Emeka Suits, the eponymous label founded in 2019 by Sydney Nwakanma based between Berlin and rural Kenya, is amongst the brands selected for this year’s showcase. After documenting the critical amounts of clothing waste in Dandora, one of Africa’s biggest landfill sites, Nwakanma and his team embarked on creating clothing to challenge existing ideas that surround clothing landing in Africa as a product of western consumption. A far cry from the piles of clothing surrounding Nwakanma strewn on the wasteland, the suits luxuriousness highlight the very real potential of reimagining trash. The handwoven pieces move away from the DIY aesthetic that has seen a surge in recent years. Emeka suits are on a mission to bridge the gap between luxury and sustainability, with a richness emerging from a narrative, not a price tag.  

Alongside a selection of innovative Berlin-based brands, British designer Patrick McDowell has been invited to showcase his work as part of Fashion Open Studio showcase. At the beginning of his career the 23-year-old Liverpudlian, whilst doing a placement at Burberry noticed the vast quantities of material wasted in production, and wrote to Christopher Bailey (then the chief creative officer of Burberry) to see if he could make use of the excess of offcuts. His first collection, firefighting aunties, was an ode to recognising the parallels between the work of his father and the powerful women at the epicentre of his family. Since, McDowell has collaborated on collections with the likes of Burberry, Swarovski and Depop and recently became the sustainability design director for Italian brand PINKO.