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Fashion Revival Through Sustainability
After two years of lying empty, the former Top Shop building in St James’s Square, Newport, has been reborn as the new home for Platform One’s innovative Sustainable Fashion degree programme. This marks a new chapter not just for Platform One but for the Newport town centre, young Island creatives, and the historic building itself.
The building, which served as the headquarters for Wadham and Sons for nearly 130 years, was privately bought and has been transformed into a dynamic educational and public space. The transformation was a meeting of minds between Sarah Chatwin, Director at ERMC and a sustainability advocate,David and Peter Pontin, Education Directors at Platform One and Hannah Woodford, Head of Sustainable Fashion. The building, which includes four floors, had two that were unused during its time as Top Shop, and the top floor, previously a stockroom is now a bright, modern workspace. There’s also a retail area for pop-up events and exhibitions.
Hannah explains, “Our facilities are designed to closely mimic a real design studio environment. One of our technicians, who has worked with Victoria Beckham, mentioned that it feels just like her studio. That’s the experience we wanted to create—an educational space that is truly in tune with industry practices.” Although Hannah had been in talks with Platform One for sometime, David set her the challenge of structuring and writing the course within three weeks. She rose to the occasion, and a second year of students will be welcomed in the autumn.
Platform One’s Sustainable Fashion degree is among the first of its kind in the UK. While other institutions offer Masters’ programmes in this field, this undergraduate course is pioneering in its approach, aiming to thoroughly prepare students for the professional world. “My dream has always been to set up a school or college environment just for fashion on the Island and my passion has always been about making sure that whatever I’m delivering here is industry-facing, retaining my contacts, keeping an eye on what is happening in the fashion industry and reflecting that with my students. Some oft he tutors here are students that I taught and who have come back here now to teach themselves. Meeting David and Peter from Platform One reinforced my dream to set something up for the island and they have the same ethos as I have regarding education and how they run things.
“I’d been researching sustainable fashion and degrees for some time and realised that most fashion degrees are in design which is what we’re known for in the UK and within those degrees there might be one module in recycling or sustainability. So, there’s a huge gap in the market and a sustainability problem within the industry that needs addressing. We’re training designers in the UK as opposed to makers, we’re not thinking about the whole process anymore, and we don’t have enough creative sustainable designers. And this was whyI wrote a degree solely based on sustainable fashion which includes sourcing fabrics and designing through to production and marketing to teach our consumers to shop differently. The degree was validated by the University of Chichester, and we welcomed our first students in September 2023. We also have our Post 16 BTEC Diploma in sustainable fashion.”
