Reading scientist’s climate stripes showcased at London Fashion Week

A climate change visualisation created by a University of Reading scientist has hit the catwalk at London Fashion Week, after designer Tammam turned them into an eco-friendly range of clothing.

Sustainable couture designer Tammam showcased its 2022 collection on Thursday evening (16 September), in partnership with the University, as part of the 2021 London Fashion Week at Samsung KX.

Bursting with colour, the ‘Flight’ themed collection featured a range of textiles based on the warming stripes visual by Professor Ed Hawkins, which has been adopted and shared all over the world in recent years as an emblem of climate action.

Professor Hawkins, an NCAS climate scientist based at the University of Reading, said: “Everyone needs to understand and talk about climate change if we are to find ways to tackle it.

“Putting the climate stripes on the catwalk is a high-impact way to get the message across – a powerful synthesis of science and fashion.”

The bold stripes represent the average annual global temperature since 1850, using reds for hotter years and blues for cooler years to clearly show how temperatures have risen dramatically due to human-caused climate change.

Tammam’s 2022 collection includes sustainable materials and hand craftsmanship from artisans based at the Tammam Atelier and across India. The Flight theme references nature and female aviators – an explosion of colour as a fabulous, freeing antidote to the last couple of restrictive years.

Fabrics include hand-loomed organic cottons, peace silks and Tammam’s exclusive eco-tulle, as well as reinvented vintage suits: repurposing luxury fabrics that no longer serve their original purpose.

The fashion collection is the latest inventive way the warming stripes have been adopted since they were created in 2018. Since then, they have also been spotted on the Main Stage at Reading Festival, shared on television shows all over the world, and printed on the side of a Tesla.

Stripes graphics for more than 200 countries and regions were made available to download from showyourstripes.info in 2019, with more than a million people downloading them in the first week after the launch.

The fashion showcase followed just a day after the University of Reading hosted a major Climate Education Summit, to discuss how climate change could be taught across all subjects in schools.

Photo credit: Ari & Lucy Photography