Fashion Revolution Week 2020
What is Fashion Revolution
Fashion Revolution Week happens every year in the week surrounding the 24th of April, the date that notes the anniversary of the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse. Rana Plaza is a building in Bangladesh that housed a number of garment factories manufacturing clothing for many of the biggest global fashion brands. The collapse caused over 1100 deaths and 2,500 injuries, making it the fourth largest industrial disaster in history. That started the global movement known as Fashion Revolution which encourages millions of people to campaign for systemic change in the fashion industry.
‘The industry continues to lack transparency, with widespread exploitation of people working in the supply chain. Never before have there been this many people on the planet in slavery, and fashion is a key driver of this reality. Brands and retailers are still not taking enough responsibility for the pay and working conditions in their factories, the environmental impacts of the materials they use or how the products they make affect the health of people, animals and our living planet.’
Fashion revolution week 2020
Fashion Revolution team encourages us to get involved by using social media to challenge brands during Fashion Revolution Week and ask them who made our clothes. We can also send a brand an email asking what they are doing to honour existing contracts and ensure that the people working in their supply chain are protected and fairly compensated.
In the light of Covid-19 many huge retailers canceled orders from their factories and ceased to pay for orders that had been already produced, leaving workers without pay for work. COVID-19 pandemic is affecting garment workers around the world and we need to ask the big brands what they are doing to support their vulnerable workers during this unprecedented global health and economic crisis.
‘We believe that our capacity for empathy is strengthened by our shared global experience. While we may be stuck indoors, using social media our voices can still be amplified, especially when we speak up together. That’s why we’re asking our global community to be louder than ever. To ask #WhoMadeMyClothes?’
‘We know from our research that they are paying close attention to the demands of their customers - and that these simple pleas for transparency can affect major changes in even the biggest fashion brands. Some brands won’t answer at all. Some might tell you where your clothes were made but not who made them. Some will direct you to their corporate social responsibility policy. Only a few pioneers will show that they know something about the people who make their clothes.’
WHAT IS IN YOUR CLOTHES?
Another theme of the Fashion Revolution Week 2020 is #whatsinmyclothes. We are living in a climate emergency and the fashion & textiles sector is one of the most polluting and wasteful industries. Right now, the fashion industry exploits too many resources, contaminating waterways with toxic chemicals, sending microfibres into our oceans and landfilling or incinerating the unsold goods at the end of the chain.
We need to ask the brands #WhatsInMyClothes and how they are working to clean up their supply chain.
