Fast Fashun – Fighting Over-Consumerism with Creativity and Community

“I’ve worked in fashion since the mid-2000s: as a fashion photographer’s assistant and stylist. I helped Country Road, one of Australia’s biggest mainstream fashion brands, set up their online store. I then started putting on underground runway shows in Melbourne.

At some point, I realised I was contributing to a fashion culture I didn’t like. There’s a lot of clout-chasing, and it can be very superficial.

My main collaborator, Sebastian Berto, and I came up with a performance piece that commented on consumerism, and from that, we developed an interactive fashion project called Fast Fashun.

We bring in a huge amount of clothing and textile waste, things op shops can’t sell, dump it in a space, and invite audiences to participate. They rummage through the clothing waste and have to make something out of it. We have sewing machines, so if you have that skill or want to learn, you can use them. Otherwise, you can use safety pins or just style a look. The idea is to make something really quick, then showcase it on a runway show that happens every hour on the hour – hence the name ‘Fast Fashun’.

There’s power in a very simple idea: a pile of clothing waste, some sewing materials, a place to play, and a runway show. It can be incredibly engaging and meaningful.

Our project centres on creating community. We run lots of kids’ workshops as well as all-ages events – anyone can get involved. We centre queer and disabled experiences as the norm – from this place, everyone is welcome.

We’re obviously dealing with heavy themes like waste, consumerism, and the environmental impact of the fashion industry, but we try to address them in a fun and accessible way.

We create a space where you’re faced with a giant, overwhelming pile of clothing, and we want people to start thinking about their own relationship to consumerism: why they consume and what drives that behaviour. In terms of sustainability, we hope people leave having questioned their consumption and start to dial it back.

We’re careful not to put the responsibility for environmental devastation on individuals. It’s driven by big brands, companies, and the industry.

But at the same time, we do have power in choosing not to buy things, or at least asking questions – looking into brands’ ethical practices and sustainability policies. We also want to highlight how cheaply things are made and how much labour goes into something as simple as a T-shirt.

The overall reaction to our performances and workshops has been really positive. People of all ages enjoy it. Some people just watch, but often after seeing one runway show they think, ‘Oh, I can do that,’ because it’s very accessible and not pretentious at all. It’s quite silly, really.

When we work with schools, teachers often comment that kids who usually don’t engage are fully engaged in this. Many people also keep coming back to our events.

There are two main things we hope people take away. Sebastian’s intention is to help people reconnect with their inherent creativity, to leave feeling creative and confident enough to experiment and try new things. Even if they thought they weren’t into fashion or sewing, maybe they’ll want to mend something of their own or pursue a creative idea they’ve been thinking about for ages. They leave with the confidence to try.

My intention is to remind people that they live within a community. We’re constantly bombarded with horrific news, and internet comment sections can make it feel like everyone is mean and we’ll never get along. But at our events, there are moments of collaboration, sharing, and conversation, often about people’s connection to clothing. Even if you’re not into fashion, everyone wears clothes.

In kids’ workshops, we talk about where clothes come from: where the materials are from, which plant or animal. We want people to think about the full life cycle.

When you’re sitting in front of a huge pile of polyester, it’s powerful to realise it all started as something underground, with so much effort in between, just to end up here.

It can look fun and frivolous, but there’s also a lot of depth to the concept.

One of my favourite moments after our last big event was receiving a message from a parent. We’d been talking to kids aged four to twelve about materials, and later that day the family went to an op shop. Their six-year-old was walking through, touching fabrics and saying, ‘Oh, I think this is cotton… hmm, polyester.’ That was a real ‘job done’ moment.

At the moment, we’re working towards international touring because we want to spread the message, and we believe cultural exchange is really important for artists and communities. One idea is to develop reciprocal relationships where Fast Fashun is embedded within a community and carried on locally, creating a model that can be adapted in different places.

Sometimes people take home what they’ve made but a lot of the leftover material becomes rags, which we give back to recyclers who turn it into cushion filler and insulation tiles.

Some people argue that we shouldn’t let participants cut things up and make silly creations; that everything should be long-lasting or look ‘good’. But there is so much waste that, honestly, it doesn’t really matter what we do with the material we already have. In an ideal world, everything would be reused and made to last.

But the reality is that around 227,000 tonnes of textile waste are sent to Australian landfills every year.

If we divert some of that, make silly things, and encourage people to reflect on their choices, that matters.

Being able to experiment, fail, and start again takes the pressure out of learning new skills. I think it’s okay to be irreverent about waste and not overly precious.

Another key goal is helping people feel confident enough to wear whatever they want, without feeling pressured to follow trends they see online.

Inspiration is great, but we encourage people to visit op shops or second-hand platforms and create their own versions. We hope that experimenting with clothes in our workshops and performances spills over into people’s everyday lives, influencing how they dress and encouraging their friends to do the same.

That’s the big goal. We’re constantly under pressure from the internet and cultural expectations about how to behave or look in order to fit in. I’d argue there are no rules. It's more important to feel good and to consume less.”

Fast Fashun
@fast_fashun_

On the cover: Teneille wearing demin corset made by @penthousejeans during Fast Fashun’s Wasteworlds event in 2025