Fashion Revolution Week is our annual campaign bringing together the world’s largest fashion activism movement for seven days of action. It centres around the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, which killed around 1,138 people and injured many more on 24 April 2013.
This year, as we marked the tenth anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, we remembered the victims, survivors and families affected by this preventable tragedy and continue to demand that no one dies for our fashion. To define the next decade of change, we translated our 10-point Manifesto into action for a safe, just and transparent global fashion industry. Our campaign platformed the work of our diverse Global Network who provided local interpretations of their chosen Manifesto point(s). We believe that while fashion has a colossal negative impact, it also has the power and the potential to be a force for change. Together, we expanded the horizons of what fashion could – and should – be.
Here, catch up on some of the week’s highlights and find out how to stay involved with our work, all year round.
Remembering Rana Plaza
Fashion Revolution Week happens every year in the week coinciding with April 24th, the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster. On April 24th 2013, the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh collapsed in a preventable tragedy. More than 1,100 people died and another 2,500 were injured, making it the fourth largest industrial disaster in history. On April 24th, we paused all other campaigning to pay our respects to the victims, survivors and families affected by this tragedy, and came together as a global community to remember Rana Plaza.
As we reflect a decade on, we are inspired by and celebrate the progress made in the Bangladesh Ready-made Garment (RMG) sector by the Accord. The International Accord on Fire and Building Safety was the first legally-binding brand agreement on worker health and safety in the fashion industry and is the most important agreement to keep garment workers safe to date. This year, we pay tribute to the joint efforts of all Accord stakeholders who have significantly contributed to safer workplaces for over 2 million garment factory workers in Bangladesh, including the Bangladeshi trade unions representing garment workers, alongside Global Union Federations and labour rights groups. We welcome the introduction of the Pakistan Accord and would like to see the adoption and success of the International Accord replicated in all garment producing countries.
Manifesto for a Fashion Revolution
Our theme for Fashion Revolution Week 2023 was Manifesto for a Fashion Revolution. Back in 2018, we created a 10-point Manifesto that solidifies our vision to a global fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people over growth and profit. This year we called on citizens, brands and makers alike to sign their name in support of turning these demands into a reality, boosting our signature count to 15,500 Fashion Revolutionaries and counting. We are immensely grateful to everyone who has and continues to sign; our power is in our number and each signature strengthens our collective call to revolutionise the fashion industry.
To campaign for systemic change in the fashion industry, we themed the week around complementary Manifesto points, providing ways to be curious, find out and do something daily around each of them. From supply chain transparency to living wages, textile waste to cultural appropriation, freedom of association to biodiversity, we shared global perspectives and solutions to fashion’s most pressing social and environmental problems.
Over the past ten years, the noise around sustainable fashion has only got louder. But meanwhile, real progress is too slow in the context of the climate crisis and rising social injustice. That’s why Fashion Revolution Week 2023 was an action-packed and future-focused campaign that amplified the actions and perspectives of Fashion Revolutionaries around the world.
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Global Conversations
To capture these global perspectives, we launched the Fashion Revolution Map on Earth Day, which coincided with the start of Fashion Revolution Week. Developed by Talk Climate Change, the Map served as a global forum to reflect on the week’s themes and events, using our Manifesto as a talking point. Fashion Revolutionaries continued the discussion offline by inviting their family, friends, colleagues and classmates to imagine what a clean, safe, fair, transparent and accountable fashion industry would look like with us. These conversations were then recorded on the Map as a source of inspiration and knowledge exchange.
Anyone can be a Fashion Revolutionary; it starts with a simple dialogue about the changes you want to see in the fashion industry. Make your voice heard by contributing to our map today and help change the fashion industry through the power of conversation!
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Good Clothes, Fair Pay Highlights
Ten years on from Rana Plaza, poverty wages remain endemic to the global garment industry. Most of the people who make our clothes still earn poverty wages while fashion brands continue to turn huge profits. At Fashion Revolution, we believe there is no sustainable fashion without fair pay which is why we launched Good Clothes, Fair Pay as part of a wider coalition last July. The Good Clothes Fair Pay campaign demands living wage legislation at EU level for garment workers worldwide, building on Manifesto points 1 and 2.
During Fashion Revolution Week, our EU teams coordinated awareness events, campaigns and marches to mobilise signatures for this campaign. On April 25th, we headed to the European Parliament with Fashion Revolution Belgium to demand better legislation in the fashion industry. The day of action consisted of a panel discussion between Members of the European Parliament and impacted fashion stakeholders, and ended with a stunt outside the Parliament. Fashionably Late highlighted that the EU is running out of time to act on poverty wages in fashion. This stunt was replicated by our teams in Germany, France and the Netherlands throughout Fashion Revolution Week to demonstrate EU-wide solidarity with the people who make our clothes.
We have less than three months left to collect 1 million signatures from EU citizens to push for legislation that requires companies to conduct living wage due diligence in their supply chains, irrespective of where their clothes are made. If you are an EU citizen, sign your name here. If you’re unable to sign, please support the campaign by sharing it far and wide online.
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Fashion Revolution Open Studios Highlights
Fashion Revolution Open Studios is Fashion Revolution’s showcasing and mentoring initiative since 2017. Through exhibitions, presentations, talks, and workshops with emerging designers, established trailblazers and major players, we celebrate the people, products and processes behind our clothes.
This Fashion Revolution Week, Fashion Revolution Open Studios joined forces with Small but Perfect to spotlight the work of 28 European SMEs taking part in their circularity accelerator project. Forming part of this European events programme, Fashion Revolution Open Studios held a two-day event in partnership with The Sustainable Angle and xyz.exchange at The Lab E20. The event showcased seven innovative designers from the Small But Perfect cohort of sustainable SMEs and displayed how they are embedding circular solutions into their work, from crafting grape leather handbags to developing community approaches to making and working together. Alongside the exhibition, there were livestreamed webinars, workshops and panel discussions to explore the projects and hear about some of the the challenges facing small businesses and the industry at large in switching to circular business models.
Global Network Highlights
With 75+ teams from all around the world, Fashion Revolution Week 2023 championed the perspectives and contributions of our Global Network. Here are just a small selection of highlights from our country teams:
Fashion Revolution New Zealand unpacked each Manifesto point with industry trailblazers in an Instagram Live series.
Fashion Revolution teams in Bangladesh and Sweden co-organised a virtual panel discussion on shifting consumer behaviour.
Fashion Revolution Singapore celebrated the launch of their digital zine MANIFESTO.
Fashion Revolution teams in Iran and Germany collaborated on Women, Life, Freedom, a joint exhibition.
Fashion Revolution Nigeria shared the stories and journeys of local slow fashion brands.
Fashion Revolution Argentina invited us to join their Wikipedia edit-a-thon.
Fashion Revolution teams in Vietnam, South Africa and Scotland hosted local community clothing swaps.
Fashion Revolution India won the Elle Sustainability Award for Eco-Innovation in Fashion.
Fashion Revolution Uganda brought together the country’s top designers and brands at Kwetu Kwanza.
Fashion Revolution teams in UAE and Canada both held local design competitions for students.
Fashion Revolution Hungary championed the revival of traditional folklore practices in clothing and fashion.
Fashion Revolution USA discussed the fashion industry’s impact on people and planet in a 2-part Zoom series.
Fashion Revolution Uruguay hosted Fashion Celebrates Life, a community picnic themed around Manifesto point 10.
Fashion Revolution teams in Chile and Portugal shared their Fashion Revolution Week highlights with us on Instagram Live.
You are Fashion Revolution
We are so grateful to everyone in our community for getting involved in Fashion Revolution Week on social media and beyond. Every single voice makes a difference in our fight for a fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people over growth and profit.
While Fashion Revolution Week 2023 may be over, our community, our campaigning and our movement continues, 365 days a year. Please join us in fighting for systemic change by:
Following us on social media: Stay up-to-date by following us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube, and signing up to our weekly newsletter.
Finding your country team: Connect with the teams in your region by following them online, attending their events and volunteering with them. Find your country team here.
Using our online resources: Our website is a treasure trove of information, from how to guides and online courses to annual reporting on transparency on the fashion industry. Get started here.
From all of us in the Fashion Revolution team, we appreciate your support and we look forward to seeing you next year!
This is a guest post by Outland Denim, a business founded to offer opportunity, financial freedom, education, and support to women who have come from backgrounds of human trafficking, exploitation or vulnerability.
Header image: Cesar López
The impacts of Human Trafficking are widespread, and you’ll often see its prevalence illustrated in statistics (you’re about to read many in this article). But we can’t be reminded enough – these are real people, not figures. So we start this article with an excerpt of Chandramma’s story, published here on Fashion Revolution by International Justice Mission.
“Chandramma was offered work at a silk farm. But what looked like a chance for stability and a better life for her young family, was in reality a job under false promises. She tried to escape twice, but both times she was caught, brought back and beaten up.
She was punished, and trapped for 6 months in this hot, dark jail cell, with little food and almost no water… She and the other labourers were forced to work for 15-16 hour days twisting silk threads with one short break for food.
With the help of IJM and local authorities Chandramma’s story ended with her being found and freed.”(1)
Today, Chandramma is a wedding planner, a community advocate against forced labour, and is able to provide for her family.
She is just one of many impacted by this USD $150 billion industry.(2) That’s over twice the size of the USD $66 billion denim jean industry.(3)
In recognition of the UN’s World Day Against Trafficking, held annually on 30th July, we’re exploring trafficking’s connection to fashion and how some brands are supporting survivors with the help of your purchase.
Human trafficking is just one form of modern slavery, which is used as an umbrella term for different forms of severe exploitation, which also includes forced labour and forced marriage, and affects an estimated 40.3 million people globally.(4)
Who is most impacted by human trafficking?
Overwhelmingly, women are more likely to be vulnerable to human trafficking. In 2018, approximately 70% of identified victims were female, more specifically 50% women and 20% young girls.(5) To put this in perspective, one in every 130 women and girls globally are a victim of modern slavery.(6) So this is a very gendered issue.
People who have limited access to employment are particularly targeted. In fact, the United Nations identified that economic need was the greatest pre-existing factor to cases of identified trafficking, existing in 51% of cases.(7)
So how does human trafficking relate to the social injustice we see in fashion?
The garment industry is just one of many where trafficking in the form of forced labour, and the broader issue of modern slavery, can be found.(8)
Even where not categorised as forced labour, human rights abuses and work insecurity are rife in the garment making industry, further perpetuating cycles of economic vulnerability in individuals, particularly women, their families and communities.
To speak to economic stresses alone, approximately 1 in 8 working people rely on the fashion industry for their income, and yet only about 2% earn a living wage.(9) A living wage is a crucial protective mechanism against the scourge of modern slavery, human trafficking and exploitation.(10)
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Defining Forced Labour
One thing we want to make clear is that forced labour does not always equal worker exploitation or underpayment. They are nuanced issues, each situation as individual as the human it impacts. But, all are acts of exploitation targeting vulnerable people, occurring in the same supply chain ecosystem. So when organisations look into modern slavery in their supply chain, it’s the first step to identifying any kind of worker exploitation.
In their 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, the United Nations speaks to this:
“Although patterns of trafficking for forced labour vary across economic sectors, one aspect is true for all sectors: it is generally the result of a deterioration of labour rights, such as lower salaries, longer working hours, reduced protections and informal employment. The private sector therefore plays a pivotal role in the fight against trafficking, by conducting due diligence with respect to their supply chains and promoting regular controls on labour standards.”(11)
Exploitation thrives in the shadows, within complex, opaque global supply chains, from the cotton fields to the mills and factory floors. So brands need to invest heavily into supply chain mapping. But in this department, there is a long way to go.
Findings in Fashion Revolution’s 2022 Fashion Transparency Index illustrate how normalised this opacity is as you look further and further down the supply chain. It found that 48% of the world’s biggest 250 brands publish first-tier manufacturing. Go one step deeper to processing facilities and that drops to 32%, and again to 12% for raw material suppliers.(12)
When it came to disclosing procedures in place to identify and eliminate forced labour in supply chains, Fashion Revolution’s report actually shows brands going backwards, with 62% brands disclosing this year, a drop from 66% in 2020.(13)
Governments have begun in more recent years taking steps to mitigate local manufacturing and importing of goods at risk of having modern slavery in their supply chains with legislation requiring businesses to establish better mapping and due diligence. This began with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act (TSCA), signed into law in 2010 and effective from 2012, the first act of its kind.(14) This was followed by the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015), the French Devoir de Vigilance Law (2017), the Australian Modern Slavery Act (2018), and more recently the United States’ Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act which took effect this past June.(15) Furthermore, the proposed New York Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (“Fashion Act”) would require fashion companies trading in New York to map and track at least 50 per cent of their supply chains.(16)
Brands are nervous to invest in looking for these instances of exploitation. It’s expensive, takes huge human resource investment, there are cultural and language barriers to navigate, strong relationships to establish, and of course, uncovering instances of exploitation would traditionally raise a red flag for the PR team.
However, we believe we need to shift toward a culture that is not afraid to uncover these instances of exploitation. Because without identifying them, we cannot fix them.
So supply chain transparency is the key that unlocks a brand’s ability to truly advocate for worker rights. But beyond the bare minimum of mitigating harm, could fashion one day actually be a force for good?
It may sound like a utopian goal, one far out of reach. But the fact is the fashion industry is worth $3 trillion – and with that kind of economic power, we can either do a lot of harm, or a lot of good.
In practice, one of the most impactful actions brands and manufacturers can take is to provide people who have experienced trafficking with much-needed training and employment.(17)
Outland Denim is dedicated to doing just that. The idea is to support women who have come from backgrounds of modern slavery with safe employment, education, and healthcare, that in turn allows them to support their families and contribute to the prosperity of their wider community.
One of our very first seamstresses told us that because of this opportunity she’d been able to build a home for her family who previously lived under a plastic sheet, as well as buy her sister out of bondage.
Today, some of our original makers have become team leaders. They’ve become the authors of their own futures, and now guide others as they do the same.
Fellow social enterprise The Tote Project also has a recruitment program that prioritises giving opportunities to survivors. Furthermore, they exclusively partner with FairTrade factories, and donate 10% of gross profits to Qualified, a non-profit that provides occupational therapy and career mentoring for survivors of trafficking.
“We’ve seen this model positively impact lives in so many ways. One semester there was an amazing woman named Carrie* going through the career academy at Qualified. We were honoured to get to donate and help fund the classes she was taking, and we even got to teach a couple of the business classes ourselves. We loved getting to know Carrie and seeing how well she was thriving, and after she graduated we got to hire her to do events for us. She was one of our best salespeople!” – Michelle Chavez, The Tote Project Co-Founder
*Carrie’s name has been changed to protect her privacy
Beyond Fashion
It’s not just fashion; instances of exploitation and modern slavery are also common in the cocoa industry. Dutch chocolate brand Tony’s Chocolonely is on a mission to make slavery-free chocolate the norm, with sourcing principles designed to address the root cause of exploitation in the industry – poverty.
“We now have some really strong proof points to demonstrate that our 5 Sourcing Principles work. The child labour prevalence rate for the wider cocoa industry in West Africa is 46.5% – 1 in 2 children working illegally. In cooperatives that have been working according to Tony’s 5 Sourcing Principles this number drops to 3.9%. Last year, for the 3rd year in a row, we commissioned a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) survey in the cocoa-growing communities we source from. In ABOCFA, the cooperative we have sourced from for the longest, the number of farmer households no longer living in poverty has increased from 71.6% to 83.7%. We also see more and more farmers reaching a living income.”
These are just a few brands, but with huge impact to share, and stories that make us hopeful. Hopeful that the fashion industry, and others too, can collaborate together in establishing strong supplier relationships, identifying risks of human trafficking and exploitation, offering opportunities to those in need, and ultimately uplifting humanity.
Further Reading:
Ending Forced Labor: An Opportunity to Advocate
Fashion’s opportunity to be a force for good, and show other industries how it’s done
International Women’s Day: Fashion Is Women’s Work
Human rights, transparency and accountability in fashion: A conversation on Uyghur forced labour
This is a guest blog by Lizzie Rivera, founder of sustainable lifestyle hub Live Frankly.
For women at the forefront of fighting for garment workers’ rights, the battle is about more than building safety and factory working conditions – it’s about fundamental global women’s rights.
It’s estimated that up to 80% of garment workers are women. Many live in highly patriarchal societies where they face discrimination and oppression for being female – and brands are exploiting this for cheap labour.
Worse still, harassment and violence are being used in factories to prevent women from gaining other fundamental rights, including the right to earn a living wage. So, women union leaders from across Asia are teaming up with one goal in mind – to end gender-based violence in textile factories across the continent.
Resolute in their belief that we are more powerful when we work together, they are combining their decades of experience and expertise to support each other across borders.
This Fashion Revolution Week, five female union leaders from India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Cambodia share empowering stories of their struggles and successes – and what inspires them to keep going, against all odds.
Dian Septi Trisnanti, Indonesia
Chairwoman of the Federation of Indonesian United Trade Unions (FSBPI), co-producer of video documentary ‘Angka Jadi Suara’ (Numbers Become Voices)
“Helping other women is healing for me. We are oppressed, yet we stand in solidarity with each other. We face hardship, yet we share our kindness. That’s what inspires me to keep going when I’m being arrested and beaten by police officers for protesting. It empowers me to continue to speak out when the board members or bosses I’m negotiating with speak to me or touch me inappropriately, even though the common response is: ‘Maybe he was just trying to be nice’.
I started out as a journalist and soon realised it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in – wherever we work, women face similar oppression. I find working in the garment industry a lot of pressure and it can be hard to handle. We receive a lot of cases detailing women’s abuse, including sexual harassment and rape. It’s so common we still have to put up signs in factories that say: “This is a sexual harassment free-zone”.
Despite their low wages, female garment workers are often the breadwinners but our culture refuses to recognise that. Women, so used to being reduced, don’t see it in themselves, either. The fact is that brands from the west exploit this gender imbalance.
During the height of the pandemic, a factory operated a shift system, so that only fifty per cent of workers worked at one time. The first shift started at 6am, and the workers would have to wake up in the middle of the night to do all the housework and arrive at 5.30am. Many did not have breakfast. There was added pressure because women had to work weekends to make up the hours or have their wages cut. Can you imagine how exhausting it was for them?
I want women around the world to know the story behind their clothes, the story of exploitation. I want them to know so they stand in solidarity and help the voices of women garment workers to be heard.”
Rukmini Vaderapura Puttaswamy, India
President of Garment Labor Union (GLU) based in Bengaluru, Karnataka state and Co-chair of the Women’s Leadership Committee of Asia Floor Wage Alliance
“I worked as a tailor in garment factories for 23 years. I saw all kinds of sexual harassment, verbal abuse, impossible targets, and a lack of benefits. I became a target when I joined a union and started speaking out for others. The managers tried to publicly humiliate me by criticising my work. They wouldn’t grant my holiday requests. They even followed me to the toilet.
It’s clear brands only respond to crises when they have to – this is why putting global pressure on them to protect workers is so important. Women are more powerful when we work collectively. That’s why we need unions, and for unions to work together.
Many garment workers don’t have much education or any awareness of their rights. They’re women who go from being controlled by men at home to being controlled by men at work. Brands and factories exploit this by paying them very low wages, threatening salary cuts for absence, and refusing to give them long-term contracts so they remain vulnerable.
The best factories are the ones that are willing to address issues when a union confronts them. Without a union, factories can fire workers without notice. When a union is present they are more likely to follow legal procedures and give workers benefits, such as leave.”
Lalitha Dedduwakumar, Sri Lanka
Co-chair of the Women’s Leadership Committee of Asia Floor Wage Alliance and Chief Organizer and founding member of Textile Garment and Clothing Workers Union
“During COVID, apparel sector workers were declared essential workers in Sri Lanka. At the same time, all workers suffered temporary pay cuts of 50 per cent. This meant some people couldn’t afford to get to work. Now, the government is rewarding state sector workers with a 5,000 Rupee (£12) pay rise, which will increase monthly wages by about 10-15%, but garment workers aren’t entitled to this.
There are several reasons for this discrimination. The first is that the vast majority of garment workers are women. There’s a structural violence against women that has become normalised in society and it has become normalised inside the factories as well. It’s not unheard of for women to be nicknamed after the machines they work on – for example “Juki Kalla” (‘Juki’ is the sewing machine brand and ‘Kalla’ is a derogatory way of saying ‘a girl’) or “Juki Baduwa” (‘Baduwa’ implies someone is a prostitute and is also a way of slut-shaming) – rather than by their names.
There’s also racism. There’s been an increase in migrant workers, who don’t necessarily speak Sinhala. They are treated as second-class citizens and denied access to government assistance.
Underpinning all of this is the class issue. Even working in trade unions, as a working-class woman I have experienced discrimination and purposely been kept out of certain policymaking processes. That’s why we founded a trade union led by female ex-apparel sector workers.
It takes a lot of courage for women to join a union and to stand up for themselves and each other. They risk their job, intimidation, and discrimination from employers. It’s especially difficult for women who are used to being controlled to show leadership. What’s incredible is that when a woman becomes used to working in a safe environment and she is treated with dignity and respect, it changes her expectations of how she is treated in her home and community, too.”
Zehra Khan, Pakistan
Founding member and General Secretary, Home Based Women Workers Federation (HBWWF) and member of many tripartite committees in Pakistan, including the Sindh Home Based Workers Governing Body.
“Change is coming. Not just in the workplace, but also in the home. One woman told me her husband no longer hits her because she’s not isolated anymore, she now has 3000 union members standing behind her!
It’s a common story. Domestic abuse declines when men consider their wives to be more equal partners in earning money and running the household. Husbands and fathers realise the benefits of educating women, rather than fear it. Men are now joining our union too, and even those that are not members are coming to us for advice and legal support.
Our union is the first one created for Pakistan’s so-called “invisible workers” – the home-based workers, which we estimate accounts for about 12 million women in Pakistan. Home-based workers typically work 12 – 14 hour days. They use their own electricity and gas. They receive very low wages, sometimes paid in other currencies, and often their daughters assist with the work for no payment at all.
When we founded the Home Based Women Workers Federation in 2009, our initial goal was to create a cooperative where women could support each other and negotiate collectively, to give them more power. Then, we realised they didn’t just need help starting a business. We needed to make home-based workers visible in the eyes of the law so they would be entitled to receive a minimum wage and gain access to health and pension schemes.
Following almost a decade of protesting in the streets and meetings with legislators, the first legislation that recognised the rights of home-based workers was passed in 2018.
In the early days, we had to persuade women of their rights and they were afraid to take part in protests. Now, they ask when the next demonstrations are and they chant slogans in the streets. Members are part of ‘tripartite committees’, for example the Sindh Minimum Wage Board, set up so unions, employers and governments can officially negotiate on important issues. They also use their experience to support other movements, from helping formal workers to unionise to assisting with indigenous people’s land rights issues.”
Heng Chenda, Cambodia
Vice President, Cambodia Labor Confederation (CLC)
“As a garment worker, I witnessed lots of violence and injustice. At the time, I didn’t understand the law, but I knew in my heart to demand for more.
It’s not easy because these problems stem from societal issues, where women aren’t considered equal to men. The laws aren’t in favour of workers. Factory owners bribe police and hire gangsters to intimidate us. But, if we don’t challenge this now, future generations will face the same violations.
Our goal is for all girls and women to understand their rights and be able to stand-up for themselves. We do this by working to increase the amount of female managers in factories and female leaders in unions – and to ensure their leadership is respected. At the same time, we campaign for labour laws that give women maternity rights and criminalise gender-based violence.”
This is a guest blog post by The Love Is Project
The Love Is Project empowers female artisans in developing countries across the world by selling on their intricate work, supporting them with fair pay, food, healthcare and education. Today we want to highlight the importance of educating girls and women and how it benefits them and their greater communities.
Almost a year ago, we wrote in our Love In Juala, India blog post that in addition to donating essential supplies to our artisans, we were in talks with village leaders to provide the women with a tutor to teach them reading, writing, and financial literacy. Now that the lockdown in India has been lifted, we are happy to announce that the program has started and there are currently 33 female students in the class.
Stationary and period products were distributed to help the women and girls continue their education and stay in school. Topics of conversation included how to keep dengue fever from spreading in the community and encouraging women to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The women also discussed how to maintain good hygiene during menstruation, the regressive divorce system in the region, and how Muslims and Hindus were able to coexist peacefully in the village.
These women aren’t letting anything stand in their way of providing a better life for themselves. More than half of them don’t have electricity, and the majority of them don’t have access to clean drinking water. A few of the women have achieved a 5th grade education, but most of them have never been enrolled in school. The women are proving that there is no better time than the present to learn financial literacy. We are so proud of our artisans and excited to see what they achieve.
Our artisans have created an eye-catching bracelet with colours reminiscent of the prized spice saffron. When you purchase a bracelet from the India Collection, you are supporting the education and livelihood of our female artisan partners.
Further Reading
Header image by @pictureorganicclothing
The weight of the fashion system falls on women’s shoulders.
Women make up the majority of the world’s garment workers, but as a group, they are routinely underpaid, overworked, mistreated, harassed and abused across the fashion supply chain. Why does this inequality and injustice remain acceptable in our industry? And how can we move beyond the bare minimum demands for women workers – to be paid fairly and to be protected from violence – towards a truly empowering fashion future beyond the glossy ‘girl boss’ exterior?
The myth of ‘girl boss’ feminism in fashion
“You cannot exploit women in one country to empower them in another” – Hayat Rachi
On the glamourous surface of the fashion industry, you could be led to believe that women really can have it all. More fashion startups are led by women, women take up more senior roles in the C-suite, diversity is celebrated in fashion campaigns, brands are promoting ‘female empowerment on International Women’s Day and beyond, and young female influencers are making millions by working with fast fashion and luxury brands alike. But this glossy exterior conceals a dark truth: the wellbeing of millions of women around the world suffers at the hands of fashion’s race to produce more, faster, cheaper.
The labour of creating clothing and textiles has historically been performed by women, but our society continues to undervalue ‘women’s work’ and therefore this ‘girl boss feminism’ has yet to extend to the women who make our clothes. This means that even woman-owned fashion brands with ’empowering’ messaging are often still exploiting women to prop up their success. Not every action is empowering, inspiring or liberating simply because a woman is doing it – true feminism is about solidarity, freedom and equality for all women.
Currently though, female garment workers are still regularly subjected to violence at the hands of male factory owners and managers. A recent report by Asia Floor Wage suggests that across garment factories in six Asian countries during the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a significant increase in Gender-Based Violence and Harassment (GBVH), which includes verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Fashion brands know this, but fail to take meaningful action to address and prevent this endemic problem. In fact, the report directly links the rise in GBVH during the pandemic to the purchasing practices of international fashion brands, which reinforced women’s vulnerability.
Women should be able to go to work without fear of violence. They should be safe and secure in their employment, and beyond that, be empowered to learn and grow in order to interrupt this cycle of gendered power dynamics through more female leadership.
According to Empower@Work, which brings together the world’s four largest women’s empowerment programs in the global supply chain (BSR’s HERproject, CARE International, Gap Inc.’s P.A.C.E. Program and ILO-IFC Better Work), collective action by businesses, civil society, governments, workers, and worker representatives is essential to ensure that employment is a true catalyst for the empowerment of women who make up the majority of workers in the garment industry.
A lack of transparency for women workers
“Women should lead and share in opportunities. Women should be empowered and treated with dignity and respect.” – Nazma Akter, Executive Director at AWAJ Foundation in the 2021 Fashion Transparency Index.
These statements should be common sense; the bare minimum we can expect in a fair fashion system. But unfortunately, women are still exploited across the supply chain. Our research on how much information the largest fashion brands and retailers are disclosing found that there is a lack of transparency surrounding various issues impacting women workers.
When it comes to the gender pay gap, defined as the average difference between the remuneration for men and women, only 30% of major brands publish their gender pay data. This is hugely problematic particularly during the pandemic, as women lost at least $800 billion in income according to research from Oxfam.
Additionally, just 21% of major brands disclose the gender breakdown of workers at each of their supplier sites. Knowing the percentage of women workers in a facility allows for gender-responsive measures in which policies can be designed and implemented based on the realities and needs of women workers, such as enabling women to practice menstrual hygiene and permitting toilet and rest breaks during menstruation.
Major brands and retailers also provide very little transparency on the issue of living wages for workers in their supply chains. 27% of brands disclose the company’s approach to achieving the payment of living wages, but only 4% publish a strategy on living wages that is time-bound and measurable. Furthermore, just 6% of brands report annual measurable progress towards achieving living wages for supply chain workers. Additionally, digital payments of wages have well-documented positive impacts on women workers, but just 2% of brands are currently publishing this data. Living wages have the power to end poverty pay for millions of people who make our clothes, the vast majority of whom are women.
If we can’t see it, we can’t fix it, and that’s why transparency is crucial for ensuring the concerns of women workers are addressed and that brands are held accountable for the women who make their clothes.
How to support the women who make our clothes
The theme for International Women’s Day (8th March 2022) is #BreakTheBias. The organisers encourage us to imagine a gender-equal world, free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
From the viewpoint of the garment sector, it can be incredibly difficult to imagine this world. Clothing companies have profited from women workers that have been paid too little for too long, and we do not have time to waste by waiting for companies to do the right thing on a voluntary basis. They need to be held accountable through legislation.
This is why we are launching Good Clothes Fair Pay, a new campaign demanding a living wage for garment and textile workers, with a special emphasis on the groups most vulnerable to a lack of living wages, including women. To support the campaign, follow us on Instagram for updates and subscribe to our mailing list.
This Fashion Revolution Week (18th-24th April 2022), our theme is MONEY FASHION POWER. We know that the mainstream fashion industry is built on the exploitation of people and the planet. It’s time to reimagine the values at the heart of a new fashion system, and this includes a rebalance of wealth and power for the women who make our clothes. You can get involved throughout the week by downloading our free resources here.
Further reading
International Women’s Day: Women’s rights and the environment in fashion
El Wikiproyecto Moda Sostenible – Wiki loves Sustainable Fashion – fue seleccionado para presentarse en la reunión anual de Fashion Revolution
Nuestra coordinadora del equipo de traducción y voluntarios Irina Bava presentó el Wikiproyecto Moda Sostenible – Wiki loves Sustainable Fashion en la reunión anual de Fashion Revolution frente a los 92 representantes de países que componen el movimiento.
Click aqui para acceder a la presentación en Español e inglés.
Wikiproyecto Moda Sostenible – Wiki loves Sustainable Fashion
Es una iniciativa de Fashion Revolution Argentina accionada por mujeres y orientada a toda la comunidad de habla hispana.
A través de este wikiproyecto, que está alojado en plataforma digital de Wikipedia, el objetivo de Fashion Revolution Argentina radica en la creación, edición y traducción en forma colaborativa de más de 500 artículos relacionados con la moda sostenible.
El contenido podrá ser creado y editado online por cualquier persona desde cualquier parte del mundo; en consecuencia, serán los propios usuarios como editores voluntarios quienes colaborarán en la modificación de los artículos del wikiproyecto. Fashion Revolution Argentina, además de convocar a todos los ciudadanos amantes de la moda, profesionales de la industria y activistas, estará invitando a participar a estudiantes y educadores, promoviendo a que se unan especialmente más mujeres editoras.
Una vez finalizada la creación y edición del contenido en español, los artículos serán traducidos a otros idiomas: Inglés, Portugués, Francés, Italiano y Alemán.
Para cumplir con el objetivo de modificación de más de 500 artículos relacionados con la moda sostenible, Fashion Revolution Argentina estará dictando junto a Wikipedia capacitaciones virtuales de edición (vía Zoom e Instagram Live) y realizará una editatón (evento o maratón de edición) mensual a durante el 2021 y 2022. Estas editatones estarán dirigidas a toda la comunidad para modificar online voluntariamente y en forma colaborativa el contenido del wikiproyecto Moda Sostenible desde la plataforma digital de Wikipedia.
¿Cuál es la situación actual en Wikipedia en cuanto a moda sostenible?
Wikipedia en español tiene escaso contenido desarrollado en relación con la moda sostenible y la industria de la moda. No existe, por ejemplo, la Categoría:Moda Sostenible (en español), y la Categoría:Ropa y Medio Ambiente (en español) solo tiene dos artículos, de los cuales Moda Sostenible (en español) es muy breve.
En cuanto a Wikipedia en Inglés, tampoco cuenta con la Categoría:Moda Sostenible ni Categoría:Ropa y Medio Ambiente. Las ediciones en otros idiomas se encuentran en una situación similar.
Además, son pocas las mujeres editoras en Wikipedia —solo el 14% de quienes editan esta enciclopedia son mujeres; y las principales líderes femeninas en la moda sostenible tampoco cuentan con artículos creados en esta plataforma digital.
Estos dos problemas (la falta de contenido relacionado con la moda sostenible y la falta de editoras) pueden tener una solución común, a saber, coordinar y capacitar a cientos de estudiantes, educadores y voluntarios de Fashion Revolution para que puedan crear los artículos faltantes y, al hacerlo, unirse a la comunidad Wikipedia. Click acá para conocer algunas estadísticas de búsqueda en Wikipedia vinculadas con artículos sobre moda sostenible.
Según la ONU, la industria de la moda es una de las industrias más contaminantes del mundo. Y no es solo el medio ambiente el que está pagando el precio: las vidas de los trabajadores también están en peligro. El 80% de las personas que trabajan en esta industria son mujeres, y más de 350 millones de personas trabajan solo en la industria del algodón. ¿Pero cuántos latinoamericanos trabajan en esta industria? ¿Cuál es su verdadero impacto en nuestra flora, en nuestra fauna, y lo más importante, en nuestra gente? La información sobre moda ‘limpia’ en Wikipedia resulta escasa y no siempre está actualizada y ni detallada como para arrojar realmente luz sobre esta cuestión y crear conciencia sobre los problemas actuales que están teniendo lugar. Abordar estas cuestiones resulta de suma importancia si queremos que se tomen medidas para generar un cambio positivo.
Si trabajamos juntos veremos una industria de la moda más segura, transparente, justa y responsable, que valore a las personas y preserve a la naturaleza.
Ahora es el momento de una revolución de la moda.
Detalles de contacto: argentina@fashionrevolution.org
This is a guest blog post by Izzy McLeod
It’s Pride Month, which means a month of celebration for many LGBTQ+ people. Pride Month is a time to celebrate who we are as queer people, a time to protest for a better world, and a time that big brands use to sell us their annual limited-edition, rainbow-covered merchandise.
As LGBTQ+ people have become more accepted in many societies in the world, particularly in the global north, brands have seen Pride as a chance to make money under the pretence of supporting the LGBTQ+ community. They make a t-shirt or a pair of shoes, stick on a rainbow motif, advertise it using some of our favourite queer celebrities and influencers, possibly donate a portion to an LGBTQ+ charity and maybe even sponsor some pride events – then reap the profits!
But there’s something missing from this equation – the people that actually make the clothes. Their presence is absent from many brand’s websites. Most big brands do not even state where in the world their collections are made, let alone what happens in their supply chains, or how their LGBTQ+ garment workers and farmers are treated.
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Three years ago, brands like Primark and H&M made the news because their Pride collections were being made in countries such as Myanmar, Bangladesh, Turkey, and China, where it is illegal to be gay, or where LGBTQ+ people face persecution. The people who make many of these Pride collections are not free to be themselves. With an estimated 98% of garment workers not paid a living wage, gender-based violence rampant in supply chains, and forced labour found at every stage of garment production, the fashion industry is long past the time for change. The support for the LGBTQ+ community from many of these brands does not seem to extend to the people they need to make their clothing, and that is simply not good enough.
Headlines about these collections were almost immediately forgotten about with the next news cycle, and Pride Month news the next year was notably silent about those making Pride merchandise. But we haven’t forgotten, and that’s why Who Made My Pride Merch was started. The campaign is inspired by Fashion Revolution week and is running throughout Pride Month and beyond.
Pride should be about queer liberation for all, not just about capitalising on the Pink Pound. We cannot continue to let brands pander to one part of the LGBTQ+ community while participating in the exploitation of another. Big brands have the power, the money, and the resources to make their supply chains safer and fairer, yet most won’t even disclose where in the world these collections are produced.
Who Made My Pride Merch are spending Pride month asking brands who makes their pride collections, demanding better from the fashion industry, and standing in solidarity with LGBTQ+ garment workers worldwide.
LGBTQ+ worker solidarity
Part of the aim of Who Made My Pride Merch is to shine a light on LGBTQ+ garment workers, highlighting the lack of information available about them. We know that LGBTQ+ garment workers are some of the most marginalised people in the sector, with many facing discrimination, sexual violence, and harassment in the workplace, as well as struggling to get and keep jobs due to their sexuality or gender. Being more marginalised also means that it is harder for many LGBTQ+ garment workers to stand up and demand better pay and working conditions.
Unfortunately, information about LGBTQ+ garment workers is hard to find, and without it, their unique struggles are often forgotten.
Pride Month is not the only time in the year that LGBTQ+ people deserve to be recognised, highlighted, and supported. This is why it is important that the Who Makes My Pride Merch campaign stands in solidarity with LGBTQ+ garment workers all year long, beyond Pride Month.
As well as calling for more transparency and better working conditions from the fashion industry, we are also talking to organisations working with garment workers to see how we can better support LGBTQ+ workers in the industry, highlighting their particular challenges so that groups can do more for those who go unnoticed.
We hope you will join us in calling out the hypocrisy of rainbow capitalism, and in working towards a better future for LGBTQ+ garment workers worldwide.
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How to get involved
Much like Fashion Revolution Week, Who Made My Pride Merch is a campaign designed for everyone to get involved in. By taking pictures, asking questions, and sharing stories, we can demand a better future for all in the fashion industry.
More information on all of the ways you can get involved can be found on our campaign page, and our Instagram. By emailing and DMing brands, commenting on social media posts, posting pictures of Pride merch, organising, and learning, we hope we can make more people aware of the reality of Pride merch manufacturing, and put pressure on brands to be more transparent.
Further reading
Do You Know Where Your Pride T-Shirt Was Made? | The New York Times
Fashion Revolution Week is the time when we come together as a global community to create a better fashion industry. It centers around the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, which killed 1,138 people and injured many more on April 24, 2013.
This year, as we marked eight years since the tragedy, Fashion Revolution Week focused on the interconnectedness of human rights and the rights of nature. Our campaign in the USA amplified unheard voices across the fashion supply chain and harnessed the creativity of our community to explore innovative and interconnected solutions.
Below, get a glimpse at our over 20 events bringing together 67 makers, doers, and changemakers within the field, delving into topics of land, water and air; ownership; workers; nature; gender; education; and what we can all do to be moved toward action for a better fashion future. As well, our volunteer network of Regional Coordinators, City Leads, and Student Ambassadors brought the fashion revolution to life in new and unique ways in their communities, helping the movement grow throughout the United States.
Monday, April 19: Land, Air, and Water
Hashtag Revolt: Through our global coordinated effort to infiltrate the #hashtags of many #fastfashion brands, the #hashtagrevolt campaign attracted over 500 posts across social media channels. We’re grateful to our partner organizations and industry leaders that helped us to reach citizens outside of the sustainable fashion echo chamber, including @Greenpeace, @FairTradeCertified (our co-branded partner!), @chicksforclimate, @ecoage, @canopyplanet, @marinatestino, @amandahearst, @stand.earth, What the Hack (who launched a hack-a-thon to amplify these efforts) and many others! Fashion Revolution USA’s messaging successfully disrupted the fast fashion brands’ hashtag feeds on April 19th, sparking international curiosity among concerned citizens.
Environmental Racism and the Fashion Industry: Laura Diez from Ecochic Podcast helped us tackle the topic of #EnvironmentalRacism in the fashion industry and how it shows up in the USA. With race being the top predictor of a person living near contaminated soil, air, or water; she described some of the environmental injustices that occur in BIPOC communities, in practice and policy. She covered racism, redlining, Superfund sites, and what legal tools exist to combat these injustices. This conversation highlights how pollution and destruction of land, water, and air by the fashion industry negatively impact BIPOC communities here in America and brought awareness to how individuals can push for policy and industry changes.
Challenging Fashion’s Relationship with Land, Air, and Water: We kicked off Fashion Revolution Week with a deep discussion on fashion’s relationship with land, air, and water highlighting a cross sector of BIPOC thought leaders from around the globe. The conversation covered how our current western-centered worldview sees nature only as a resource, rather than an equal, and how fashion has been used as a means to erase cultures and traditions of people of color for centuries. Reparations are needed in the fashion industry to bring more womxn and BIPOC individuals to the table, bringing them into positions of leadership and slowing down the fashion industry as a whole to be in mutual relationship and respect with land, air, and water.
Tuesday, April 20: Ownership
Access & Ownership of Sustainable Fashion: Maya and Mica Caine, co-founders of Mive, discussed the roots of regenerative and sustainable practices in fashion and who has access to sustainable fashion. They highlighted how the “sustainable fashion” movement has been co-opted and rebranded, although the roots of regenerative and sustainable practices have been practiced by Indigenous peoples and communities of color for generations. Maya and Mica talked about pushing the fashion industry to consider ways to go beyond tokenism when practicing representation, bringing in more BIPOC individuals in leadership positions, highlighting designers, and making fashion more accessible for everyone. A notable quote from their IG Live conversation: ‘“Marketing is not an education.”
Who Owns Textile Waste?: Tara St. James, designer and consultant; Camille Tagle, co-founder and creative director of Fabscrap; Liz Ricketts, co-founder of The OR Foundation; and Chloe Assam, designer, researcher, community organizer and manager of Ghana Operations for The OR Foundation joined the Re:Sourced Fashion club on Clubhouse to talk about ownership of textile waste. Notably, Liz asked a poignant question related to retailer take-back programs and their realistic value: “Who has the right to profit from this waste?” Moderators also discussed the need for local and global policy change to tackle the issue of textile waste and also the regulation of the secondhand clothing trade, with Camille citing the opportunities that Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies present.
Cultural Appropriation and the Fashion Industry: In an industry inspired by nature, culture, and the world around us, fashion walks a fine line between cultural appreciation and appropriation. This visually focused session brought together diverse perspectives, including an academic, historian, activist, designer, and researcher, to take on the nuances of Cultural Appropriation in Fashion. Eugenia Paulicelli focused on the importance of fashion studies programs in including more cultural awareness and understanding of these intricacies, while Darnell Jamal Lisby showcased the balances designers have made between adoptive and permissive appropriation. Regardless of the inspiration or origins of a design, Brenda Equihua, a designer who balances her own creative process and bringing in cultural honor to her work, spoke to the intentionality of the process. “Intention means you take the time. The [fashion] industry currently isn’t set up for that.” Manpreet Kaur Kalra, an educator and activist, emphasized the need for understanding who holds the power and benefits most from the work, including who profits, what stories are told about the specific culture, and how we can honor the artisan and culture as the true original designer.
Wednesday, April 21: Workers
Ethical Narratives in the Fashion Industry: Manpreet Kaur Kalra, educator and podcaster at Art of Citizenry, and Joy McBrien, founder of Fair Trade brand Fair Anita, explored what it means to decolonize storytelling, practicing informed consent in crafting a narrative, and the power dynamics that we don’t consider in telling someone else’s story – even with good intentions. They discussed the power imbalances between the global north and the global south, how continually telling stories of others’ trauma perpetuates a single narrative and furthers the othering of our relationships with other cultures. Ultimately, your story is the only one that you own, and when you are telling someone else’s story, consider the power and privilege of having control over the narrative you’re sharing, ask how someone else wants their story shared, and center the maker as an individual, outside of their pain and trauma.
Mass Translation Posters: In partnership with Gabrielle Vazquez, Fashion Revolution USA’s NYC City Lead, with support from Alessandra Brescia and other creatives, our Instagram channel debuted a new mass translation project of our #IMadeYourClothes campaign into four languages: Kapampangan, Quechua, Catalan and Taíno. To learn more about the fashion revolution efforts in the countries where these languages are predominantly spoken, visit the webpages of our global teams in the Philippines, Colombia, Peru and Spain.
State of Play: Garment Worker Protections in the United States: To raise awareness around policy SB62 and the exploitation of garment workers in Los Angeles, Fashion Revolution USA hosted an informative panel featuring Sen. María Elena Durazo, Dr. Elizabeth Segran, Ayesha Barenblat, Marissa Nuncio, Sarah Ditty, and Santos Say Velasquez, a Los Angeles-based garment worker. Panelists discussed the importance of a holistic approach to regulating accountability in the fashion industry, particularly garment workers’ rights, and a solution that involves legislation, enforcement, advocacy, and community. Please sign the petition here, share our blog post, and join a virtual letter-writing event to get involved and support progress. In addition, brands/manufacturers/suppliers can support #SB62 by endorsing here.
Thursday, April 22: Nature
Rights of Nature Q&A: Kelly Camille Holmes of Native Max Magazine and Norma Baker-Flying Horse, native fashion designer, led a conversation on the relationship of Indengious people to the land, air, and water, highlighting traditions and stories of their peoples. They dove into the history of how the colonization of Indigenous peoples has negatively impacted their communities and erased their traditions, forcing them to assimilate away from traditional language, dress, and many elements of their cultures. As we begin to recognize the invaluable relationships with nature and the land that Indigenous peoples have always practiced, how can we center their voices as leaders in the movement and create an intersectional conversation that understands that much of the wisdom and knowledge we seek to create necessary change in the fashion industry and beyond has been othered and erased by colonizers for centuries?
Fashion Revolution Week Classroom: Regenerating Local Communities, Economies and, Environments: Fashion Revolution USA collaborated with Harvard Alumni for Fashion, Luxury, and Retail (FL&R) to create a unique classroom experience for Fashion Revolution Week. In this classroom, FL&R President Timothy Parent invited a diverse group of people, including Amy Hall, Gisselle Jimenez and Mitchell Harrison working on regenerative systems from a variety of perspectives who illustrated how we can simultaneously protect and create positive outputs for local people, economies and environments. By recognizing the intersectional solutions that exist with a regenerative framework, panelists empowered the audience to create positive outcomes for previously marginalized and exploited communities with a new vision for the fashion industry. This collaborative classroom was guided and supported with the help of Kelly Peaks (FRUSA) and Gabby Vasquez (FRUSA, The New School).
#BehindtheSeams: Four new brands joined Fashion Revolution USA for a continuation of our #BehindtheSeams series, this year debuted as Instagram Reels. Victoria Island-based Ecologyst, Detroit-based ISAIC, and Seattle-based Sassafras and Prairie Underground gave our digital audiences a behind-the-scenes look at their factories, opening up their doors by offering a transparent look at their production and process, and sharing #WhoMadeMyClothes. Many thanks to our Regional Coordinator and City Lead volunteers Alessandra Brescia, Camilla Sampson, Karen Hartman, and Olivia Gregg for bringing these features to life!
Friday, April 23: Gender
#DopeMenSew: Sewist, mens DIY designer and creator, Scorpio, of @sinsofmany joined Fashion Revolution USA for an IG Live to discuss gender roles in sewing, the #DopeMenSew community, lack of accessibility of pattern materials for men and many other subjects. “We’re programmed to think of fashion being one way,” said Scorpio, talking about the underrepresentation of men in the sewing community and lack of size inclusivity in the fashion industry. Scorpio also shed light on the powerful connections making your own clothing can foster, as well as recommended the Sew It! Academy and folks like Norris Dantá Ford, Mimi G, Michael Gardner, Prep Curry, and many others to learn from and follow. Get involved with Dope Men Sew on Instagram by using #DopeMenSew.
Fashion is a Feminist Issue: Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs, consultant at Tabii Just Strategies and deputy executive director of programming at Women’s March; Tameka Peoples, founder and director of operations at Seed2Shirt; Rosalinda Cruz, founder and chief experience officer of The Asor Collective; and moderator Whitney Bauck, freelance journalist, dove into the interconnected topics of gender issues, racial equity and agricultural systems within and across fashion’s supply chains. Panelists discussed the similarities of this work to revolutionize, or rebuild, the way brands and citizens consider these many topics to the work being done in the climate justice space. Equity, land access, representation and systemic change are at the heart of what’s needed to advance women’s agency from farmer to manufacturer to end consumer, especially that of Black, Brown, Indigenous and other women of color who have been historically and systematically disenfranchised in the fashion industry.
Saturday, April 24: Action
From Collective Action to Connected Action: Unleashing Tech for Good: This Clubhouse conversation, hosted by the Humankind Action Lounge, explored various stakeholders’ experiences of navigating the abrupt stop in fashion due to the pandemic and the importance of leveraging technology and community to achieve targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moderated by Elizabeth Cabral, speakers included Jennifer Ewah, Jessica Turco, Mackenzie Mock, and Julia Perry. Together, they identified the importance of each other’s work and how collective and connected support and action are vital to driving change within the fashion industry.
Fashion Revolution Classroom: Financing Fashion: Amisha Parekh’s interactive class provided a foundational understanding of Sustainable Investment (SI) the types of SI including Exclusionary Screening, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Integration, and Thematic/Impact Investing, as well as defining Materiality Assessment, and how “values” (like human rights and environmental protection) are now being “valued” within investment portfolios. She explained that ESG investing has grown from $13T in 2012 to ~ $38T in 2020 and how the landscape is changing. Investors are now thinking more about long-term investments and how risk (such as an oil spill) affects a company’s value. New policies are being set in the EU to combat greenwashing and making it mandatory for public companies to disclose how they are contributing to environmental objectives. The outlook: progress is being made, especially in the EU.
Thrift Tips: Four thrifting experts–@the.thrifted.gay, @cakeplussize, @dinasdays and @thriftinginthecity_–joined Fashion Revolution USA to share a look at thrifting dos and don’ts, tuning in from Chicago, Minneapolis, Akron and Detroit respectively. Watch part one and part two of this takeover.
Sunday, April 25: Education
Around the World with Fashion Revolution: Shannon Welch, Fashion Revolution USA’s director of strategic initiatives and creative partnerships, joined Fashion Revolution for a round-robin look at the week’s events around the world. Co-presenters included Hadeel Osman, country coordinator of FR Sudan; Aigerim Akenova, country coordinator of FR Kazakhstan; Kamonnart Ongwandee, country coordinator of FR Thailand; Raina Rafie, country coordinator of FR Egypt; Salome Areais, country coordinator of FR Portugal; and Christian Stefanoni, communications lead for FR Mexico.
Made Incubator: The United State of Fashion II: The opening of The United State of Fashion II was a profound event with keynote speakers from different sectors of the fashion and beauty industry. Highlighting folks including a celebrity stylist to a lobbyist on Capitol Hill, panelists shared more about the fashion and business community’s role in addressing sustainable practices, responsible manufacturing, education gaps, economic and racial inequalities in the fashion and beauty industry, and barriers to opportunity for all. Hearing Ted Gibson and Jason Backe speak about the pain points of the beauty industry gave the audience a clear understanding of the environmental impact of the beauty and hair industry as a whole. We look forward to providing more digital knowledge and inclusion with industry stakeholders that make bold changes in this industry.
Student Ambassadors Takeover: Kelly Peaks, one of Fashion Revolution USA’s Student Ambassador Coordinators, spoke to five current ambassadors about their experiences in our student ambassador program. The conversations touched on their specific interests on issues within the fashion industry such as policy, circularity, shopping second hand, environmental issues, and more. Peaks also asked each student ambassador and the live, digital audience trivia question related to various issues surrounding the fashion industry, such as garment workers’ rights, clothing waste, and GHG emissions from clothing production. Many thanks to students Hannah Griffee, Joanne Onasi, Eva Bergloff, Ella Charnizon and Tess Stroh for participating!
Volunteer Events
This year, our Regional Coordinators, City Leads and Student Ambassadors brought the Fashion Revolution to life in new and unique ways across the United States. From clothing swaps to local sustainable clothing guides and much more, we’re thankful for the incredible work and efforts of our volunteer network to localize the brighter fashion future in their communities.
A hearty thank you to David W. Schropfer, CEO at The Safe, and DIY CyberGuy for helping facilitate a seamless virtual event experience with our sponsored Zoom account. We couldn’t have done it without you!
International Women’s Day takes place on Monday 8th March 2021, and this year the overarching theme is ‘Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world’. The day aims to celebrate and empower women and girls around the world to help shape a just and regenerative recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fashion industry employs millions of women throughout its complex global supply chain, but the majority of leadership roles–away from the shop, factory and design floor–remain in the hands of men. In 2020, we saw fashion brands and manufacturers mobilise in force to produce vital PPE for healthcare staff on the frontline, but we also saw retailers cancel billions of dollars worth of orders, leaving garment workers and their families hungry.
To ensure that all stakeholders in the fashion system survive and thrive in a post-pandemic world, we need to put women’s rights at the core of the fashion revolution.
In this blog post, we explore the intersection of human rights and the rights of nature and find out how this relates to the empowerment of women and girls across the world, during COVID-19 and beyond.
Labour rights for female workers
The fashion industry remains one of the most labour-intensive industries in the world. The majority of that labour is carried out by women – in Bangladesh, for example, up to 85% of the production workforce is female, although the proportion of women garment workers is reportedly decreasing.
Although there are more women in the labour market than ever before, these workers are systematically denied the same rights as men. 71% of people trapped in modern slavery are women, and fashion is the second-highest risk category for modern slavery in the supply chain. Up to 50% of women in the garment industry have experienced sexual harassment in their place of work, with millions lacking legal protections against this abuse.
“The people making our clothes may not always be visible, but every garment they make has a silent #MeToo woven into its seams.”
– Carry Somers, co-founder of Fashion Revolution
One of the most important UN Sustainable Development Goals is Goal 5: Gender equality. But in order to achieve true equality by 2030, we need rapid action by those with the most power in the fashion system – executives, directors, policymakers, corporations. Women need to be at the centre of their decision-making process at every tier of the supply chain.
We use #WhoMadeMyClothes not just to encourage brands to disclose their suppliers, but to demand that they give their workers a voice and tell their story. The women who make our clothes are not a monolith. They are individuals with rich and complex lives, and each and every individual deserves the right to be heard.
When we ask brands #WhoMadeMyClothes, we are asking for solutions to the issues that disproportionately impact women, including:
- How do you ensure women working in your supply chain don’t experience verbal, physical and sexual harassment?”
- Do you ensure mandatory fire and safety training for the people who make your clothes?
- Do your workers have access to healthcare benefits and childcare facilities?
- How many workers in your supply chain earn a living wage?
- Can your workers exercise their right to join a union?
- Do you perform due diligence surrounding forced and bonded labour?
Environmental impacts on women
We know that the fashion industry contributes 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, which is around 4% of all global emissions. In other terms, this is the same quantity as the entire economies of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom combined. In addition to its carbon footprint, fashion contributes to deforestation, biodiversity loss, water pollution, textile waste and other ecological crisis points.
We also know that climate change and environmental degradation disproportionately affect women, made even more visible during the pandemic. This is because women around the world are at greater risk of poverty, face barriers to basic human rights such as free movement, and experience gender-based violence which escalates during periods of instability. Therefore, women’s livelihoods – and the livelihoods of their dependents – are at greater risk from damage by extreme weather events, natural disasters, and zoonotic disease outbreaks like Covid-19.
Low-lying nations such as Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are also at increased risk of flooding due to sea-level rise caused by global warming. Temperature rise will also directly impact factory workers. These countries are where many fashion brands source raw materials and finished products, which means the industry has a huge stake in helping to prevent the effects of climate change on its own workers.
To address the transparency gap in relation to environmental impact beyond the clothing label, we introduced the hashtag #WhatsInMyClothes. When we ask brands #WhatsInMyClothes, we are also asking for solutions to the issues that disproportionately impact women, such as:
- Do you measure and publish your carbon footprint, and do you have plans to reduce and offset it?
- Do you adhere to commitments on hazardous chemicals and restricted substances?
- Do you incinerate unsold stock or send returned items to landfill? How are you reducing pre-consumer and post-consumer waste?
- Are you working to eliminate plastics from their packaging?
- Do you have a strategy for reducing microfibre shedding?
- Do you source materials from sustainably managed forests? Is their leather supply chain traceable to the raw material?
Find out how to ask brands about their environmental impact during Fashion Revolution Week.
How to support the women who make our clothes
This year, our theme for Fashion Revolution Week (19th-25th April 2021) is Rights, Relationships & Revolution. Our goal is to showcase how human rights and the rights of nature are interconnected and interdependent. To reach this goal, we’ve partnered with leading organisations that amplify unheard voices, including the Tamil Nadu Alliance. The Tamil Nadu Alliance represents over 100 grassroots organisations in southern India and is focused on improving conditions for textile workers, many of whom are young women.
Find out more about the Tamil Nadu Declaration and Framework of Action here, and make sure to catch up on our report Out of Sight: A call for transparency from field to fabric.
If you’re in the position to donate money directly to garment workers, you can support the following AWAJ Foundation fundraiser: Direct Relief for Garment Makers. AWAJ are working tirelessly to support female garment workers in Bangladesh this International Women’s Day and throughout the pandemic. Donate now to help fund emergency relief, such as food packages, PPE and healthcare for the women who make our clothes.
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Further reading on fashion and female empowerment
Does your feminist T-shirt empower the women who made it?
Why fashion matters for International Women’s Day
Exactly one year ago, a massive fire at Nandan Denim factory in Ahmedabad, India claimed the lives of seven factory workers, once again highlighting the miserable, and often inhumane, working conditions in many garment factories.
Ahmedabad is a fast-growing city in the western state of Gujarat, India. The city’s outskirts have been exponentially growing as a garment manufacturing hub for various multinational brands across the globe. The Day of 8 February 2020 started like any other day for the garment workers at the Nandan Denim factory. No one could have predicted the horror that would unfold later that evening. A massive fire started in the shirting department of the factory and blazed through the two-story factory in the evening. At the time, more than 60 workers were present on the floor with only a single entry and exit door. The lone door could only be reached by climbing a steep ladder, making the escape incredibly difficult. The fire quickly engulfed the factory as it was full of highly flammable denim, fabric and textile dust. As smoke billowed through the windows, the workers’ cries for help could be heard while they struggled to get out. It took almost 22 hours to douse the fire with the tragedy ultimately killing seven workers, ranging in age from 22 to 47.
Grieving families of the victims had to wait for a week to identify the evacuated bodies which were charred beyond recognition. A devastated man who lost his nephew in the blaze said “We can’t even mourn our dead because we don’t know which one is ours,” After the fire, police investigation revealed that the factory had violated multiple safety regulations. A simple visual inspection showed absence of ventilation and safety measures such as fire escapes or even basic emergency apparatus. The single entry and exit door, only accessible through a ladder, further sealed the fate of the workers.
Nandan Denim claims to be India’s largest and world’s fourth-largest denim fabric maker, manufacturing denim fabric, shirting fabric and yarn for some of the biggest brands in the world. Its factory workers, mainly women, earn about 35 cents per hour, often working for 14-hours per day in unsafe conditions. Survivors told reporters that to meet the unrealistic client demand they are forced to stitch more than 400 garment pieces a day, often skipping meal and toilet breaks. One worker said “We work almost 14 hours a day. But do we have an option? Every once in a while, there is a fire in some factory or the other. Nobody cares and we keep on working.” In fact, workers continued to work even after the fire had started as there was no adequate alarm system to start the evacuation process. How the mandatory audits failed to detect such large scale violation of minimum safety requirements can be attributed to a corrupt system which exploits the most deprived and poverty-stricken faction of our society. The workers are often migrant labourers, sub-contracted to small contractors. They live and work in unimaginably miserable conditions because for most of them this is the only means of survival. They rarely have any voice or identity and are immediately dismissed upon expressing any grievance.
In light of these revelations, perhaps I should retract my previous statement. Given the clear human exploitation, gross negligence of regulations and complete disregard for human life, all fueled by the fashion industry’s insatiable demand for speed and cheapness, maybe such incidents should have been predicted and even expected.
The fact is this wasn’t the first or the last fatal fire incident in garment factories, let alone Nandan Denim factory. After the February fire, the factory was closed by local safety and health authorities and its licenses were suspended. Nandan Denim agreed to pay $14,000 to the next of kin of the victims and also provide a job to one of their family members. Merely six months later, another major fire was reported at a production unit in the premises of Nandan Denim. Fortunately, this time there were no fatalities. This is the continuation of the same toxic cycle – the media limelight eventually recede, the “situation” is handled, the activists mollified and virtually no credible action taken beyond the public relations exercise and paying off the legal fines – until something similar happens again.
Interestingly, although Nandan Denim claims to be the supplier to major international retailers on its website, most of the brands distanced themselves after the incident and declared to have no relationship with them – which brings us to the crux of the issue. The lack of accountability from the brands for whom these garments are ultimately being manufactured. This can be attributed to the multi-tiered and complicated nature of garment supply chains because of which it is a near impossible task to trace a specific item to one factory. Typically, the factory that sews the garments and ships them for distribution is the tier closest to clothing brands. Below these are fabric manufacturers such as Nandan Denim. As we move further down the supply chain, fabric suppliers, such as spinning mills, are some of the least transparent. This makes it easy and convenient for brands to shrug off the responsibility of these incidents.
To bring about long-lasting and meaningful change, brands must acknowledge and take ownership of their entire supply chain. They hold the most power and cannot abdicate responsibility for malpractice at any level of the value chain. After all, every single worker toiling at different tiers contributes to the creation of the garment they sell and profit off millions of dollars under their name.
Sadly, it is evident from past incidents that brands are highly unlikely to act of their own accord unless their reputations are at stake. For instance, it was only after the Rana Plaza tragedy in 2013, that apparel companies signed the legally binding agreement on health and building code inspection called the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. The results were gradual but labour advocates say it has brought about a physical transformation in Bangladesh factories. However, the change has not been seen throughout the garment industry and the code of conduct focuses only on implementing measures which can be seen and audited.
Work rights advocates, JJ Rosenbaum, of the Global Labor Justice Project said “Sometimes the problem we face is a compassion fatigue: the notion that it can’t be that bad if it’s happening all the time,” The Nandan factory incident is just one of the many examples of egregious violations in safety standards leading to loss of human lives in garment factories. Fire accidents have become such a regular and repeated phenomenon in the garment supply chain that they are simply accepted as part and parcel of the business. Fires caused by faulty electronics, boiler explosions or illegal conversion of buildings ill-equipped for industrial use are a common occurrence in garment factories globally. These lone incidents can be forgotten but lives lost cannot be replaced.
As consumers, we can hold global brands accountable to create greater transparency of the regulatory mechanisms and adherence to international and local human rights and safety laws. In Fashion Revolution’s latest Consumer Survey, 74% of people agreed that fashion brands should publish which factories they use to manufacture their clothes and 73% said they should publish their fabric suppliers. Now we need demand that industry put this sentiment into action. First, we must call on these brands to disclose their suppliers at every level of the value chain, from sewing and garment making facilities to raw materials suppliers. Then, we must demand that brands create policies and purchasing practices which enable all of their suppliers to ensure every worker is safe from harm. The guidelines and codes of conduct, such as the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, should not exclusively focus on physical infrastructure. They need to rectify issues that affect the long-term well-being of workers such as long working hours, physical and bodily exhaustion, intense work rhythms, harassment, and the lack of any meaningful representation. They have to coordinate and work with labour unions to actively monitor and resolve issues that go beyond refurbishing buildings and fulfilling the audit criteria and ensure basic human rights for workers.
Ultimately, we need a collective shift in mindset which recognises workers as human beings deserving of leading a life with dignity, safety and security – basic rights that most of us are privileged with and take for granted. No human should have to risk their health and safety to earn an honest living. Essentially the workers are paying the price with their health and all too often their lives, only to save brands a few cents on a pair of jeans. As we mark the anniversary of this tragedy, we must ask ourselves, after all the societal progress and development of the 20th century, have we degraded human life to be worthy of just a few cents?
Nasreen Sheikh, child labour and forced marriage survivor, social entrepreneur and gender equality advocate, shares her journey from exploitation to empowerment with Fashion Revolution.
My work as a young female social entrepreneur was first documented publicly by Forbes in 2012, but I’ve been actively organising women to work and protect each other since I escaped child slave labour in the garment industry in Kathmandu when I was about 12 years old. Due to my birth being undocumented, like most births where I was born, I’m not sure how old I am. My guess is 27 to 29 years old. From the moment of birth, the society of the rural village I come from teaches female children that their existence is insignificant. If one’s own birth does not matter, then the conditions in which she lives, works, strives, suffers, and dies also do not matter. At an early age I came to believe that girls are simply commodities that are bought and traded as such. We are not human beings.
Growing up, I witnessed unconscionable atrocities against children and women, including some of my own female family members being murdered for speaking up for themselves. By age 9 or 10, my life seemed destined for the same oppressive path. So, I escaped my village for the capital city of Kathmandu, where I worked 12-15 hours per day in a textile sweatshop as a child labourer, receiving less than $2 per gruelling shift — only if I completed the hundreds of garments demanded of me. I ate, slept, and toiled in a sweatshop workstation the size of a prison cell, often picking sewing threads out of my food and being too afraid to look out the window. I was surrounded by pieces of clothing day and night. I HATED those clothes. They were woven with the energy of my suffering. At the end of each day, I would collapse onto the large bundles of clothes and daydream about where they would end up and who would wear them. Some of you may be wearing those clothes right now.
As a young village girl, I would look at the stars and think about the connection of all things throughout the universe. Had I not become a lifetime advocate for ending slavery, I would’ve loved to become an astronomer. I’m fascinated by stars. I’ve come to love a quote of Carl Sagan’s: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of starstuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” I believe everyone on this planet and all life is in a reciprocal relationship, where each individual action affects the whole. This understanding has been deeply integral to the holistic approach I’ve created to incorporate all 17 sustainable development goals into my work.
I’m currently accomplishing these goals by building women’s empowerment training centres through my non-profit organisation, Empowerment Collective, and my social fashion business, Local Women’s Handicrafts. I organised hunger relief efforts during the 2015 Nepal earthquake, helping thousands of women feed their families, and more recently, we served over 360,000 meals to rural villages affected by COVID 19. In an effort to support women’s hygiene, we’ve distributed over 7,500 menstruation hygiene kits since 2014. Additionally, we brought the first water sanitization system to a rural village in Nepal, where 71% of its water sources were toxically polluted.
Our online store is bringing ethical and fair-trade goods to the world and we’re sharing the stories of the women who produce our sustainable fashion products. Our empowerment centres use affordable, clean, and sustainable energy by utilising both solar power and bio-gas units. We’ve shown innovation in the fashion industry by using recycled materials and non-electric looms to create our products, while preserving generations-old handicraft traditions. We’ve reduced income inequality by training women in a country where currently only 0.01% of business owners are women. In an effort to promote a more sustainable city, we’ve distributed thousands of reusable shopping bags in Kathmandu, one the most polluted cities in Asia. We’ve also been advocating for responsible consumption through our million-mask initiative that’s been teaching people to use sustainable, reusable masks during the COVID-19 epidemic. Our use of natural dyes in our production process takes into account the effect we have on life below water, and the textile developments we’ve created in collaboration with local hemp farmers support life on land as well as local animal habitat preservation.
Since 2008, we’ve offered quality education through 1,950 skills training program workshops, educating over 5,000 women with real-world working skills. After becoming the first girl in my village to ever escape forced marriage, I’ve been an outspoken proponent of gender equality. We also provide women with decent work and economic growth by following the 10 principles of fair trade. We honour the concept of peace, justice, and strong institutions by creating safe space centres for women to work in areas where they are most at risk. In order to reach our goals, we’ve partnered with many different organisations, including Fashion Revolution, LA Summit, Activists and several universities.
Follow @_NasreenSheikh and @Empowerment_Collective to keep up with Nasreen’s work.
Mary Milne from Traidcraft Exchange introduces the women ‘homeworkers’ who play a vital but hidden role in making the clothes we love.
Think of garment workers and what comes to your mind? Lines of young women at sewing machines in Bangladesh, Vietnam or China? Overcrowded factories in sprawling estates?
You’d be right that this is the kind of place where many people work. But there’s another group of workers who play a vital, but often hidden, role in making the clothes we love. And right now, with European and North American fashion brands shutting shops and cancelling orders, these people are facing huge challenges.
Across south Asia, around 50 million women are ‘homeworkers’ – stitching, cutting, doing embroidery, and trimming clothes for the global fashion industry. Homeworkers are the fashion business’s invisible workforce. They work in many garment supply chains, either doing the jobs that need to be finished by hand – cutting off threads, sewing on buttons or doing hand embroidery – or providing additional flexible labour.
Homeworking is a vital cog in complex supply chains, helping suppliers manage the peaks and troughs of demand that come with fast fashion. Too many orders? Put work out to homeworkers.
Bhavna, 32, lives in Delhi but is originally from the rural state of Bihar. She does thread-cutting as well as ‘moti sitara’ (bead embroidery) on different types of clothes. She explains how it works: ‘The contractor brings the work, he is giving it to a ‘madam’ and she gives the work to us.’
It’s likely that this contractor takes work from a supplier, who maybe takes work from another bigger supplier, who may be contracted by a national or international brand. And the brands, although they should be aware that homeworking is likely to happen in their supply chains, just turn a blind eye.
For most women like Bhavna, homeworking is the only way to earn money while looking after young children. Factory work is much better paid – but homeworking is flexible around caring responsibilities, and can be more socially acceptable for women from socially conservative families.
Ankita explains: ‘I can’t work in a factory, as I can’t leave my kids unattended…. I prefer to work from home and look after my kids. Additionally, my husband doesn’t like it if I work outside.’
Despite their crucial role in garment supply chains, homeworkers are denied their rights as workers. So that means no sick pay, no maternity pay, no entitlement to a pension or other social security and no guarantee of work.
Homeworkers are paid at a piece rate per item which is often just a few pennies. Some women interviewed by Traidcraft Exchange were earning the equivalent of just 30 pence for 8 hours work.
‘We get up to 6 rupees (6 pence) per piece, but it depends on the piece. Sometimes it is 2 rupees, 5 rupees, depending on the hard work. But the right payment for our hard work goes to the contractor and other middlemen, not us,’ says Amita, 36.
Amita hasn’t been able to work for six months because she developed pain in her hands and back. So the family has had to rely on her husband’s earnings alone.
Several of the workers told us that they are only paid around twice a year, when the contractor is paid. Bhavna said that she has to wait for payment which is usually made around the time of the festivals of Holi and Diwali. ‘I take some money in advance when I need to, and she deducts this money when she is paying me at the time of festival,’ Bhavna said. This pattern of payments puts workers at risk of indebtedness and means they have to continue working until they are paid. It makes them less likely to complain about pay rates or move to a different contractor.
Ankita told us that she had tried to ask her contractor for more pay: ‘We asked her to understand how much hard work we have to do, to bring the piece and then return it. We have to bring it again if it needs to be altered, and have to also go back to return the finished piece. So we asked them to increase the rate, but they don’t do it.’
Located at the periphery of the supply chain, homeworkers have to take what they are given. They are in no position to walk away.
Work is never guaranteed, it depends on the needs of the garment factories and ultimately the orders from brands. As Kanchan says, ‘There is no set pattern, some months it comes more and some months it doesn’t.’
With the whole garment industry in lockdown, homeworkers like Bhavna, Ankita, Amita and Kanchan are some of the most vulnerable people in the whole system. Work has just stopped, and it is very unlikely that any benefits or compensation agreed between brands and suppliers will find its way to their families.
We’re connected to these women in ways most of us never realise – because they help make many of the products we buy. Much as many of the brands turn a blind eye, or even deny that homeworking happens in their supply chains, it is part of the system of fast fashion. Millions of families depend on homeworking and a blanket ban is not the solution. But we think it’s time to honour homeworkers, celebrate their contribution – and above all, give them the same rights as other workers.
*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the women interviewed. Traidcraft Exchange is currently working with representatives of homeworkers in India, Pakistan and Nepal and with European brands and multi-stakeholder initiatives to map supply chains down to the homeworker level. The programme will help brands introduce simple systems that document homeworkers’ contribution and wages, and develop action plans that drive transparency, best practices and improve working conditions. Image Credit: Traidcraft Exchange/Priyanka Chharia
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