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#whomademyclothes

#whomademyclothes was created 5 years ago in response to the collapse of the Rana Plaza building to raise awareness of the tragedy. The women in charge of creating the movement are Orsola de Castro and Carry Somers with the support and participation of over 100 countries.  Carry Somers, the co-founder, was inspired by the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh in 2013. The women believe in a Fashion Industry that values people, the environment, creativity and profit in equal measure. The movement has mostly aimed to involve the younger generation who are conscious of wanting to become more sustainable with their fashion choices. One of the initiatives that has come about as a result of the movement are clothes swaps. They can reduce waste, and reuse others unwanted garments and they can find a new home without just being thrown into landfill. Consumers are also becoming increasingly aware of the implications of shopping at fast fashion retailers.  This societal change in attitude towards shopping demonstrates the direct effects of the Rana Plaza disaster as we are making more mindful choices when shopping.

Fashion Revolution is a global movement that operates all year round. Fashion is celebrated as a positive influence while industry practises are scrutinised, and awareness is raised surrounding the fashion industry’s greatest issues.

Fashion Revolution

Fashion Revolution is a global movement runs all year round. The movement aims to celebrate fashion but scrutinise and seek change in the unethical and unsustainable practices associated with the industry. The movement prides itself on ‘positively protesting’ for change and avoiding ‘naming and shaming’ and boycotting specific companies. Fashion Revolution tries to illustrate that change is possible while encouraging those that are in the process of a journey to create a more ethical and sustainable future for fashion; seeing this as a change that is adamant. They aim to be action-orientated and solution focused.

The organisation came up with ‘Fashion Revolution Week’. This is centred around the ‘Who Made My Clothes’ campaign which launched in April and falls on the anniversary of the Rana Plaza Factory collapse. This was the day the Fashion Revolution was born. During Fashion Revolution Week, brands and producers are encouraged to respond with the hashtag ‘I made your clothes’ and to demonstrate transparency in their supply chain.

‘The Fashion Revolution Foundation' is the charitable arm of the organisation’s website. It is a registered charity that funds fashion revolution’s: education, research, awareness-raising activities as well as public events. Anyone can donate to the charity in order to assist the organisation create a change within the fashion industry.

What they stand for

Fashion revolution, as a collective, believe in a fashion industry that values people, the environment, creativity and profit all equally. This is their main aim and what they are trying to reach with brands and manufacturers globally. The best way to explain the mission that Fashion Revolution is on is explained using this 3 part framework by researchers Rebecca Early and Kate Goldworthy.

The first part is the Model; The business of fashion

The concept of 'Fast Fashion' which is where the demand for new and quickly produced fashion has been scaled up and increased dramatically in the last 30 or so years. Due to the scale and speed required to supplement the fast fashion industry more employees who work for cheap pay and in cheap working conditions are required. Due to this, more frequent and deadlier factory disasters are happening; all for the sake of getting a design from concept to shelves in half the time it should take.

In recent years, Fashion brands costs are rising; this is from rising labour, raw material and energy prices. However the price we pay for our clothes is still very low. This shows a clear imbalance of where the system really is not working. Fashion Revolution believes in changing the industry and therefore changing the way clothes are produced and consumed, this will result in a need to change business models and multiple solutions will be required.

Materials- People and Planet

An unbelievable pair of trends that still remain in today’s society are Human rights abuses and environmental degradation. Within many of your favourite brands’ supply chains basic health and safety measures simply do not exist. Wages for workers in these supply chains is rarely enough for them to live on, resulting in many people in countries where clothing is produced living in extreme poverty.

Mindset- Change the way we think about buying clothes

The mindset of how we think about fashion has to change also. Over the past 20-30 years our consumption of clothing has become very different, by us buying lots more clothes for far cheaper prices, the purchase rate of clothing has increased by 400% in the past 20 years...

Cheap retailers are fuelling this problem by charging far less that what the product is worth, meaning that buying new clothes becomes a throwaway habit. This results in consumers creating an addiction to the speed and volume of the fast fashion world; the true cost of cheap and fast clothing is more detrimental than meets the eye and people need to wake up to this harsh reality. People need to care less about following trends and wear the clothes they already own- buying less cheap and readily available clothes will help combat this issue.

Who started the revolution?

Fashion Revolution was started by fashion designers Orsola De Castro and Carry Somers. Orsola De Castro was a designer before she co-founded Fashion Revolution. Her career before the movement was also in sustainability and making changes within the industry as she was at the helm of the pioneering label ‘From somewhere’ which was an upcycling brand itself- this brand ran from 1997 to 2014. Castro was also the co-founder of the British Fashion Councils initiative ‘Estethica’.

Similar to the other Co-founder De Castro, Carry Somers was also a fashion designer before starting up Fashion revolution in 2013. 20 years prior to this, Sommers had her own fashion brand called Pachacuti; this company radically pioneered the concept of supply chain transparency. This process involves precisely pinpointing the GPS coordinates of each stage of the production and manufacturing process.

They are the founders of the non-for-profit social enterprise, Fashion Revolution. The international campaign launched in 2013, in response to the Rana Plaza disaster. Over 100 countries were involved as Castro and Somers set out campaign for a safer, more sustainable fashion industry. Both women had backgrounds in the field of sustainable fashion. Through the ‘who made my clothes movement’ Castro and Somers set out on a mission to unite everyone who worked in any part of the fashion industry and encourage them to work together to create a fairer, safer way of sourcing clothes. The movement has prompted the changes needed in the fashion industry with big brands such as Marks and Spencer publishing a list of suppliers in which they source their food and apparel from, helping Castro and Somers achieve their mission of a more ‘transparent’ fashion industry.

The Environment

Alongside the ethical issues regarding the treatment of workers, the fashion industry is also responsible for having a negative impact on the environment. The industry accounted for 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2015. It is also renowned for the use of non-renewable resources such as oil to make synthetic fibres. This is estimated to increase from 98 million tonnes in 2015 to 300 million tonnes by 2050.

Within dyes used for clothes we wear, fertilisers, laundry and treatment products are chemicals which are found to end up in rivers. Copious amounts of water are used to produce clothes through growing cotton and wet processing (dyeing and laundering), this water used is not sustainable. It takes 2.720 litres of water to make one t-shirt. That is 3 years worth of drinking water for one person.

After the Accident

After the disaster of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, around 250 companies signed two initiatives, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Elements such as fire doors, sprinkler systems and stronger foundations have been put into place post the accident, so that more than 97,000 safety hazards have been covered by the Accord alone. Showing the positive impact that the disaster has had on ensuring a higher level of safety for workers in such conditions. Along with this, brands are now being held accountable for the conditions of the factories that the products that they stock are being produced in, important in the #whomademyclothes action.

Conclusion

Overall, in recent years the fashion industry has witnessed a significantly positive movement regarding the way clothing is made and sourced. The collapse of the Rana Plaza factory on the 24th of April 2013 was the catalyst for this movement. Although the circumstances surrounding this movement were ultimately tragic, the Fashion Revolution has aided improvement to working conditions and health and safety for the majority of western brand garment factory workers.