Futurecity Strategist Yasmin Jones-Henry on Digital Placeshaping

#Who Made My Clothes?  

– Fashion Revolution Week: a #DigitalPlaceshaping Global Event

“Consider the hands and the hearts of the people who made your clothes, their lives matter”

– Errol Michael Henry, 2006 (also, my Dad)

This was the instruction my father gave to my 14 year-old self – impatient as I was to spend my pocket money on the latest high street fashion. It’s also the reason why – before becoming a strategist at Futurecity, my remit as a journalist at the Financial Times covered sustainability, Foreign Direct Investment and global textiles manufacturing.

The point my father was trying to illustrate all those years ago, was the role of consumer accountability in our global economy. I was raised by artists. My parents believe that the beauty of craftmanship – the aesthetic: is an expression of our humanity. What often gets lost in translation, is the value of the human life that creates these “commodities”. 

Fashion isn’t futile. Without textiles manufacturing – we’d all be stuck in our birthday suits. The fashion industry is one of the biggest employers globally. From the cotton field to the shop the floor, it’s the one industry that brings the artisan, the investor, the farmer, the designer, the factory worker, the retailer and the media together. After construction, it’s also the second biggest driver of modern slavery (Global Fashion Index, 2018). Over 70% of these victims are female.  As Mary Creagh, former MP for Wakefield and Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee succinctly put it: “Fashion is a feminist issue”. 

For those who don’t know, this week is Fashion Revolution Week. it’s an annual week-long programme of carefully curated digital events, all designed to bring together creatives to commemorate the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013. On the morning of 24^th April 2013, a large group of garment workers in a textile factory (Rana Plaza) in Dhaka Bangladesh, complained about the visible cracks appearing on the façade of their workspace. This particular sweatshop was a hotspot on the fast fashion front. Inundated with orders, they supplied most of the UK and Europe’s high street brands. The workers did not want to go inside, but they were forced to begin a day’s work as normal. It took only sixty seconds for the building to collapse – immediately killing over 1000 people.

In 2013, Orsola de Castro and Carry Somers co-founded Fashion Revolution as a platform to bring awareness to the Rana Plaza Disaster. Together, they petitioned for compensation for the victims’ families – many of whom waited years for any form of recognition or recompense for their loved ones. As a ‘viral’ global movement, Fashion Revolution was the forerunner for initiatives like Extinction Rebellion. Their simple questions “#WhoMadeMyClothes” and “#WhatsInMyCLothes” have become the cornerstone of this new wave of consumer-led eco-activism. 

At this precise moment, in the midst of the COVID19 crisis, the UK’s fashion industry is calling out to skilled workers – anyone with sewing skills and sewing capacity to help produce PPE for frontline NHS workers. Now more than ever we are seeing the extent to which our society simply cannot function without artisans. Their craft is literally saving lives. 

Yet – while we commemorate the 7^th anniversary of the tragedy that was the Rana Plaza disaster; while we applaud NHS workers on a Thursday evening… another tragedy is unfolding. Earlier this month it was reported that over 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh and Indonesia were rendered unemployed and destitute overnight as UK, EU and US retailers cancelled payment for orders that had already been completed, leaving these workers, with no resource.  

As we adjust to the lockdown lifestyle in the comfort of our own homes, we must also adapt our activism to the digital realm too. If 2019 was the year the world took their protests to the streets: Hong Kong, Paris, London, Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile – then 2020 must be the year that we progress our online activism beyond a cluster of pixels, retweets, likes and hashtags. COVID19 crisis isn’t just a health crisis, it has universally put the creative industries under threat, as many artisans will have lost their means to earn a living (or barely living) wage under quarantine.

Yasmin Jones-Henry, Futurecity Strategist

This Saturday, for Fashion Revolution Week, I’ll be asking Orsola De Castro how we can make our activism effective online. 

To tune in – visit: https://www.fashionrevolution.org/about/fashion-open-studio/