Sustainable Fashion Week at Zero Carbon Guildford

Earlier this year, Zero Carbon Guildford hosted a programme of events as part of Sustainable Fashion Week, bringing together volunteers and the local community to explore regenerative fashion practices. The programme included free clothes swaps, mending circles, a natural dyeing workshop and a garden tour at Rosamund Community Garden. Together, these events explored how we can develop new relationships with our clothes through community, creativity and care for the land.

Garden tour at Rosamund Community Garden, talking about regenerative fashion practices, and harvesting dye flowers to use for our bundle dyeing workshop.

My journey into sustainable fashion began after more than a decade working in the fashion industry across sourcing, supply chain management, product development and design. While working in factories in Bangladesh, China, Europe and the UK, I witnessed first-hand the unethical practices that underpin much of the industry, and it became clear that change was needed.

Later, I chose to build on this experience by pursuing an MA in Sustainable Fashion at Falmouth University. Through my final major project, I launched the Kindred Cloth Collective, partnering with Zero Carbon Guildford and Rosamund Community Garden to promote regenerative fashion practices within the local community.

Venn Diagram illustrating the differences between fundamental needs and ephemeral behaviours in fashion. Diagram by Erin Donohoe, 2025

During Sustainable Fashion Week, Kindred Cloth Collective began exploring what a fashion commons could look like in Guildford. This work drew on the thinking of commons scholars such as Elinor Ostrom and David Bollier, whose research highlights shared stewardship as a way for communities to thrive. In practice, this meant creating spaces where people repaired and redesigned clothing, grew and cultivated natural dye plants, and reconnected fashion back to the soil and living systems that support it.

Bundle dyeing workshop and dye garden tour at Rosamund Community Garden. Workshop part of Zero Carbon Guildford / Sustainable Fashion Hub 2025

Photograph from the natural dyeing workshop at Rosamund Community Garden, part of Sustainable Fashion week, 2025.

The events also laid the foundations for future ambitions, including growing enough dye plants to establish a community dye bath and continuing to host workshops that share skills in land stewardship, ethical fashion practices, craft and sustainable design. Together, these initiatives aimed to build a regenerative fashion commons with Zero Carbon Guildford - one where clothing is cared for, extended and celebrated as part of a circular, community-led system.

Sustainable Fashion Week at Zero Carbon Guildford offered a tangible example of how regenerative fashion practices can take root through collaboration, shared learning and care for place.

Natural dyeing and dye garden tour group for Sustainable Fashion Week, 2025. Hosted by Erin Donohoe at Zero Carbon Guildford.

Erin & Ginny hosted the workshop at Rosamund Community Garden, where they both shared their knowledge and skills in sustainable fashion, and regenerative textile s practices in natural dyeing.

Erin Donohoe volunteers as the Sustainable Fashion Lead at Zero Carbon Guildford, where she delivers sustainable fashion projects in collaboration with the Guildford community and Zero’s volunteers. If you would like to take part in developing new skills or contribute to Zero’s sustainable fashion initiatives, please get in touch.