Minutes from Fashion Roundtable's Meeting with Extinction Rebellion's Boycott Fashion Team
Speakers:
· Tamara Cincik, CEO and Founder - Fashion Roundtable (Chair)
· Katharine Hamnett, Creative Director - Katharine Hamnett
· Rahemur Rahman, Creative Director - Rahemur Rahman
· Nina Stevenson, Education for Sustainability Leader - Centre for Sustainable Fashion
· Bel Jacobs, Boycott Fashion Team Member - Extinction Rebellion
· Jodi Muter-Hamilton, Founder and CEO - Black Neon Digital
Chair: Tamara Cincik, CEO and Founder of Fashion Roundtable welcomes guests and speakers to the meeting. Given the pre-election procedures, all Parliamentary activities has been suspended and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Textiles and Fashion is dissolved.
Speaker: Katharine Hamnett, Creative Director Katharine Hamnett
● Legislation is the only way to implement change in the fashion industry
● In light of the EU exit, the UK government has the opportunity to set ambitious environmental standards for imported goods
● Environmental targets and procedures have the double benefit of a cleaner world and creation of jobs
● Sustainability in the fashion supply chain includes chemicals, water treatment plants, raises costs of outsourced products
● Transitioning to a more sustainable business model requires all brands to conform to targets and standards
● There is very little accountability in the industry, which may be an indicator that brands are not willing to put in the effort: currently, only Primark paid compensation for the Rana Plaza collapse
● Organic cotton as the way forward: requires less water to produce
● Fake news being spread about the benefits of organic cotton
● Neglecting the environment will have lasting implications: environment, biosphere, seas, dessert, migration
● Government and businesses should explore hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels: by-product is water rather than CO 2
● Hydrogen fuel will have significant impacts, e.g. car manufacturers transitioning to hydrogen fuelled models
● Need to understand how shopping habits are linked to environmental damage: the past years have seen a surge in CO 2 emissions, and one reason could be the rise of online shopping and the transport for deliveries and returns; increase of grazing and deforestation in Mongolia from rearing goats due to an increase in demand for goat textiles; impacts of wool are often overlooked
Tamara Cincik: what does a strong legislative framework look like?
Katharine Hamnett:
● Lobbying should be aimed at implementing legislation on the EU-level, as it has a
bigger impact
● Fashion should be unionised
● Not to use new PBC fabrics or nylon
Tamara Cincik: mentions Fashion Roundtable’s work with Bectu to construct a union for fashion assistants
Jodi Muter-Hamilton, Founder and CEO Black Neon Digital: Suggests a compilation of a fibres watch-list
Nina Stevenson, Education for Sustainability Leader Centre for Sustainable Fashion: Universities and educating bodies play a role in teaching environmental awareness
Floor: There is demand from the consumer to understanding their clothing – not only the fabric composition but where the textiles came from
Jodi Muter-Hamilton: notes her research on adding a QR code to clothing that would allow customers to access information about the product
Rahemur Rahman, Creative Director Rahemur Rahman:
● There is a significant difference in the business models of fast fashion and luxury fashion, and the smaller designers within luxury fashion – and these are often overlooked. If luxury fashion and fast fashion are not distinguished then it is difficult to assess what parts of the business need to change
● Highlights his work with local artisans and crafters in Bangladesh, to show how fashion brands do not all follow the same model
● Trend of young designers opting to develop and incentivize artisanal skills
● Fashion is a very competitive industry and Brexit has added to the barriers: e.g. devaluing of the pound has made it harder to pay wages abroad
● Alliance and accord that has been dropped by the government
● QR code that is scanned and you can see who did this
● Bang has most eyes on them
● Name, where it’s from, stopped asking and they stopped doing it
Tamara Cincik: Asks about how easy it was to start a brand in the UK?
Rahemur Rahman:
● Starting a brand was easy, the complicated part was engaging with communities in
Bangladesh
● Colonisation has completely destabilised the local textiles industry
● Suggests a QR code system to blacklist factories
Tamara Cincik: Asks what Rahemur thinks about cancelling/ postponing LFW so that it can be recalibrated?
Rahemur Rahman:
● For the cancellation of LFW to be effective, people first need to understand why it’s being cancelled
● LFW needs to be changed rather than eradicated
Tamara Cincik: what would tax breaks for small businesses do?
Rahemur Rahman:
● Other industries have great incentives for entrepreneurs, and fashion is left out
Speaker: Nina Stevenson:
● The London College of Fashion (LCF) has been active in embedding sustainability in the curriculum
● Educators need to rethink the role of education, and what is education actually doing?
● LCF has a 5 year strategy to alter the curriculum
● Sustainability has to be implemented across UAL’s schools; the report aims to
embed the strategy in the teaching by first understand what is happening and then
implement new initiatives
● The curriculum aims to give students the opportunity to develop technical fixes, rethink what is fashion and the purpose of fashion
○ Think of informal education: touch points at LCF, what influences their mind sets?
○ What they are learning/ how they are learning
○ Staff: development and training for tutors
● The College has seen demand through students
● Wider communities: corporate social responsibility, not boycotting industry, but
developing collaborative challenges to project systems
● Collaborate with other educators, as sustainability is a global conversation
● Conversation is happening in multiple places, and will be different in the different settings
● In practice, the sustainability curriculum is implemented via a compulsory module in first year, which covers diversity and sustainability
● LCF offers the MA Fashion Futures, which began in 2008 and the starting point is nature and humanity. Aim of the strategy is to understand how to transform formal/ higher education system to honour nature and human equity
● Brilliant student response: 90% of final major project had a sustainability link, so it is essential for staff to be adequately trained
● Graduates: new design businesses and models, 90% have sustainability angle
● Need to make sure the system is co-learning, not a service provision model
● Online learning: future learn developed with Kering, 50,000 form 51 countries
Tamara Cincik: how can sustainability be incorporated to business learning? E.g. students who will eventually own their business will need to make choices about lighting, heating, etc.
Nina Stevenson:
● The focus is on research and product development, but students are made aware of those points
Bel Jacobs, Team Leader, XR Boycott Fashion Team:
● Admiration for what everyone in the move is doing, but the conversations to do not account for the enormity of the deadline to mitigate climate change for future generations
● In 2018, the deadline to achieve net zero was set as 12 years in order to prevent irreversible damage
● Time has gone for incremental change
● XR’s call to cancel LFW intended that Fashion Week be used to communicate the climate emergency as it would achieve consumers directly
● In terms of the Climate Emergency: players such as Katharine Hamnett have worked very hard but not yet seen the necessary changes
Katharine Hamnett: stresses the importance of law/ regulation and of transitioning to hydrogen.
Bel Jacobs:
● Massive response to the Funeral March, especially from the press
● Noticed that people have taken up on secondary points such as the importance of using what you already have, rethink the fashion system and culture and reconnect nature and people – systematic change is necessary
● People are eager for solutions, but XR cannot offer solutions – the solutions can only be provided by the people in the industry
● XR encounters resistance when trying to act on change, e.g. police began arrests when XR Boycott Fashion Team ran the citizen
● XR’s main solutions are: ask for governments to tell the truth, which aims to motivate people to act, nobody should not be working on anything that does not take into consideration/ respond to the climate emergency, government/ businesses should aim to achieve net zero emissions, to convene people’s assembly: what would they want to see in light of visceral knowledge, calling on everyone to participate
● Heard that brands do not know how to transition: solution is to share existing knowledge
Katharine Hamnett: suggests e-meetings, as there is no point in flying somewhere and the same can be said about fashion shows.
Tamara Cincik: do fashion shows have a function going forward?
Katharine Hamnett: tech and VR/ AR cannot beat the reality, but can get close
Tamara Cincik: with the work that FR are doing as the secretariat for the All-Party
Parliamentary Group for Textiles and Fashion, FR is very honoured that people are here.
● There is a need for a better organisation from the industry
● FR can revert these asks back to government
Bel Jaobs:
● The fashion industry is a circus, independent of whether it is being watched live or virtually
● Important to question whether the current format is truly necessary?
● Events in the London Fashion scene are not about a group of people getting together
to save their planet. Instead, it contributes to a culture in which the superficial is valued, and contributes to consumerism
● Legislation: we need to be lobbying government and promote the conclusions of the
Citizens Assembly
● Use platform to approach government
Speaker: Jodi Muter-Hamilton
● Asks about interest in a union for the fashion industry and approximately half of the room raise their hand
● Citizens Assemble and demonstrations are not right for everyone, so how else can the fashion industry support Boycott fashion, how else to get involved?
Bel Jacobs: people should ask themselves what are the ways in which they support the future/ mitigate the climate emergency? Examples supported by the XR Boycott Fashion
Team:
● Blackout Friday: calling on stores to shut their virtual doors and not to use social media/ promotions
● Fashion tell the truth campaigns: a call for brands to highlight was in going in the planet. Subjects which prompt the greatest conflict and debate tend to pose the greatest learning opportunities
Floor, Alice Wilby, Extinction Rebellion Boycott Fashion Team:
● Suggest people get involved with the science and discover what is going on
● People feeling personally attacked
● Wants to see a resolution to the climate crises, Boycott Fashion is a tool for that
Jodi Muter-Hamilton:
● Brands are scared to join the discussion
● How can we create a place that is safe to have this conversation? Brands do not want to be persecuted by the press/ consumers
Alice Wilby: grief of understanding this information, it is very heavy
● Need for care and for a nurturing environment
● Transcends companies existing, talking about the survival of the atmosphere
Jodi Muter-Hamilton: how to handle the negativity?
Tamara Cincik: How to counteract mainstream media?
Alice Wilby: people/ citizens need to ask politicians to tell the truth, the more we ask and the more they decline it, it becomes apparent they do not want to engage
Sara Arnold, Extinction Rebellion Boycott Fashion Team: Extinction Rebellion has a political strategy team, campaigning/lobbying the parties
Katharine Hamnett: pressure shareholders to generate change – create a blacklist of brands to not shop from.
Tamara Cincik: Opens to the floor for questions
Graeme Raeburn:
● Are there existing systems in place e.g. consumer protection against durability
● B-Corp status: encouraging businesses to sign up to interesting initiatives
● Raeburn offers free repairs
● Normalising things: why do fashion businesses not open doors to support people in XR?
Jodi Muter-Hamilton: Consumer protection and durability laws exist but the issue lies in enforcing them.
Graeme Raeburn: Empowering consumers with that knowledge, as consumers are mostly kept in the dark.
Floor:
● The fashion industry needs some big policy successes, e.g. chemicals and discharges regulations lobbied for by Greenpeace
● Science-based target initiatives: would work with big brands that have infrastructure, but small to medium sized brands would need help in the implementation process
● Voluntary and knowledge sharing groups such as the Fashion and Earth whatsapp group
Christopher Stopes, GOTS UK Representative: industry can reconnect with consumers through systems such as GOTS.
● Organic fibre
● Fibre production
● Processing
● Chemicals
● Many of these issues are connected: collecting to processing
● GOTS sets high environment criteria
● There is a danger from using the term organic as a greenwash, as there is no
regulation for Fashion and Textiles which covers the entire industry, as is the case for food
Floor: Existence of B-corps such as Patagonia, where the shareholder is not the main beneficiary, fantastic community, dynamic.
Aisling, Founder of Nu Wardrobe: suggested running a session to mapping the existing solutions.
Katharine Hamnett: Notes the APPG is very UK focused.
Sara Kent, Senior Correspondent Business of Fashion:
● Draws attention to the limitations of the information available
● Is our understanding sufficient to understand and tackle this problem, and if not,
whose responsibility is it to provide relevant resources?
Nina Stevenson: Education equips students with research skills; fashion students are overwhelmed with information and they need to learn to unpick the information to what is relevant to them. No one designer/ company can solve the problem, and students need the skills necessary to understand their remit.
Sarah Kent: Should the solutions be subjective?
Nina Stevenson: Yes, once one understands the magnitude of the industry, it brings a huge crisis in confidence. Students need to understand their angle/ perspective to tackle the issue of sustainability. Their approach will often will be via materials, but materials is not the only route.
Shaunie Brett, Freelance Researcher and Consultant: How much faith does the group have in the power of citizens to provoke change in fashion sustainability?
● We need to reduce consumption rate
● In order to do that, we must understand the wearer better, and involve them in the conversation in order to impactfully reduce consumption and provoke more values-driven purchasing
● So often in these discussions, people regard the consumer as passive and stubborn
Tamara Cincik: it is very hard to align values with actions. Work poverty is a reality in the UK, which pushes consumers to make choices on very limited resources, and these choices many times do not align with their values. Recommend XR to take these people into account.
Nina Stevenson: As citizens, we tend to be defined by our consumption. Education is making students view themselves as consumers rather than citizens.
Rahemur Rahman: Sustainability teaching needs to be embedded into primary and secondary schools. Sustainability is a very upper/ middle class conversation.
Graeme Raeburn: Important to consider offshoring and the impacts of that practice.
Rahemur Rahman: We need to understand that we need to be paying more for clothes.
Roxy Erickson: Response to Jodi Muter-Hamilton on how the industry can support the movement.
● Cortez video on green new deal
● Draws attention to the importance of highlighting successful business case studies, so that other companies are more open to adopting changes and can see the long-term value of initial investments, e.g. Sunbeam Studios saved £30,000 in paper towel use in 10 years
● Easy mandate on warranty to get word to consumer, as the system is already in place
● LFW: getting rid of seasonality, if it needs to exist, there has been less of them
● European transport agency: pushing for carbon tax for all companies
● Purpose disruptors: advertising and marketing collective and mandating what advertising should look like
Sarah Arnold: Burberry materials research group about connecting with the consumer.
Bel Jacobs:
● Leading a project to introduce the conversation of fashion in schools by going into
schools and encouraging students to question things about body image
● Need to severely reduce production
● War on want: support trade unions in Bangladesh, find ways to reduce production and support these workers who had their lives transformed by the sector Aja Barber, Sustainability Writer and Influencer:
● Re consumers: how are we living in a world that the consumer are more centralised than the workers: what are we consuming and what are we trying to sustain?
● Consumers are not the priority: focus should be on the big picture and understanding exploitation along the supply chain
● Everyone is being exploited: consumers and beneficiaries, and consumers are benefited by cheap clothing
● Consumers should not be a priority in the climate change conversation, those who are exploited along the supply chain are usually the ones who will feel the first impacts of climate change
Tamara Cincik: The fashion industry is getting worse, like the film Greed.
● No living wage in Ethiopia you cannot live earning one dollar a day
● Legislation has to change
● In work poverty impacts buying choices
● Reiterates the importance of communicating with MPs, they need to understand that they shape up or they will be voted out
Floor: representation of voices in panels
● Before Fashion Revolution, garment workers were never represented: spinners, weavers, and seamstresses did not have a voice
Tamara Cincik: FR is working to include garment manufacturing roles in the Shortage Occupation List but have had little response from government.
Floor: interest from the room to participate, put call outs as the community is very engaged.
Tamara Cincik thanks attendees, speakers and Bottletops for hosting the meeting. Draws attention to Fashion Roundtable’s Representation and Inclusion in the Fashion Industry survey.
Meeting ends.