Redress takes circular fashion advocacy to the UN, spotlighting Asia’s role

Oct 2 , 2025

The speakers – and moderator, Redress’ Christina Dean (right) – of last month’s Designing Circular Futures panel, hosted by the UN’s Fashion and Lifestyle Network. Photo: Handout

The Hong Kong NGO’s founder and CEO, Christina Dean, moderated a New York panel of young designers pioneering eco-friendly design practices

For over 15 years, Hong Kong-based NGO Redress has been paving the way for a more circular fashion economy in the region, raising awareness of environmental issues and spearheading a number of initiatives aimed at combating clothing and textile waste. Now it’s brought that advocacy all the way to the United Nations in New York, where founder and CEO Christina Dean moderated a panel on September 20, joined by young designers from around the world who are leading the charge when it comes to eco-friendly design practices.

Ahead of the panel, Dean discussed what partnering with the UN’s Fashion and Lifestyle Network means for the future of Redress. “Asia holds a lot of the solutions and problems in not just waste and lack of circularity, but also climate change impact and poverty, so more focus needs to be put on Asia at these global events,” Dean told Style ahead of the organisation’s annual Redress Design Award grand finale runway show.

The Designing Circular Futures panel on September 20, with Redress’ Christina Dean (left) moderating. Photo: Handout

“Fifteen years into this competition, we’ve got alumni brands that might be 15, 14 years old, and each of them have somewhat branched out from the core of our very textile-focused competition to incorporate more UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) into their work,” she added. “It’s a good partnership because [the UN has] the platform for deeper work with SDGs, and we’ve got these brands who now need to be on that front stage, really lobbying for the cause.”

In a testament to the longevity of Redress’ work, three of those alumni designers joined Dean on the panel to share how they’ve advanced their own causes through their brands. Spanning the gamut of SDGs, these causes include advocating for greater intersectionality in fashion, minimising the negative impact of global supply chains on marginalised communities, and building new production models focused entirely on upcycling.

Damini Mittai is the founder of Koaka Collective, a South Indian designer brand and social enterprise. Photo: Handout

India- and Toronto-based designer Damini Mittai, a Redress Design Award finalist in 2019, said her experience working with marginalised women from the Global South continues to inform her community-centric approach to design and product development.

“These indigenous women of colour are most vulnerable to climate change,” Mittai said of her label Koaka Collective’s primary objective: to undo the “cultural patriarchy” of fashion by protecting women’s rights to financial autonomy “without having to sacrifice household duties”, allowing them to work from home rather than in factories. “One way we bring power back to them is to make them active agents of change in the rural economy and global sustainable movement.”

Jann Bungcaras, founder of the eponymous genderless sustainable fashion brand. Photo: Handout

Though much of the panel discussion took a global focus, the implications of fashion’s sustainability problem are certainly felt locally here in Hong Kong, where an average of 402 tonnes of textile waste – from clothing to bedding and home textiles – were sent to landfills every day in 2023, according to a recently published Redress report. Of the three designers, Philippines-based Jann Bungcaras was by far the most outspoken about the mountains of textile waste washing ashore in his home country, including many items from luxury brands.

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