#WHO MADE MY CLOTHES
Did you know that?
It takes 200 gallons of water to make one pair of jeans, and 2720 litres of water to make a T shirt: that’s how much we normally drink over a 3 year period. Textiles involve wasteful processes, we know this yet despite this knowledge, the clothes we discarded in one year in the UK alone would fill Wembley Stadium. I still love clothes – but as I get older I lean more towards second hand and good quality, opting for longevity/upcycling or making my own.
The average British woman in one year hoards approx. £285 of clothes she will never wear, the equivalent of 22 outfits. This amounts to £30 billion of unworn clothes, shocking figures which can be avoided if you chose great fibres and styles for longevity and shop more carefully for fewer quality items. You would wear all of your clothing, if you followed my 6 Cs shopping mantra. Colour, Cut, Cloth, Cost, Character and Correct size.
In order to make the fashion industry more sustainable, first it needs to be transparent. Approximately 75 million people work to make our clothes, most of them 18 to 35year old women.The people who make clothes for the global market generally live on the bread line, unable to afford life’s basic necessities. We only need to recall the massive 2013 disaster when the Rana Plaza building collapsed in Bangladesh, the fourth largest industrial disaster in history where 1,138 people died and another 2,500 were injured, mostly women.
A recent step to transform the industry has started with one question: Who made my clothes? One way to get involved is by taking a photo of your clothing label during Fashion Revolution Week 23rd– 29thApril, and by asking the brand #whomademyclothes?Tag the brand in the photo so they can see your question. See Instagram posts for the ‘Fashion Revolution’ or say that you made it yourself by getting creative.
As part of the BBC #Get Creative event I am hosting a few community workshops; incorporating embroidery, dressmaking and some basic knitting to encourage a Creative Style Revolution to have fun and inspire many people to upcycle their old favourite pieces and consider other ways of buying and experiencing textiles, refreshing your wardrobe in creative ways. Also I did a talk at the weekend at the Rheged Centre Penrith Cumbria to encourage folk to join the Slow Style revolution.
Click on the link Below to see the SLOW STYLE Powerpoint:
Creative Style 