!
Was the material hard to work with?
It wasn’t easy, but I love a challenge. With the decommissioned kit, I needed to take the garments apart before I used them in my designs. But RNLI kit is made extremely well and not built to come apart easily. I had to use some very heavy-duty machines to construct the collection. I’ve got videos of the manufacturing process on Instagram. As well as the RNLI, Typhoon and Henshaw Inflatables kindly supported the project, supplying offcuts and Hypalon scraps.
What was it like to be backstage at Graduate Fashion Week?
Being backstage at a professional runway is not as glamorous as you might think! At one point I was frantically putting baby oil on the jacket for look 2 as my model was going out. It was a very hectic few days, especially on runway days, but it was super rewarding seeing my designs out in the world.
How did you handle the press attention?
I had never experienced being part of media interviews – it was so nonstop. I had lots of conversations about the importance of water safety. I was also very pleased to see a good reaction on social media and fashion journalists.
Why did you incorporate Float to Live messaging?
I’d seen the Float to Live posters and videos and they stuck in my head. I study in Leicester and it shocked me that people had not heard of the RNLI and did not have the awareness of water safety when taking a trip to the beach. Hopefully every person who has seen this collection will walk away with greater awareness. Float to Live has even found its way into Vogue Italy.
What do you hope will come out of the project?
I hope that my collection will continue to start conversations and inspire more people to be zero waste in fashion, showing that using waste materials doesn’t mean you have to compromise your vision. I want to show that there can be a crossover of fashion with other industries. Fashion can be used to creatively raise awareness of important messages in a light-hearted and playful way.
What’s next for Kaitlyn Joy?
I’m currently taking some time to experiment further with the materials and see how I can extend this Float collection. Fashion can be a very difficult industry to get into so I’m continuing to develop my own aesthetic and see what opportunities open up for me. Hopefully I can be involved in future projects sharing something important through fashion.
You may also enjoy the following
Heritage
Heritage