Fashion activism

Sometimes the most powerful activism isn’t a protest attended by hundreds of shouting people or acts of disruption like climbing on top of trains, but a simple question, like: ‘who made my clothes?’.

The original Fashion Revolution campaign was started after the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, and it invited ordinary consumers, global producers, fashion designers, retail giants, and many more across the industry, to ask simply ‘who made my clothes?’ and start to think about the working conditions faced by millions of garment workers around the world. These days, it’s easier than ever to buy something without talking to a person, so it’s easy to forget the amount of people involved in the production of our clothes. It’s even easier to forget that they may not be treated fairly, because the fast fashion industry does their best to hide their illegal practices from the public.

Fashion Revolution’s campaigns are not only alerting shoppers to the impact of their buying habits, but they are also causing significant change with brands and producers, making them become more transparent about their practices due to the pressure from in-the-know consumers. They’ve launched similar campaigns, including ‘who made my fabric?’, to continue the conversation around the fashion industry and how our clothes are made. They also have free resources that highlight smaller independent campaigns and makers, all available on their website to order/download. Their mission is education – the more we learn, the more we can make a difference.

Fashion Revolution says:

“Rather than making people feel guilty, we help them recognise that they have the power to do something to make positive change.”

Fashion Revolution aren’t the only people working towards positive change in the industry. Fashion heavyweights, such as Stella McCartney and Hermes, are developing new technology to improve fashion’s impact on the planet by creating a new type of ‘leather’ from fungi. Newcomers, like Bethany Williams and Chopova Lowena, are making a head-turning entrance to the fashion scene, by creating fashion with deadstock materials, traditional crafts, and ethical production methods. On a smaller scale, there are also thousands of activists on Instagram, from influencers that promote vintage wear, to small-scale designers who utilise waste fabrics, to writers that promote slow fashion through their blogs. Some also use fashion to advocate for social change that isn’t directly linked to fashion, such as bags that criticise the Conservative Party, or dresses that demand we tax the rich. Fashion can be powerful, as long as we use it in a way that doesn’t harm people and the environment.

Even the smallest attempt at activism can make a difference – changing just one person’s mind about fast fashion can have an impact. The more we can learn, the more we can change our buying habits and demand change. By asking a small question like ‘who made this t-shirt?’ or ‘how much plastic is in this dress?’ or ‘where was this jacket made?’, we can begin to understand the impact of what we buy and start to change the way we approach consuming fashion, which will then have an effect on the industry and how it works.

It’s important to remember: small change is better than no change at all.

- Tegan