Weekend event expands awareness, understanding of sustainable fashion

Peggy Stansbery, Staff Writer

RVA sustainable fashion weekend events encourages conscious fashion decisions for the first time this upcoming weekend from April 27-30.

The weekend’s theme will be “Trash the Runway” to inspire people. A landfill is the richest place on earth since all ideas and ambitions that have not been worked on go there, said Caelan Nzamba, its founder and director and VCU alum. 

“The key was to push people to do what they were thinking about or have their hopes on, regardless of how hard the struggle is,” Nzamba said. “That’s something I want the Richmond people to really take and move on with.” 

The weekend will include: an invasive species river cleanup; a gala with guest speakers and discussions around local and global issues, a screen printing event in Monroe Park hosted by Eco Fashion VCU, a fashion show, a clothing swap presented by SwapMeet RVA and a drive to collect items for lower-income populations, according to Nzamba. 

Nzamba decided to create RVA Sustainable Fashion Weekend after meeting the owner of Swap Across America, an organization that does swaps across the East Coast, according to Nzamba. Nzamba thought Richmond would be a great place for a swap, but after reflecting, he decided he’d rather create a bi-annual or annual event for the Richmond community. 

“There’s a lot of sustainable artists and designers and a really big sustainable audience here,” Nzamba said. “So I really wanted to create something for the audience.”

Nzamba realized while creating the event and working with the community, many people in Richmond have been in the vintage and sustainable fashion reclaim for decades, he said. 

“Every time I talk to them about what I’m trying to do, I have that spark in my eyes, it’s stuck in there, but it kind of feeds off each other,” Nzamba said. “I can really see that this is something that people have wanted for a while.”

SwapMeet RVA will be hosting the swap on April 30, according to its co-founder and organizer Cam Hadnot. SwapMeet RVA will have vendors selling a wide range of products and a specific time for attendees to swap clothing with participating vendors. 

For RVA Sustainable Fashion Weekend, SwapMeet RVA is pivoting its market to be more of a social event by having a DJ and a seating area, according to Cam Hadnot.

SwapMeet RVA wants to become a larger part of RVA Sustainable Fashion Weekend next year, Cam Hadnot said. They hope to spread awareness for the event and help grow it. 

“We could see this becoming as big as RVA Fashion Week,” Cam Hadnot said. “It can be a whole entire week of fashion shows and panels and bringing awareness to the effect that fast fashion is really having on our climate and landfills.”

Deja Hadnot, SwapMeet RVA’s other co-founder and organizer, is excited to spread awareness and facilitate conversation about sustainable fashion through the event — especially since it isn’t always a household conversation and subtle changes in consumerism can make a difference, she said. 

“We just truly feel that this is the start of making it a bigger conversation for everyone and educating people,” Deja Hadnot said. 

Chloe Allen, designer and VCU fashion design student, will showcase six of her pieces on the runway at the event’s fashion show, she said. 

Her pieces involve upcycled clothing she already owns or clothing from thrift stores, according to Allen. For one of her designs she took her old work pants, black skinny jeans, and turned them into a dress. She hopes her pieces show people that they can upcycle clothing themselves.

“I hope that they are inspired. I really want people to look at not just my designs, but everyone else’s, and see that there is a way to be fashionable and sustainable,” Allen said. “You don’t have to buy things off of online websites every time that you want to change your wardrobe.”

VCU student organization BLK in Fashion will be involved in RVA Sustainable Fashion Weekend by helping with volunteers and ensuring the event runs smoothly, according to VCU alum and its co-founder Nana Opoku-Manu. 

It’s great BLK in Fashion is participating in a conversation as big as sustainability, notably because there aren’t many sustainable fashion weekends happening, Nana Opoku-Manu said. 

Opoku-Manu hopes RVA Sustainable Fashion Weekend shows people the necessity of sustainability because unethically-sourced clothing and fast fashion have become very accessible, she said. She hopes the event opens the door to different ways people can shop sustainably from beyond just thrifting. 

“I’m hoping that we just kind of see the harmful effects of fast fashion, of unsustainable clothing and of unsustainable fashion,” Opoku-Manu said. “Because it’s just very unhealthy.”