Today is the start of Fashion Revolution Week, which is an initiative started in the wake of the horrific Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, to raise awareness of and engage the public in pushing for change.
There are five ways you can get involved with Fashion Revolution Week, including perhaps most importantly, tagging your favourite brands on social media or getting in touch via email and asking the questions #WhoMadeMyClothes and #WhatsInMyClothes?
Here are some (mainly online) events that we’re looking forward to this week:
Monday
1PM // Kate Fletcher lecture on the Fashion Ecologies project – an experimental piece of work on fashion localism based in Macclesfield, a small town in the north of England. In this lecture Kate will talk about the project’s underpinning ideas, the place, the research, the methods, the project outcomes and the many challenges of working in new territory.
1PM // Fashion Question Time – Fashion Revolution’s annual panel event, which follows a BBC Question Time format and will discuss projections, ideas and best practice as well as answer questions from the public. The panel will be chaired by Baroness Lola Young, co-chair and cross-bench peer for the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group: Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion. Panelists are:
- Nicole Rycroft, founder and executive director of Canopy.
- Nazma Akter, a Bangladeshi trade unionist, founder of AWAJ Foundation and Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation.
- Lara Wolters, a Dutch politician and member of the European Parliament
- Dr Vandana Shiva, an Indian author, scholar and environmental activist.
- Sunny Dolat, a stylist, production designer and creative director, co-founder of The Nest Collective and member of Fashion Revolution Kenya.
ALL DAY // Fabric of Protest takeover People’s History Museum Instagram page
Thursday
12PM // Ideas for a New Fashion Industry, a manifesto for structural change and practical demands from one of our fave sustainable fashion brands, Birdsong. Birdsong will be discussing the manifesto in full at 12pm on Thursday 22nd April. Birdsong co-founder, Sophie Slater, will be in conversation with Kalkidan Legesse (founder of Sancho’s & Schwap) and Zarina Muhammad (co-founder of The White Pube). Details on the Birdsong website.
All week
A local IRL event! Craftivism exhibition at OT Creative Space, by Kala Clothing with Manchester Fashion Movement.