While it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of fashion week and the lure of shopping and new clothes, it’s important to remember the bigger picture of fashion – where your clothes are coming from.
On April 24th last year, 1133 people were killed when the Rana Plaza factory complex collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with many more suffering serious injuries.
On April 24th this year, the global fashion industry will come together for the inaugural Fashion Revolution Day, a day to highlight the challenges of the fashion supply chain, from exploitation of workers to environmental pollution.
The day will see a series of global events and initiatives addressing the industry’s most pressing issues, and engage with local communities to demand greater transparency throughout.
Quite shockingly, according to the Australian Fashion Report in 2013, 61% of companies surveyed didn’t know where their garments were made.
This is the focus of the first Fashion Revolution Day. By asking the simple question: “Who made your clothes?”, you are encouraged to be curious, find out and do something about it. Simply wear an item of clothing inside out, take a photograph and share it on social media with the hashtag #insideout.
It’s a way designers, fashion icons, high street shops, luxury labels, cotton farmers, factory workers, campaigners academics, the media and any individual who cares about what they wear, can come together and demand greater transparency from the sellers, for the makers.
Support for the campaign has been pouring in, including from fashion icon Akira Isogawa, FRD board member and Oxfam Global Ambassador Livia Firth, 1 Million Women founder Natalie Isaacs, retail expert and broadcaster Mary Portas, author Marion Von Adlerstein, artist and designer Liane Rossler and eco model Amanda Rootsey.
So in addition to various global events, look out for the social media takeovers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram hosted at @Fash_Rev and @Fash_Rev_AUSNZ which will allow people to come together and discuss a topic of choice, including how to revamp unworn clothes, first hand accounts of life for workers in the factories that supply our best-known retailers and Q&As and mini blogs.
Co founder Orsola de Castro hopes Fashion Revolution day will make people think about the whole clothing process, from the thread in the garment, to the machinist that sewed it, all the way to the farmer that grew the cotton it was made from. “We hope that Fashion Revolution Day will initiate a process of discovery, raising awareness of the fact that buying is only the last step in a long journey involving hundreds of people: the invisible workforce behind the clothes we wear”.
Get Involved
Get Curious. On April 24th, wear an item of clothing inside out. Take a photograph and share the picture on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and ask the brand ‘Who Made Your Clothes?, along with the hashtag #insideout.
Learn More
Visit http://www.fashionrevolution.org/. Like Fashion Revolution on Facebook at facebook.com/fashionrevolutionday and follow @Fash_Rev_AUSNZ on Twitter.