AN award-winning Keighley company is playing a pivotal role in Sustainable Fashion Week.

The Stitch Society is heading up a programme of events in Yorkshire as part of the initiative, which starts on September 23.

It is one of just six 'hub' firms across the country representing the manufacturing sector.

The Stitch Society, based at Mantra House, in South Street, manufactures sustainable workwear and clothing using UK-sourced fabrics.

Charlotte Meek, who founded and runs the firm, says: "We have lost the need that our grandmothers had to reuse and repurpose, yet it is even more important now to choose to do so with the reality of the climate change crisis upon us.

"As the region’s hub for Sustainable Fashion Week, The Stitch Society aims to help people re-engage with textiles and see through the 'greenwashing' to find the grassroots way forward to a sustainable, better future for fashion and textiles."

The theme for this year’s Sustainable Fashion Week is The ReWear Revolution.

Up to 100 billion garments are produced by the fashion industry every year, but as much as 92 million tons of clothing ends up in landfill. Only 20 per cent of textiles are collected for reuse or recycling globally.

Charlotte will begin Sustainable Fashion Week at the Yarndale festival, at Skipton Auction Mart.

On the Saturday, September 23, she will give a talk on Making Choices: Sustainable Textile or Greenwashing, and the following day will speak about Retraining Textile Thinking: Reusing, Repurposing, Rewearing and Reconnecting.

Also, The Stitch Company will be exhibiting at the event.

The company, in partnership with Sue Ryder, will then host free daily drop-in sessions and workshops at a pop-up shop in Keighley's Airedale Shopping Centre, from September 25. Visitors will have the chance to learn skills for mending, darning and refreshing garments. It will culminate with a clothes swap on October 7 and 8.

And The Stitch Society will collaborate with Bradford College to present a series of workshops and talks – at the college – on September 30 and October 1, covering topics including natural dyeing, minimal waste pattern cutting, and weaving using recycled materials.

Charlotte adds: "It's not about ‘making do’ so much as finding the joy in textiles which already have a tale to tell, and giving them new life – for the pleasure as well the practical benefit to the planet."

For further information about all events, visit sustainablefashionweek.uk.