Dress For Our Time is a project by Professor Helen Storey, an artist, designer and researcher at Centre for Sustainable Fashion a University of the Arts London research centre based at London College of Fashion.

Helen uses the power of fashion to communicate and act upon some of the world's most complex issues, notably climate change and the mass displacement of people.

The dress is created from a decommissioned UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) refugee tent that once housed a displaced Syrian family at Za'atari Camp in Jordan, and was gifted to the project by UNHCR.  In giving the tent a second life, it endows this public art installation with an unbreakable bond to humanity and represents the importance of nurturing and protecting all people and safeguarding generations to come.

It is a symbol of what it means to be human and the precarious nature of our existence.

"It's rare that there's a piece of fashion which is designed not to influence what you buy but to shift the way you think. Its even rarer to find a piece created to promote the discussion of climate science.  But that's Helen Storey for you."
- Lucy Siegle, The Guardian
 

The dress has digitally displayed scientific data, which showed us the impact of climate change on our physical world, broadened the dialogue around migration, highlighting the millions of displaced people and the paths they take in search of a better life.

To date the dress has been shown at UK venues and internationally, including Buckingham Place, St Pancras International train station, UN Geneva, Science Museum London, Glastonbury Music Festival, The Peace Talks in London and Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development Conference. The tour continues.

Through fashion, science and wonder the project seeks to help change the way we think and act!

Read people's thoughts and reactions to Dress For Our Time.

In 2012, Helen brought together collaborators and supporters including Holition, Unilever, Met Office, UNHCR UK and the Universities of Sheffield, Exeter and Kingston - all with very different backgrounds in science, business, education, technology, humanitarian work and fashion, to explore ways to engender a public debate about our most critical challenges.

The conversation began with climate change and the UNCOP21 Paris Climate Summit 2015, as the focus, and explored how we as a species are, or are not, responding to climate change and why.  A date kept reoccurring during the discussion, a tipping point for us a species - 2020, and this date has changed everything for Helen.

The link between the refugee crisis and climate change is set to define how our species responds to this next phase of our evolution and the project, which started as a work of art to raise awareness and encourage debate, has now led to a 5 year path of front line practical action. 

Through social media, we are creating a community which has come together to make sense of and act upon these complex issues of our time.

PLEASE JOIN US & SHARE USING #Dress4ourtime

In 2016 Helen visited Za'atari Refugee Camp, Jordan (where the tent originated) in her capacity as an academic and is now co creating with the refugees, projects which respond to their direct needs and address education, training, livelihood and enterprise creation opportunities, focused on women and young girls at the camp.  

The dress has led a path to being able to turn Helen's creativity and that of many others into a series of practical projects, which seek to improve refugee life and living. And to share the stories of her visits to Za'atari Camp. 

Crucially, in this urgent age of reciprocity, this project is also about what refugees have to teach us about this next phase of our evolution.

Read more about these actions on the ground here.