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Fashion love that feels good

Quebec-born fashion firecracker Myriam Laroche can’t recall a time she wasn’t in the clothing business, though she remembers when her ideas about the wheeling and dealing consumption-based industry started to change.
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Myriam Laroche is the founder of Eco Fashion Week ,a non-profit event running April 19-24 with a week of eco-conscious clothing events that focus on designers who work with sustainable materials.

Quebec-born fashion firecracker Myriam Laroche can’t recall a time she wasn’t in the clothing business, though she remembers when her ideas about the wheeling and dealing consumption-based industry started to change.

For years it was about squeezing out every last dollar, buying and selling racks of clothing churned out for maximum profit. Eventually, it started to feel a little icky for Laroche.

“At the beginning, I was proud of that because that was the job – I was a super-crazy buyer … and it was just about the money at the end of the day,” Laroche says with her charming Québécois accent. “I reached a point of questioning where that was going.”

She still loved fashion, but Laroche started thinking about how she could feel good about it.

“When I stepped back and I was like, ‘Ok, this is happening and how can we make it better, healthier, and make it feel good?’” Laroche says.

Her realization corresponded with her move to Vancouver, where she launched Eco Fashion Week. Now in its ninth season, the non-profit event kicks off on Sunday (April 19) and runs until Friday (April 24) with a week of eco-conscious clothing events that focus on designers who work with sustainable materials, like vintage and repurposed fabrics.

The purpose of the event is also to educate consumers and companies about the impact fast-fashion and mass consumption has on our fragile planet, which has taken a hefty beating at the hands of most industries, fashion being no exception. For instance, a single mill in China can use 200 tons of water for each ton of fabric it dyes, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. There are countless other jaw-dropping examples of waste in the fashion biz and equally horrific labour abuses.

In a surprise move H&M, considered one of the worst fast-fashion offenders, is actually opening Eco Fashion Week with the BC launch of its spring 2015 Conscious Exclusive Collection at the Fairmont Hotel on Sunday (April 19). The line is made from more sustainable materials such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. H&M will also present its Garment Collecting Initiative, a global movement that encourages customers to bring unwanted garments of any brand and in any condition to H&M.

“It is a big deal to have a major brand like that,” Laroche says about H&M’s presence.

In her view, it’s better to partner with large-scale producers than work against them.

“We need to work with the people that have the biggest footprint,” she says. “Those businesses are coming from an era where it was just about money. Right now, they are still on that business model, but things are changing. But for them to flip and change completely, it’s not the same strategy as a boutique that has one store – it is thousands of stores.”

Meanwhile, another highlight will be the Value Village Thrift Chic Challenge, presented by Value Village on Monday (April 20), where three stylists are given $500 to whip together 10 catwalk-worthy outfits using only thrift-store threads.

For the final day (April 24), VIFF Vancity Theatre partnered with Fashion Week to present Traceable, a film about reforming working conditions for fashion factory workers. Following the screening, there will be a panel discussion on Fashion Revolution Day, which was started in response to the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,133 and injured 2,500.

“We want to be inspiring,” Laroche says about Eco Fashion Week. “It’s not just about what’s the next thing to wear. It’s really about, ‘Hey, lets talk about what’s going on.’ We’ve been making clothes the same way for years, it has to change.”