One year ago today marks the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory disaster in Bangladesh which killed over a thousand factory workers in a textile factory producing goods for many high street brands. Out of the ashes of this tragedy a powerful and positive movement has risen (driven in part by sustainable fashion superwoman Orsola de Castro - who is also our Elisalex's ma!); Fashion Revolution. Today they are asking you to take a stand for transparency in garment production by turning your clothes #insideout, taking a picture of your label and asking that brand 'who made my clothes'?
Events like this make us even more proud to be part of this global community that has been quietly busy making their own clothes. Handmade clothing is not just about the fact you can fully customise, personalise and fit a garment exactly to your body and style, it's also even more revolutionary than that! By making our own clothes we are literally disrupting the garment manufacturing industry and have total transparency because we are the production line! On this day our sew in labels are more than just an add-on to our sewing patterns, because they mean that we can answer the question of 'who made our clothes' loudly and proudly: ME!
Obviously we don't pretend to live completely handmade or vintage and do still shop on the high street too. Which is why, as well as showing off your By Hand London makes and sew in labels, we also urge you to wear some of your favourite big brand clothing, turn them #insideout, tag them on instagram and ask them the question; 'Who made your clothes'?
Find out more and get involved
Check out @fash_rev on instagram for examples on how to get involved
Read all about it at fashionrevolution.org
Watch this short film by some talented students at London's LCC college:
Whatever you do, just make sure you join the revolution today!
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Comments on this post (2)
I donned my jacket inside out but failed to hear back from H&M which was a shame (though realistically even if a couple of hundred other people did the same that’s a helluva lot of tweeting to do!)
I tend to wear vintage or handmade but, as you say, there are times when something catches your eye or is something beyond your capabilities as a maker. (just me?!)
It would be nice to know that when it comes to that we’re not hurting people.
www.mancunianvintage.com
— Helen
It is good to see people becoming more aware of how their consumer choices affect the rest of the world.
As sewists, though, maybe we could start something about “Do you know where your fabric comes from?”.
Reading a newspaper article about how much of the world’s cotton comes from on country where a brutal dictatorship ensures the harvest by using slave/forced labour. Much of their product then goes for weaving/production to low wage countries so that we may have cheap fabric to sew with.
Would love the sewing community to get behind labelling where a fabric originated. There is currently no way of knowing.
— Caroll G