Open Mode Festival: Young creative minds lay foundations for eco-responsible fashion

With war raging in Ukraine, it's not easy to know how to speak about fashion – if at all. The best answer is to face the paradox. Thanks to the French Federation for Haute Couture and Fashion, Ukrainian designer Lilia Litovskaya is now safe in Paris. At Balenciaga, Demna Gvasalia, who fled a Kremlin-backed civil war in Georgia in 1993, offers up a hostile backdrop for his collection. Labels Marine Serrre, Atlein, Benmoyal and Germanier, meanwhile, are championing freedom of expression with their eco-friendly offerings.

The European Union warned consumers to stop using their clothes like throwaway items and said Wednesday that it plans to counter the polluting use of mass-market fast fashion.

This year’s Berlin Fashion Week, which was held in one of the city’s former electrical factories mid-March, was largely focused on the work of Jean Gritsfeldt. The Ukrainian fashion designer was unable to attend in person as he could not leave Kyiv due to the war. But activist movement Fashion Revolution managed to recreate key items of his collection from scratch. It was a powerful cross-border collaboration and a message of peace, which Berlin designers Esther Perbandt and Natacha Von Hirschhausen helped to spread.

The textile industry is the backbone of Pakistan's economy, accounting for 8.5 percent of its GDP. But it's also a source of major pollution, with untreated waste flowing into the groundwater and factories relying heavily on coal. Our correspondents report on the industry's impact in Faisalabad, Pakistan's main textile hub, where clothes are produced for the biggest fast fashion brands.

According to some estimates, the fashion industry emits as much as 3 billion metric tonnes of CO2 annually, contributing more to climate change than the aviation and shipping industries combined. Making matters worse, less than 1 percent of all clothing globally is recycled, creating a vicious cycle of mass consumption and waste. So how can companies and consumers diminish their impact on the planet? Livia Firth, co-founder of a consulting agency specialised in sustainability, joined us for Perspective.

The Lyon Fashion Film Festival is open to admissions from both art schools and brands. This year’s second edition of the event showcased a parade of fresh young talents who aren’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers. The winner of the designers' prize, Rémy Perrier, credits fashion with helping him to discover his true queer identity. Meanwhile, the collective 16:25 was awarded the Students' Prize for "Programmé.e", their mesmerising depiction of the drawn-out agony of the mourning process, juxtaposed with the frenetic pace of disposable fashion. FRANCE 24 takes a closer look.

The 9th edition of FIMO, Togo's international fashion festival, didn’t open with a series of fashion shows, but instead with a science symposium organised by the University of Lomé. The theme of the discussion: how to pursue ethical fashion production while Africa continues to be the recipient of thousands of tonnes of the rest of the world’s unsold merchandise? And how to make the most of the rich pool of African design talent? We get some insightful answers from designers, fashion students and academics.

This year's ready-to-wear winter collections are all about love and seduction: the delicate balance between what's shown and what isn't. Vaquera has found inspiration in the iconic black latex jumpsuit worn by Maggie Cheung in the 1996 film "Irma Vep" directed by Olivier Assayas. Victor Weinsanto, meanwhile, showcases an extravagant corset-and-cape look for "Emily in Paris" star Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu. Finally, the Love Brings Love exhibition offers a moving homage to late iconic designer Alber Elbaz.

No art form is better suited to interrogating the representation of the body, and the value society attributes to our bodies, than dance. The dance collective (La)Horde has headed up Marseille's National Ballet since September 2019. For more than 10 years, Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel have been coming up with new and exciting ways to conceive of the medium of dance, both classical and contemporary. They are also shaking things up on the fashion front. We take a closer look.

The Chinese fast fashion retail giant Shein is facing allegations of child labour on TikTok. Shein then debunked these claims with a TikTok video of its own. In this edition of Truth or Fake, we take a closer look and tell you what we know about the brand's working conditions.

The fourth edition of Men's Arab Fashion Week kicks-off in Dubai, featuring collections by designers from the Arab world and beyond looking to grow men's fashion scene in the region.

Adire is a resist-dyed cloth produced and worn by the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria in West Africa. The Yoruba label Adire, which means "tied and dyed," was first applied to indigo-dyed cloth decorated with resist patterns around the turn of the twentieth century. GuardianTV takes a look at the art and fashion of Adire.