Climate grief, clothing, and the lessons we need to learn from history

“Climate grief” and “eco-anxiety” might simply sound like buzzwords, borne out of a sudden awareness of the perilous state of the planet thanks to Extinction Rebellion or David Attenborough’s Blue Planet 2, but for me they evoke a strange sense of comfort. Like the diagnosis of a chronic condition, naming what ails you might not bring a cure, or even relief, but it does bring a certainty, a confirmation that you are not alone, and (hopefully) guidance on how to manage your condition. 

These aren’t twenty-first century problems either, the preserve of “snowflakes” who don’t have anything better to worry about. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham was concerned about animal welfare back in the 1780s, emphasising the need to recognise the fact that animals can suffer, and to treat them accordingly. JRR Tolkien experienced a profound sense of distress at the industrialisation of the countryside around his childhood home, and this feeling threads itself throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And in the 19th Century, the excesses of the fashion industry led to the onset of eco anxiety and, eventually, attempts to atone for our actions. 

By the 1850s, the Industrial Revolution had increased the speed and volume of clothing production, and Britain’s colonialist invasion of other countries had opened up rich new sources of materials. Not content with exploiting our fellow humans, we also began to exploit the natural world on a much larger scale. Iridescent jewel beetles were shipped back from British owned slave plantations along with the cotton to make the dresses their brightly-coloured wings would adorn. Whole hummingbirds and birds of paradise were stuffed and posed on hats and fans. Sealskin was transformed from a useful fabric worn by the indigenous people who lived in close proximity to seals to a sought-after fashion accessory.

Our desire for exotic fashions had already had a noticeable effect on wildlife. Beaver fur had been popular for hat-making for several centuries, leaving the European beaver population decimated. Thanks to changes in fashions and construction methods, baleen or “whalebone” was being phased out as a boning for corsets, but coastal areas remained conspicuously whale-free.

In his book Wild Ones, Jon Mooallam talks about “shifting baseline syndrome”: the natural world we grow up with is the one we regard as normal, and we find it hard to imagine the abundance of wildlife that previous generations would have taken for granted. 

However it is possible to radically change perspectives within a lifetime. William Temple Horniday was a hunter and taxidermist who became a fierce advocate for animal conservation, once he realised that the best way to preserve animals for future generations was alive in their natural habitat rather than stuffed in a museum. 

Horniday wrote an impassioned letter to the New York Times in 1913, demanding an end to the use of feathers in fashion. “The whole matter is up to the women,” he wrote. “On their heads is the blood of the slaughtered innocents.” I think it’s important to acknowledge the sexism at work here - Horniday apportioned no blame to the hunters, feather merchants and dealers who profited from the industry and supplied the demand. This is still how criticism of the fashion industry plays out today; commentators criticise young women as vain and frivolous while ignoring the multinational companies raking in huge profits and exploiting a largely female workforce. Women in the 19th Century were instrumental in changing the public’s opinion on exotic furs and feathers; they were the founders of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Britain, and the Audubon Society in the US. Their campaigns ultimately brought about laws banning or restricting the sale of certain pelts and plumes for the fashion industry.

Horniday felt frustrated by the limits of his activism: “I tried to inject the courage into the hearts of men, but today I think that speaking generally, civilised man is an unmitigated ass.” I can’t help but empathise with that statement. Mooallam puts Horniday’s frustration into context, offering hope to all environmental activists: “Like all of us, his imagination was hopelessly trapped in its own moment, its own lifetime. He could only see the world through the tiny keyhole of the present.”

Despite the excellent work done by animal rights charities for over a hundred years, our conservation efforts have not kept pace with our voracious appetite for more clothes, and our relentless desire for new things. We’re still killing animals for clothes, but we are also making synthetic fabrics from their eons-old compressed bodies. We are destroying natural habitats to farm fashion, and our careless production methods mean that we are polluting the planet for generations to come. 

The fashion industry is more vast, complex and environmentally devastating than anyone at a previous point in history could have imagined. Yet we all have the opportunity to be, as Mooallam puts it, a tiny counterweight to that shifting baseline. Fast fashion in its current juggernaut state didn’t exist 25 years ago. The industry doesn’t have to be like this.

In the spirit of acknowledging my climate grief, I went along to Extinction Rebellion’s grief procession on a rainy Saturday in October. I put together a Victorian-style mourning outfit, complete with exotic bird puppet/umbrella. I find the Victorian cult of mourning quite fascinating, especially as I don’t think we always do a great job of dealing with grief in the present day. Although I disagree with the idea of imposing a compulsory dress code on anyone, being able to signal emotion through the wearing of a certain colour of clothing felt oddly freeing. I didn’t have to explain my grief or my anxiety to anyone, and being surrounded by so many other people who felt the same way gave me a lot of strength and reassurance. I’m still working on not feeling overwhelmed by my emotions around climate breakdown, but looking back through history has helped me see the potential for hope.



The podcast 99% Invisible features an episode called “Wild Ones Live”, which features Jon Mooallam reading excerpts from his book with musical accompaniment. I find it tremendously reassuring to listen to, it’s one of the few things that can always soothe my eco-anxiety.

Exhibition photos taken at the V&A’s Fashioned From Nature

Rebellion on the High Street! Protesting fast fashion with XR Sutton

Discussing ethical and sustainable fashion with likeminded or open minded friends on social media is great, and I’m thrilled that there’s such a creative and ever-growing community of people who care about clothes, the people who make them and their impact on the environment.

But sometimes I worry that I’m preaching to the choir, that my blog posts aren’t reaching the people who I think need to read them: the people who are trapped in a cycle of buying unsatisfactory clothes and then discarding them on the off-chance that if they do this enough it will make them happy. 

So I was excited when my local Extinction Rebellion group planned an action to protest the destructive nature of fast fashion, which would take place on Sutton High Street. Not only was it a cause I care deeply about, I also felt well-versed enough in fast fashion facts to be able to contribute to the leaflets the group was preparing and even to speak on local radio about the protest. I was also curious (and a little apprehensive) about what the reaction from shoppers might be. Being confronted by the negative aspects of something you enjoy doing can bring on feelings of defensiveness, and it’s often unpleasant and uncomfortable to sit with this reality, and consider how you have contributed to the problem and what aspects of your behaviour need to change.

XR Sutton set up a table in the middle of the pedestrianised High Street outside the shopping centre on Saturday morning, and a group of protesters formed a human washing line, decorated with facts about the fast fashion industry. Other protesters surreptitiously added labels to fast fashion garments in stores, acted as human mannequins in shop windows and staged a die-in. The rest of us handed out leaflets and chatted with shoppers, and I thought it might be interesting to share some of the interactions I had during the three hours I was there.

“I’ve worked in a local charity shop for seven years. We try not to waste any donations - the rag man comes and takes any clothes we can’t sell in the shop. Another girl does the pricing - she knows all about labels. I ask her why those flip flops are £15, and she says “oh, they’re by this designer, and they are over £100 new.” I can’t believe people pay all that money for something then give it away.”

Mum: “we’re just off to a charity shop now to find a costume for my daughter, she wants to be Queen Victoria for a costume day at school.”

Me: “that sounds like fun!”

Mum: “I don’t know where to start!”

Me: “look for a big skirt, something with lace…”

Daughter (very excited): “we’re going to pad my bum with a cushion!”

Mum: *sigh*

“I don’t want a leaflet, weirdo”

Older man: “what kind of person lies in the middle of the road on a Saturday afternoon?”

Younger man with family: “well, I wouldn’t,  but I’m glad some people are, it needs to be done”

Father: “so it’s bad to buy new things?”

Me: “every garment that’s produced has a big environmental impact. If you buy secondhand or keep your clothes for longer you’re reducing that impact and helping to save the planet.”

Father (to daughter): “are you listening? Not too many new things.”

“In my young day (which was a long time ago), no one would dream of throwing clothes away. I didn’t know about the pollution though, that makes me worry. When I was a child, no one had asthma or allergies. Now they all do, because of the pollution. Something’s got to change.”

“WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING HESSIAN SACKS LIKE IN THE OLDEN DAYS?! THAT WOMAN OVER THERE IS WEARING A NICE DRESS! YOU’RE ALL HYPOCRITES!!

“It’s so nice that you’ve got drawing here for the kids to do. We took them to Marble Arch during the April protests and they loved it. We didn’t know there was a local group, we’d be really interested in joining”.

“I don’t want to disrupt the die-in but can you make sure they stay hydrated?”

And probably my most frequent interaction:

Shopper: “so what’s this all about then?”

Me: “we’re trying to raise awareness about the problems with fast fashion; we’re encouraging people to think about whether they really need something new, or whether they could buy secondhand or vintage, or swap clothes with friends.”

Shopper: “I love going to charity shops! I got this *proudly displays item of clothing* from a charity shop, it was a bargain!”

Overall, despite some people flinching away from the Extinction Rebellion leaflets as though they were radioactive, the reactions were more positive than negative. Some people just wanted to ignore us, and the woman who yelled at me left me speechless because her reaction was the exact opposite to what I had been expecting. The complaint I’m used to hearing in discussions about changing our shopping habits is “why can’t I have nice things?” as though sustainable fashion is the very opposite of a nice thing. My fellow fashion activists and all the amazing sustainable brands I know of are all doing their utmost to show that this is not the case, and that sustainable fashion is just what all fashion ought to be - creative, beautiful and kind to people and the planet. To someone who knows quite a bit about fashion history, the “hessian sacks” comment was almost comically ignorant - in the past, clothes were some of the most expensive and treasured possessions a person could own, and were well cared for. Even the “sackcloth” dresses of the Depression era were made from tightly-woven cotton flour sacks (which the flour companies would often print with novelty patterns as they knew the sacks would be re-used for clothing). But there’s no chance of telling someone some interesting facts when all they want to do is have a shout. 

The protest, and the reaction to Extinction Rebellion as a whole, has given me a new facet of activism to think about. Some people who are desperate not to see a change in the status quo will think that you’ve been “caught out” when they point out the fact that you still live within modern society. This is also very much at odds with the online community activism I’ve been taking part in, where the focus is on doing something rather than nothing, and making the small changes that will quickly add up. For the record, I don’t think I’m a hypocrite for wanting to change the world I live in. If I ran away to live in the woods (tempting though it might feel at times), nothing would change; industries would carry on polluting and destroying the planet, and eventually that destruction would come to the woods too. 

I had an interesting conversation with a friend later on that day about the five stages of grief, and how these could relate to people’s reactions to being confronted with the realities of climate change. While XR Sutton as a whole works on getting our local council to declare a climate emergency, and encouraging them to create meaningful change through the implementation of their environmental policies, I’m also going to be working on my personal strategy as a sustainable fashion activist. How do I respond to people’s anger, fear, disbelief and cynicism in a way that’s creative, positive and kind, and doesn’t leave me at risk of burn-out?

If you’re interested in the work that Extinction Rebellion are doing about fast fashion, you can find out more on their Twitter or Facebook.

Photos of the protest taken by fellow Sutton Rebel Bill Mudge.

The Government won't fix fast fashion. Can consumers challenge a destructive industry instead?

It’s no secret that fast fashion is bad for people and the planet. From river systems polluted with toxic dyes and the exploitation of workers at home and overseas, to microfibres from the washing of polyester clothes ending up in the food chain and even the air we breathe, our addiction to cheap clothes is causing us serious harm. 

When the Environmental Audit Committee chaired by Mary Creagh MP published its findings after an in-depth investigation of the fashion industry, many of us hoped that the government would legislate in favour of the report’s recommendations, which included a ban on incinerating or landfilling unsold stock, mandatory environmental targets for large brands and tax incentives for recycling, repairing and responsible brands. 

To the dismay of most of my Twitter timeline on Tuesday morning, the government rejected even these mild regulations in favour of allowing the industry to self-regulate. This was particularly disappointing after recent reports that fast fashion brands are not implementing the changes they had promised to. The future of the Bangladesh Accord (which aims to secure safer workplaces in the wake of the Rana Plaza factory collapse) is also uncertain, so the chance of the industry properly regulating itself is as slim as a teenage catwalk model. 

Environmentalists and climate change activists are hugely concerned about the impact that fast fashion is having on our planet, but even if you’re a fast fashion fanatic you still have reason to be worried. In Elle Magazine’s 2018 Sustainability issue, Marie-Claire Daveau, head of sustainability at Kering, gave this stark warning: “if we don’t do this now, there will be nothing around to make fashion with in 20 years”. If that doesn’t make you quake in your boots, then I don’t know how to help you. If you truly love fashion, then you know it has to change.

So what can we do? As an individual consumer with limited spending power, it’s easy to feel powerless. But if we act together, we can hit the brands doing harm where it hurts - their profits. 

Extinction Rebellion have launched a Boycott Fashion action, where participants pledge to buy no new clothes for a year. If that sounds too daunting, the Collaction Slow Fashion Season has just started, and only lasts for three months.

Both actions make it clear that only brand new fast fashion is off the table. Participants can still buy secondhand and vintage clothes and swap clothes with friends or at a clothes swap. Mending, upcycling and making new clothes is encouraged; it’s a great way of breathing new life into old clothes, and understanding the skill and hard work that goes into garment making.

But what if you really, really, really have to buy something new? Most of us don’t urgently need new clothes, but we do urgently need to change our long-term shopping habits. Instead of panic-buying the first thing we see at the last minute, we can save money in the long run and experience more satisfaction with our purchases if we put a little thought into them. 

Look into ethical and sustainable brands (I’ll put up a post soon with some links in case you don’t know where to start looking) and interrogate your reasons for buying. Is your “need” genuine and urgent (I imagine some of you are dreaming up nightmare scenarios about secondhand underwear) or are you shopping because you are bored or unhappy? Could you get the same shopping “buzz” from having a wander round the charity shops in your local area or liking clothes on Depop and Vinted rather than filling your ASOS basket? 

If you rely on a high street fashion brand for a particular bra size, for example, or your kids school uniform, write to the brand and tell them that you are concerned about the negative impact they are having on the planet. Fashion Revolution have a template letter here if you’re unsure of what to say. 

Alternatively, you can write to your MP to express your disappointment with their rejection of the EAC’s recommendations. Fashion Roundtable has a template letter here.

We need to let fast fashion retailers and the government know that we will no longer accept business as usual. Fast fashion is a recent phenomenon (it barely existed when I was a teenager!) and like any unflattering trend, it has outstayed its welcome. Most of the 20th century’s iconic fashion trends were brought about by innovation and rebellion, so say no to the status quo and challenge yourself to become an icon of rebel style!

Worn Out: the story of the clothes we throw away

Last year, people in the U.K. sent 350000 tonnes of clothes to landfill. I don’t know about you, but I find this impossible to visualise. Even breaking it down to a figure per person - approximately 5kg - it’s hard to imagine what that might look like. So I created Worn Out.

My sister and I, both recovering fast fashion addicts, had bags of clothes that we were absolutely planning to take to textile recycling. One day. When we got around to it. When we weren’t busy with something else. I combined the contents of these bags, and it turns out that this is what 5kg of clothing looks like! 

Before you ask why we didn’t donate these clothes - these weren’t clothes that charity shops or clothes swaps would accept. Threadbare pyjamas, ratty t-shirts, leggings that had burst at the seams, even (gasp!) my old knickers! These are the clothes that are most likely to end up in landfill. 

Even with the best will in the world, our clothes aren’t going to be wearable for ever. While more and more people are embracing secondhand shopping and swapping as a way of ensuring their unwanted clothes won’t go to waste, not every item of clothing is going to be a desirable pre-loved purchase. Most of us are going to end up with a collection of t-shirts, leggings, underwear or worn-out clothes that no one else wants.

While fast fashion isn’t “designed to fall apart”, the choice of cheap fabrics to keep costs down means that basic everyday clothing might be more delicate than we think it is. A washing machine cycle with a high temperature and a fast spin, or tumble drying, can wear down fabrics even faster, leading to a high turnover of clothing in our wardrobes. 

If we send these clothes for textile recycling, they are likely to be downgraded, into stuffing for pet beds, car seats or insulation. At the moment it’s a difficult process to re-use fibres from old clothes, as natural fibres need to be separated from synthetics, and most fast fashion clothing is made from a mixture of both. The shredded fibres then need to be mixed with new fibres in order to spin them into a good quality thread.

While businesses like Rapanui/Teemill and Swedish Stockings are closing the loop in their own supply chain by incentivising customers to return their worn-out clothing, this isn’t happening on a large enough scale to make our current consumption of clothes sustainable.

I’ve constructed Worn Out to show the sheer volume of fabric that could be re-used if we create a more circular fashion system. Think of the possibilities! I wanted Worn Out to look equal parts comical and overwhelming; this is a garment that wears you, and isn’t designed to look flattering (the passing resemblance to the memorable scene in Friends where Joey wears all of Chandler’s clothes isn’t entirely coincidental). The amount of clothing we throw away is absurd, and the way we are encouraged to consume clothing as though it was disposable is absurd. We can’t wear more than one outfit at once, and overconsumption isn’t making us happier or more fulfilled.

Ideally I’d like Worn Out to be an interactive piece of wearable art, something that other people can touch and even try on. It’s going to be making an appearance at the Ethical Influencers meet up and clothes swap for Fashion Revolution Week so hopefully this will be the first of many outings.

As a costume maker and a vintage fashion fan, I’m passionate about clothes as a means of storytelling. Worn Out tells a story about my wardrobe, but it's not the story of favourite clothes or treasured heirlooms. It’s the story of the hidden side of fashion, the parts we don’t show off on social media. It is partly a story of fast fashion failures; the t-shirts with warped seams, the leggings with insufficient elastic, the mistaken belief that fine jersey embellished with metal or plastic can survive a 40 degree wash and spin without ending up full of holes. But it’s also the story of the life I’ve led while wearing these clothes, and how some of them have come to the end of their useful life naturally. My body shape has changed over the years so certain bras no longer fit. Old t-shirts have been downgraded to painting clothes until they are so threadbare that paint has gone right through them. I’ve worn pyjamas for thousands of hours, despite the fact that I don’t really remember it. These clothes have kept me warm in winter, and cool in summer. Some of these clothes have travelled to different countries with me, others have never left my house.

The weight of Worn Out as it settles around your shoulders might feel like a burden, but I prefer to think of it as a reminder of our responsibilities. To look after and appreciate the clothes that hardworking people have made, and to think carefully about what happens to your clothes when you part ways with them.

In case anyone’s wondering what’s left over from Worn Out; it’s not a perfect zero waste garment but I did diligently save every scrap that didn’t make it onto the final design. This little bag of scraps creates an accessory to accompany Worn Out, and serves as a reminder that we can keep improving our ideas for a zero-waste fashion system.

From Suffragettes to slogan T-shirts: could my clothes be considered "protest fashion"?

2018 marks the centenary of (some) women getting the vote, and it sometimes feels like we still have a long way to go in the fight for equality. My colleagues Amy Towle, Amy Trend and Hannah Monkley expressed the same sentiment when they went to the Women’s March in January 2017 dressed as Suffragettes, with a banner that read “Same Shit, Different Century”. A picture of them subsequently went viral, and after being asked to appear at Port Eliot Festival to talk about the Suffragettes, they decided to start a podcast to share the stories they had discovered. Listening to the podcast, it’s been shocking to learn the extent to which women in this country endured police brutality, imprisonment and torture in their fight for the right to vote, but it’s also been fascinating to discover the savvy PR tactics employed by the Suffragettes to convey a striking and coherent message.

The Suffragettes’ colour scheme, devised by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, of green (for hope), white (for purity) and purple (for loyalty and dignity) is probably familiar to most of us, but they also advised members to wear the fashionable, feminine dress of the time (long skirts and high-necked lace blouses worn over corsets and petticoats). Author Cally Blackman describes how the colours were worn “as a duty and a privilege” and how effective they were at creating a striking spectacle when women turned out in their Suffragette “uniforms” in force. An edition of the Votes for Women newspaper in 1908 declared “The Suffragette of today is dainty and precise in her dress”, and Sylvia Pankhurst was aware that no one wanted to “run the risk of being considered “outré” and doing harm to the cause”.

I realised that (probably subconsciously, and to a lesser extent) I’ve been using the same thinking to inform my ethical fashion choices. Although I don’t follow every new trend, I always make an effort to look neatly styled in every outfit post, wearing carefully chosen clothes rather than just throwing on any old thing. When I started my blog I wanted people to see my approach to fashion as imaginative but accessible, and something that’s suitable for a wide range of lifestyles and social situations. 

I find the ways in which femininity was performed and subverted by the Suffragettes really fascinating; I touched on the difficult relationship between femininity and feminism in a previous post about my love of vintage fashion. The jewellery in the Museum of London’s Votes for Women exhibition is an interesting microcosm of this. The medal awarded to Emmeline Pankhurst was in the style of military honours awarded to men, so this would have made a striking addition to a genteel outfit. The necklace awarded to Kitty Willoughby Marshall was a simpler design, featuring three coins on a delicate chain, and Louise Eates was awarded a beautiful Art Deco pendant. I love the thought that these were specially chosen to reflect the personal styles of these women, and to thank them for their unique contribution to the cause. 

For the exhibition Suffragettes: Milennial Rebels milliner Claire Strickland recreated hats worn by prominent Suffragettes, and collaborated with photographer Nicholas Laborie to recreate portraits using young women as models. At a panel discussion about the exhibition, author Diane Atkinson raised a thought-provoking point. The large hats which were fashionable at the time, she explained, were a status symbol, and made the wearer look ladylike. Policemen sought to undermine this tactic by ripping the hats from Suffragettes during confrontations, to make them look dishevelled and slovenly. I found this description of violence quite disturbing, but it also showed how even a symbol of sophistication and elegance could be provocative if worn in the right context.

When we think of protest fashion now, we’re less likely to think of millinery, and more likely to think of T-shirts (my colleagues have turned their Instagrammable banner into a T-shirt and tote bag slogan to raise money for the charity Abortion Rights). T Shirts: Cult, Culture and Subversion at the Fashion and Textile Museum addresses some of the successes and contradictions of this simple but effective wearable tool of protest. 

One of the best-known examples of a high fashion protest T-shirt is the oversized “58% DON’T WANT PERSHING” shirt made and worn by Katherine Hamnett to meet Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Hamnett has gone on to create T-Shirts protesting the Iraq War and fast fashion: her “No More Fashion Victims” T-shirt, made in collaboration with the Environmental Justice Foundation, is on display in the exhibition. This slogan isn’t just a neat play on words for Hamnett; she has campaigned against the use of forced labour in the cotton industry in Uzbekistan, and her T-shirts are made ethically from organic cotton. 

It did make me question whether other slogan tees in the exhibition were just empty words; Dior’s “we should all be feminists” T-shirt looked fabulous, paired with their zodiac-embroidered maxi skirt, and a percentage of the sale price is being donated to the Clara Lionel Foundation (set up by Rihanna). However, the shirt itself retails at almost £500, and Dior’s parent company LVMH do not disclose any information about their supply chain.

 Also featured in the exhibition was the “this is what a feminist looks like” T-shirt produced by the Fawcett Society, which was criticised for being sourced from a factory that did not pay a living wage. The exhibition addresses the environmental impact of making cotton t-shirts, and points out that “our consumer choices are social and political acts”. Two T-shirts from ethical brand Lost Shapes are on display, playfully illustrating two contrasting viewpoints for the conscious consumer. 

I’m not a great T-shirt wearer (I prefer a slogan tote bag), but I have been thinking about how the contents of my wardrobe could be considered “protest fashion”. In her book “Folk Fashion”, Amy Twigger Holroyd explores the idea of refashioning or making clothes as a political act: “I am aiming, as much as I can, to disrupt the dominant paradigm of industrial production and overconsumption in fashion, and to contribute to the construction of an appealing alternative”. My friend Ludi, who took up sewing to make the sort of clothes that aren’t available in her size on the high street, had similar feelings in a post on Facebook: “I think learning to sew is body-positive and powerful and politically interesting”. I think I’ll be returning to this topic in a later blog post!

At a time when consumer culture is doing more harm than good, perhaps it’s once again to see our everyday clothes as tools we can use to campaign for the sort of world we want to live in. Making thoughtful, ethical choices instead of impulse purchases and rocking our vintage bargains and refashioned finery, we can start to turn the tide on overconsumption.

Toxic Threads part 1: four fashion experts reveal the dark side of the industry

On Wednesday 21st February I went to an event organised by The Advaya Initiative: Toxic Threads: The Dark Side of Fashion. Four speakers, Orsola de Castro, Sophie Slater, Dian Jen Lin and Alex Jones gave short presentations on their experience of the fashion industry and why radical change is needed to make the industry forward-looking again. It would be all too easy to get disillusioned by dire environmental predictions or the seemingly insatiable appetite for fast fashion,so I was heartened to hear messages of hope from people who are determined that fashion can, and should, be better.

First up was Orsola de Castro, one of the founders of Fashion Revolution and, in her words, “a recovering fashion designer”. She spoke about the event that spurred her into action: the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, in which over 1000 people (mostly women) lost their lives. Horrified that young women died to satiate our appetite for fast fashion, she also soon discovered that brands knew very little about the factories where they were producing their clothing. She encourages transparency, not as the definitive solution but as the first step. At the moment, most brands can’t answer “who made my clothes?” and that needs to change.

Fashion Revolution is an open source platform offering free educational materials, with a focus on transparency and social issues. Its aims are to educate consumers about  the fashion industry, but also to change our minds about the way people currently view their clothes. We as consumers aren’t appreciating or loving our clothes, which means they get discarded more quickly. 

The focus of Fashion Revolution’s current campaign is the overproduction and disposability of clothes, which as Orsola emphasised, isn’t just confined to cheap fast fashion chains. Luxury brands throw away as many clothes as high street shops, suggesting that clothes that cost a lot of money to buy have little value to the manufacturers. As consumers, we have the power to change this culture, and a good starting point is to only buy what you love, and pay attention to what is in your wardrobe. Clothing isn’t just an issue for those in the fashion industry, it affects 100% of the population! To Orsola, “sustainable” and “ethical” aren’t helpful words, they suggest something niche when these practices should just be part of the culture.

As someone who uses those words to define what I blog about, that’s really given me food for thought; am I limiting myself to “preaching to the choir”; could I reach a wider audience by using different language?

Next to speak was Sophie Slater, the co-founder of Birdsong London. The brand’s motto is “No Sweatshop, No Photoshop”  and they employ small groups of women with rare skills to make their clothes, from hand-knitters to seamstresses. Their mission is to empower women, from worker to wearer, and many of their makers are OAPs or migrant workers, who sign the tags on Birdsong garments so customers know who made their clothes. Their makers appear in advertising campaigns as well, which I thought was a great idea; it emphasises how central skilled artisans are to the production of beautiful, good quality clothes.

 As well as paying a living wage, Birdsong London supports women’s organisations, and they have a commitment to caring for the planet as well as people. They use reclaimed or organic fabrics wherever possible; 80% of Birdsong’s Spring/Summer 2018 collection from reclaimed fabrics; they have a partnership with Traid, to use clothes that don’t make it into Traid’s secondhand shops. I really like their emphasis on small production runs, giving their clothes an element of exclusivity and ensuring that their makers are employed but not overworked. 

Dian-Jen Lin, an “interdisciplinary designer/ researcher” had a fascinating take  on the current approach to sustainable fashion. To her, sustainability is passive, regenerative sustainability would be proactive, so what we need is Regenerative Sustainability Activism. This is going to involve a radical re-thinking of how we apply new technologies to garment manufacture. As well as developing fabrics that are recyclable, or use recycled materials, we could develop clothes that actively give back to the world around us. 

Dian-Jen Lin’s current project is to create a photosynthetic material; by adding photosynthetic microorganisms to fabric, your t-shirt could photosynthesise while you go about your business. In cities, millions of people wearing clothes that use up carbon dioxide and give off 

oxygen could be a great solution to air pollution. She works with The Sustainable Angle, who help to promote and develop innovative new fabrics. From leather alternatives made from post-consumer food waste, to sustainable sequins, you can read more about the Sustainable Angle’s latest event, the Future Fabrics Expo, in my recent blog post or on their website. 

Designer Alex Noble gave us his overview of the fashion industry and how it has lost its way. In his opinion, the negative aspects of fashion currently outweigh the good, and we all need to work to redress the balance. The good aspects, the parts which allow designers to unleash their creativity and allow consumers to express their identity were the building blocks of the industry, but are now being exploited by multinationals who are only interested in profit.


Alex believes that we as creatives and consumers have the ability to change the industry, through working together in a more egalitarian way. More communication and collaboration is vital, to encourage transparency and to make sure a more diverse fashion industry is able to flourish. He is in favour of a return to small-scale manufacture, emphasising that garment workers are people, not statistics, and that manufacturers should take into consideration the quality of life their products are creating. To embed these values in the industry, teachers and students at fashion colleges should be making sustainability a priority, not a project, and we as consumers have to embrace this change and support small businesses!

I loved hearing such a variety of insight from people trying to change the fashion industry for the better in very different ways. The second part of the evening was a Q&A session, and I’ll be publishing a second blog post in a couple of weeks to share more from the panel, so stay tuned!