Colour is energy she explains and it's so grey out there

"Colour is energy," she explains, "and it's so grey out there."She waves towards the filthy Thames. "Colour allows us to make a strong statement about ourselves and fight against a society that tries to push us into all being the same There is a definite body politic in my work. I'm into things being comfortable, so they're often soft and drapy. I'm often asked to make things for people who have difficulty getting what they want in standard shops."Her customers range from teenagers to much older women, from students to lecturers, from pregnant brides to radical feminists. They are all people who want styles that can't be dated, and look better with age. "The clothes look better after people have sweated in them and made them lumpy. They become heirlooms."As an artist in her native New Zealand, Lauren was always environmentally aware, and particularly interested in recycling.

She collected and dyed rope and other organic rubbish from the beach, and later made wall hangings and soft sculptures which gradually evolved into clothes. She passes on her recycling philosophy by giving lectures and exhibitions, and doing workshops with school children.Lauren's belief in the importance of recycling is part of a growing awareness about our responsibility to the environment. Rob Harrison, for one, is pleased to see designers such as Lauren Shanley reusing fabrics. As a spokesperson for The Ethical Consumer, a Manchester based magazine, Rob shares Lauren's concern about the effects that clothes production have on the earth."It is a world-wide problem, having a massive impact on such things as water pollution from the bleaching and dyeing, land use for cotton instead of food crops, and pesticide poisoning."He produces a litany of ecological evils.

Cotton plants alone, for example, use up 25 per cent of world sales of pesticides; nylon production may account for half the emission of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide in the UK. Heavy metals such as lead and titanium, used to fix colours, are toxic; some dyes are thought to be carcinogenic; and sheep-dips for wool may be poisoning our farmers.Those of us who are not thrilled at the thought of noble nudity, however, may rest in the conscience-freeing notion of recycled clothing. "Globally," points out Rob Harrison, "recycling fabrics would cut these damaging effects on the environment by half."Most of Lauren's work is now commissioned, but she also has ready-made garments hanging in the shop. Usually made from one piece of material with some stitching and embroidery, these waistcoats, trousers and jackets are none the less shimmering and incandescent. The jackets start off at around pounds 50, increasing in price according to how much work is put into them. The commissioned clothes are more expensive, starting at about pounds 200 per garment.Price is based on labour alone, as Lauren does not charge for recycled material. Her most expensive coat, a radiant, iconic, embroidered vision, took about 100 hours to make and cost pounds l,500.