Fashion Revolution Week 2018

Fashion Revolution Week 2018 will mark the 5th anniversary of the world’s largest fashion activism movement, founded to radically change the way our clothes are sourced, produced and purchased.
It also marks five years since the Rana Plaza garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh, killing 1,138 people and injuring many more all the way back on 24 April 2013.
Carry Somers, co-founder of Fashion Revolution said: “Since Fashion Revolution started, people from all over the world have used their voice and their wallets to tell brands that we can’t go on like this. And it’s working. The industry is listening.”
The week will run between 23 – 29 April in more than 100 countries all over the world, aiming to challenge more people than ever before to demand systemic reform of the fashion industry with special focus on the need for greater transparency in the supply chain.
Last year 2.5 million people across the world got involved, with over 100,000 people using social media to ask the brands they wear #whomademyclothes.
For the five years it has taken place, Fashion Revolution has involved millions of people demanding a fairer, safer, cleaner industry. Poverty, human rights, low wages, discrimination, environmental pollution, waste and lack of transparency are all still rampant within fashion. What’s more, it’s a women-dominated industry, with 80% of the around 75m people who work directly in fashion being women.
Orsola De Castro, another co-founder, explained: “We can’t stop until every garment worker who makes the clothes we love is seen, heard, paid properly and working in safe conditions. We need to make this Fashion Revolution Week bigger and bolder than ever before.”
The campaign will work towards ensuring that brands continue to listen and create the far reaching, permanent change that we need to make sure that a tragedy like Rana Plaza doesn’t happen again. To do so, it will keep asking the same, simple question: “Who Made My Clothes?”
The initiative will be exploring how producers, farmers, factories and makers and shoppers can come together through Fashion Revolution. Catwalks, flash mobs, street art and film screenings will all be part of the global campaign, giving opportunities for people to learn about sustainable fashion.
In honour of the anniversary, Fashion Revolution will launch its very own Manifesto, as well as publish new, ground-breaking research into levels of transparency across global fashion brands and retailers’ supply chains.
The worldwide initiative will put together behind-the-scenes events with designers in their studios and will boost the conversation about how clothes are made. An inspiration new film will connect a young global fashion-loving audience to fashion producers and makers.
Fashion Revolution week will be taking place the week between the 23 – 29 April. To find out what’s happening in your area this Fashion Revolution Week or to find out more about the campaign, visit fashionrevolution.org.
> Borislava Todorova