A Busy Month: Sustainable Fashion Week and Second Hand September

With London Textile Month and Second Hand September happening side by side, it’s no surprise that Palava's calendar has been packed. These are two events in the year that feel especially important, a chance to share our values and connect with others who care about the future of fashion.

Crafting Fashion Futures for London Textile Month

The week of excitement began with Bryony speaking at Crafting Fashion Futures, a brilliant event that formed part of London Textile Month. Organised by Safia Minney, founder of Indilisi, and Polly Leonard, Selvedge magazine editor.

For a small brand like ours, it was a big moment - joining a panel of brilliant people discussing the future of making and adding our voice to the mix.

Bryony spoke on a panel alongside Sophie Holt, Emma Håkansson, and Jo Salter, discussing the future of fashion from the soil up - themes that are at the core of our values at Palava. She shared the visions for the Hatchery, our plans to build a micro-factory, and how we’re rethinking the way clothes are made, even down to our flax growing experiments.

This event was an exciting moment for Palava. It doesn’t matter how small you are; your voice matters.

Palava may not be a huge brand, but being part of a conversation like this shows that size doesn’t define impact. Sometimes, being small even gives you the freedom to challenge the system, ask the awkward questions, and show that things can be done differently.

For us, this talk wasn’t just about sharing what we do; it was also about listening, learning, and connecting. Being alongside others who are equally committed to reimagining fashion reminded us that this is a collective effort, and that every contribution adds up to something greater.

From Vegetables to Wool: Talking British Wool at Yarndale

The second talk of the month...yes, second! Bryony headed north to Skipton to speak at Yarndale, a festival dedicated entirely to wool. And in true Palava fashion, she opened her talk with… vegetables.

Her point was that when we grow our own vegetables, we know their worth and celebrate their differences. Supermarkets allow us only to see the ones we consider perfect, the ones that conform to standards we set.

Then Oddbox comes along!

Shouting and celebrating the big, the small, the rounded vegetables, and huzzah! We begin to see things differently - we see things differently, no more waste, only celebration.

What if we treated British wool in the same way?

Right now, much of British wool is discarded. It’s often dismissed as too scratchy, too coarse, or too discoloured. Farmers are throwing away their wool. But that’s not because the wool has value. It’s because we’ve been taught to see british wool as inferior to the wools we import.

Bryony’s talk was about challenging this mindset. Instead of seeking perfection in New Zealand, Australian wool, transported for miles across the continant, we should start to celebrate British wool in the oddbox way.

Look at British wool not as one identity but as a game of Top Trumps with over 60 different breeds of sheep.

You are right, we will probably never make underpants from British wool

But it has so much to give.

If we take the best of one for strength and the best from another for softness. Now look at wool like a big pot of soup. Sometimes it’s not about finding the perfect breed, but about combining them to get the best of each.

That’s exactly how our Molly Cardigan came to be, blending Bluefaced Leicester with Masham sheep wool to achieve both softness and strength, while still celebrating its British roots.

It’s a conversation that goes beyond wool, it’s about shifting culture, challenging waste, and learning to appreciate the resources local to us.

The Wool Blanket Project: Pushing the Boundaries

The month finished with another exciting step in our Wool Blanket Project.

As you’ll know if you’ve been following our journey, this project began with the simple idea of repurposing wool blankets into jackets. Over time, it’s become so much more, even down to an exploration of how we can use every last scrap.

This week, we visited John, the shoddy man (an old textile term for recycling fabric). John has a lifetime of experience and runs a company called INOUIIO making remarkable progress in the recycling textiles industry. You can read more about INNOUI here

"Our long term goal is to recycle all of our fabric that cannot be repurposed."

That goes for cotton, wool, Tencel©, the lot. But this isnt as simple as you think. - Thats a story for another day.

So small steps ...

We wanted to take the scraps from the wool blanket project and see what we could do with the smallest pieces, the bits that usually have no future.

every recycled yarn needs a carrier fiber and the industry here in the UK is set up for wool so mixing that with a passion for British wool ...

Together, we experimented with blending them into new yarns. The result was a test batch made from 80% British wool and 20% wool blanket waste. It’s early days, and we don’t yet know exactly where it will lead. But the process is full of possibilities, which is really exciting.

Why? Because wouldn't it be amazing to have NO waste?

Just like Oddbox, we have to re think what we consider waste to be. Less to landfill and something to be proud of. Even if these experiments don’t produce a finished product straight away, they teach us. And they edge us closer to our vision of a future where nothing is wasted.

Second Hand September: Pre-Loved Palava

With Second Hand September in mind, it feels like the right moment to mention our Pre-Loved section, something we’ve been running for a while as part of our commitment to giving clothes a long and meaningful life.

You can trade in a Palava item you no longer wear, and receive shopping credit to use on something new.
You can also shop Pre-Loved pieces, safe in the knowledge they’ve been quality-checked by us.

It’s not just about reselling clothes, it’s about building a circular system, one where garments move from one wardrobe to another instead of ending up in landfill. It’s about giving our designs the long, joyful lives they were made for.

If you’d like to browse or trade in your own item, you can explore Pre-Loved. Click here.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

It’s been a full month, but an exciting one. Made even better by being surrounded by a community of like-minded people. We can’t wait to see where the next chapter takes us.