I feel very fortunate to be able to practice my profession as a fashion designer; thanks to it I have traveled through, I could use my imagination, I have lived in another country, I have met some great people, I enjoyed the pleasure of seeing many projects finished… I would say that my work has been very successful in many ways except when I realized on the impact that my design choices had on the environment and the people producing the clothes that I designed.

Working in a large clothing chain is easy to see that, you just have to dare to look and then you only have two options: either close your eyes or you swing the other side of the coin, as is the case with many professionals already working on this line.

I decided to start a fashion line and I realized that it was difficult to find accurate information, many proposals I found, knowing the basic principles of sustainability, I realized they were not as green as they seemed to be on the surface.

Thus it made my second decision that was to concentrate all my great motivations: fashion, sustainability and training in a single project, and began another search, to find collaborators who had a vision committed to this way of understanding the production of fashion. I found María Almazán, who I went to look to Vigo and came back to Madrid with another partner gift, César Lema. Marìa’s experience in production and sustainable fashion is invaluable to the project and the knowledge of César Lema, permaculture expert biologist, gives an overview of the process of inestimable interest.

With them, with great enthusiasm and desire to help designers, SMEs and any textile professional interested in this type of production, we have designed this first course to be held in Burgo de Osma from December 8^th to 10^th, where we will discuss:

- Environmental and social impacts of the current system of textile production.

- Sustainable materials (fibers, certifications, etc …).

- Dyes and Chemicals.

- Sustainable Production.

- New business models.

- Dynamics and Networking.

- Resource Guide.

Each day, and with a better informed consumer, more transparency is imposed on the traceability of products and generates strong businesses that are sustainable over time. Will tell you which are the bases for developing these businesses, and resources to take then to practice.

We will also do activities and exercises that will allow the participants to meet you because our motto is: Together we can! And if we learn to generate synergies and strong working partnerships, we will be stronger every day as companies face an increasingly demanding market.

These are the first steps of “Slow Fashion Spain“, there will be many more in the coming months: events and meetings, more specific training and workshops for entrepreneurs responsible fashion, but also creative workshops for fashion designers to help us improving to be more interesting and competitive in the international market and we hope and wish that these proposals are interesting to you and help you build your dreams.

Gema Gómez from SlowFashionSpain