Fashion Show Sustainability Review: Sitara 2022

By Lauren Kammerdiener 

In this new series, the Sustainable Style St Andrews blog team will be assessing the sustainable and ethical considerations of St Andrews's many fashion shows, a social staple of our university's style-conscious culture.

Sitara doesn't have the royal history of some other shows on the St Andrews fashion scene, but they can claim to be the first 'culturally-oriented' one. Sitara, which means 'star' in Hindi, started in 2008 as a unique celebration of Asian art and culture that distinguishes it from other runways around town. Curious about this approach, I sat down with model and Head of Fashion Andrew White to understand the cultural considerations that went in not only to the making of this year's show but which also underpin its entire ethos.

All photos courtesy of Ollie Grimes & Caroline Vining

Sitara has always had such a unique passion to it that I think some other St Andrews shows tend to lack. Where do you think your team, from designers to models, get that passion from and how have you seen it play out leading up to this year’s show?

As the first culturally-oriented fashion show in St Andrews, and I believe the first in Scotland, Sitara has always felt a special obligation to deliver a great show. Everyone on our team truly understands the importance of uplifting Asian art, music, and culture, and, because we are the largest event that gives visibility to Asian identity at St Andrews, everyone holds themselves to a pretty high standard. Our show has an activist mindset and a personal meaning which goes beyond a love for events or fashion, and I think that manifests itself in our committee’s dedication.

Our mission especially shines through in the pieces we choose to showcase. Asian designers are dominating right now in the global fashion space as the industry moves away from its traditional centres in London, Paris, and Italy towards emerging hubs like Tokyo and Seoul. Because Sitara aims to source 100% of our fashion from Asian designers, we’ve gotten to work with some really innovative and passionate Asian student designers in the UK who would perhaps be traditionally overlooked by other shows.

The celebration of Asian culture and identity is one of the show’s founding components. How has that evolved in light of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests and the recent rise in Asian hate crimes?

This year especially Sitara has been really intentional about the messaging we’ve put out. We’ve strived to be more inclusive than ever and push beyond our Indian roots and strong East Asian connections to explore a wide range of Asian cultural identities. For the first time this year, we looked to the Middle East for inspiration when choosing the traditions and mythologies we wanted to explore. We were also thrilled to highlight a huge amount of Southeast Asian fashion and music, primarily from Indonesia and Malaysia, in the 2022 show.

The rise of Asian hate was also a huge inspiration for why we chose Samsara as this year’s theme. Samsara is a philosophical and religious concept in Buddhism, Hinduism, and other East Asian religions. It describes the endless cycles of life, death, and rebirth to which the material is bound. The rise of hatred in response to the pandemic, and the coming together of the global community to reject that hate really signified and encapsulated the idea of Samsara in our own lives.

How has Sitara been able to fit conversations of sustainability into its model? Have you seen that change at all throughout your involvement?

I’ve seen all of the fashion shows in St Andrews come under fire for issues surrounding sustainability. A lot of people have started asking completely valid questions like: why does our small community have so many fashion shows? And how are these huge productions really helping charity? The entire executive team this year worked really hard to ensure Sitara was operating differently than other shows and setting a high standard for how sustainability should be integrated into our model. We ensured that all our drink, food, and goodie bag sponsors were local companies, so that nothing was being flown in from across the world. We also asked all of our sponsors to make their own individual contributions to ActionAid, so that every financial aspect of the event was oriented towards charity. Lastly, we cut down as much as possible on ordering items for decor and event production, and really focused on getting just what we needed. If you noticed, all of our decorations in the space were handmade by our team!

As a very international show, many of our garments were admittedly shipped in from far-flung places like China and India. But ultimately I realized that shipping a few hand-made garments for a fashion show is far more sustainable than the endless tons of fast fashion which pour into Western countries daily. I hope that seeing beautiful, hand-crafted couture up close can inspire the audience to think more critically and intentionally about where they buy their clothes.

Sitara, along with every fashion show in St Andrews, will definitely keep evolving with regard to ethics and sustainability. As the St Andrews student body becomes more eco-conscious, our audience will expect an increasing commitment to carbon neutrality and environmental cost mitigation. And, of course, the future committees who will run Sitara will also be made up of eco-conscious students, passionate about these issues.

The balance between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation is obviously very fine, and it’s one that the larger fashion industry has struggled to straddle, from high street to high-end. How does Sitara approach that balance, and what kinds of conversations have you had around it for this year’s show?

Sitara’s identity as an Asian fashion show certainly comes with a double-edged sword in that we are also tasked with faithfully and respectfully representing the incredibly diverse concept of what it means to be 'Asian'. As an organization, Sitara has also grappled with the idea that 'Asian-ness' is an orientalist, Western construct, and not a discrete identity in itself. From our own very extensive internal discussions, we’ve come to agree that being 'Asian' is still a valuable category, especially for 'Asian' people living as cultural minorities in a Western country. I cannot speak for everyone, but many people in Sitara see 'Asian-ness' as a way to find, celebrate and uplift each other — despite the fact that our cultural and personal backgrounds are all very different.

We don’t strive for politically correct perfection when searching for mythological themes or traditional music, clothing, and art to highlight in our events. Everyone on the creative side understands the inherent risk that we might slightly misrepresent the cultural context of a specific image or theme. Instead, we all remain extremely open to dialogue and constructive criticism, and always seek out advice from our diverse team and network of friends to make Sitara as faithful a representation of each Asian identity as possible. There have been numerous times when we’ve had to remove a piece of art, change a song, or educate our team about a piece of clothing to ensure that we weren’t culturally appropriating. And I think what everyone at Sitara has learned is that discussions around culture are very tricky and will always be a continuous process of learning and change. In this vein, our main emphasis has been to approach Sitara as an educational experience for both ourselves and the wider St Andrews community.

Andrew White, Head of Fashion

Let’s talk actual clothes. Is there a particular brand or piece you’re most excited to see showcased on the runway?

I have to say that there are two brands I’m most excited about. The first is Blue Pink Peach, a gender-neutral lingerie company. They make these beautiful, strappy fetish harnesses. The other brand is Tanzilia, an Indonesian wedding designer. The Tanzilia garments are these enormous wedding dresses with a 5 foot train (I’m so excited to see the models walk in them!).

Both the Tanzilia and the Blue Pink Peach pieces are floral and gentle, and have almost the same personality. We keep referring to them as the wedding day and wedding night collections. I decided to highlight these two designers together on stage to showcase the full spectrum of human sexuality. The same person could wear a stunning white wedding gown fit for a princess and then have sex in a floral harness in the very same evening — and that’s exactly what I love about humanity! This year, instead of having a dedicated 'lingerie section' like some other shows, we decided to juxtapose formal wear and lingerie throughout the entire second half of the event. We wanted to reinforce that the lingerie in Sitara wasn’t vulgar or scandalizing, but a symbol of body acceptance and empowerment.

How do you assess the brands and pieces you select for the show? Do you take into account any particular ethical or sustainable considerations?

We look for Asian designers both in the UK and internationally, and try to have a mix of local and far-flung pieces. This year we’ve included designs from over 25 countries, which, proudly, is one of our most diverse sets of fashion yet! We were particularly interested in highlighting student fashion from schools like Parsons, London College of Fashion, and Central Saint Martins. During the process of finding and selecting fashion for Sitara, everyone on the fashion team agreed that students with 3-5 pieces were making far more innovative garments than large established brands. Of course, working with large brands is also a pleasure and helps elevate awareness about Sitara across the UK. We’ve been really lucky to work with a healthy mix of up-and-coming and established designers.

I’ve also found that collaborating with students who maybe only have 3-5 pieces in their capsule collection is a great option in terms of ethics and sustainability. We’re able to give a platform to a brand-new designer, who likely has very little, if not zero, waste in creating their clothes, and support the 'slow fashion' movement.

Since the pandemic, there’s been a lot of talk in the global fashion show world about the accessibility of in-person shows, as well as the environmental impact of the kind of jetsetting an event like London Fashion Week requires from its participants. Have you seen any of that discussion play out in more of a micro form in St Andrews at all? How has Sitara sought to make this show as accessible as possible?

As per one of my earlier responses, I think all of the fashion shows, and the wider event culture in St Andrews, is grappling with this issue. Everyone knows that things have started to spiral out of control when the highest tiers are reaching over £100 per ticket for certain events. That type of cost just isn’t ethical, accessible, or frankly sustainable for much longer.

However, from an outside perspective, the price may seem absurd, but many St Andrews events genuinely have enormous operating costs, especially the fashion shows, which require pricey marquees, heating, lighting, sound, clothes, etc. I think the question for everyone becomes: what kind of events do we want to put on? Do we want to have events that are too expensive for most of the student body to afford? Underclassmen are attending far fewer events than previous generations of St Andrews students and simply don’t care about the old-fashioned 'prestigious' events and societies that have failed to evolve with the times.

The pandemic also definitely played a role in changing the event scene in St Andrews. As many events were canceled for at least a year, in Sitara’s case two, many students on committees this year had no practical event experience. Fourth years were really the only ones who remembered how things were 'supposed' to be. In Sitara’s case, this gave us free license to reinvent our organisation and really address those concerns about accessibility and inclusivity percolating around town. Sitara worked extremely hard to put on an incredible event which still cost less to attend than most other major fashion shows. We had a very honest discussion with everyone in the committee about what they would pay to attend Sitara and what they felt their friends could afford, and based all our budgeting decisions around that. In future years, Sitara is planning to continue our integration with local companies and services to cut down on unnecessary costs. We’ve found that sustainability and local relationships often go hand-in-hand with accessibility, and that’s how we want to move forward.

I will be honest and admit that this is the first and only St Andrews fashion show I've ever attended, so I don't want to try and compare it to the experience at others. But from the moment I was embraced by the U-shaped runway which surrounded the audience, I was truly astounded by the passion at witnessed, not only on the stage, but in the crowd below. The models, donned in everything from button-downs and boxers to elaborate puffed sleeves to fur capes, were able to create a palpable intimacy with showgoers, and the audience reflected back an energised fanatcisim that it was clear the models could feel; some of them could only just barely keep smiles off their faces. For me, attending Sitara was evidence of why in-person shows have become such a staple in the industry, as well as in St Andrews; it's an environment that is irreplicable online, somehow as intimate as it is glamorous.