A new Playbook by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) talks directly with fashion’s communicators. Written for marketers, brand managers, imagemakers, storytellers, media, influencers and beyond, ‘The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook’ from UNEP and UN Climate Change, provides a much needed framework when policies around how to communicate environmental claims increasingly come into force. We speak with Rachel Arthur, the UN Environment Programme’s Sustainable Fashion Advocacy Lead and author of the Playbook, who delves into the aim of the Playbook and the untapped power communicators hold in setting new cultural trends and value shifts for a more equitable and just fashion future.
In her book, ‘To Dye For’, award-winning journalist and sustainability expert, Alden Wicker, decided to break the story of unregulated toxic chemicals in fashion and their impacts on health and wellbeing. What follows is a candid conversation, with clear advice on what we can do now.
Our researcher, Meg Pirie, has always loved to read and will often read a book to understand something better, before searching online. For this week’s informer she shares her top 5 books on sustainability and fashion. Click through to read more.
Last week, Fashion Roundtable attended the Trade Unlocked conference. This was a brand new national conference that took place on the 20th June 2023, bridging the gap between the worlds of business and politics. Trade Unlocked created a high-profile platform for businesses of all sizes and from all sectors to give views on what they need from the UK government to get their business and the economy growing. Click through to read more and watch the full panel talk featuring our CEO Tamara Cincik.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced the Government's plan to grow the creative industries by £50bn and support a million more jobs by 2030, with £77m of new funding for the sector announced.
Meg Pirie is in conversation with co-founder of Sole Responsibility, Simon Payne. Founded in 2014, Sole Responsibility is a business which buys, repairs and sells seconds and stock with minor damage from some of the UK’s most-known high-street stores, which would otherwise have been destined for landfill or incineration. Now the brand acts as Sustainable Partner to JD Sports, amongst others. They talk how the idea transpired and what Payne would like to see from a policy point of view for end-of-life.
In this Op-Ed by Meg Pirie, she delves into what the fashion sector can learn from Westwood’s fearless activism. Can the business of fashion ever truly measure up? With comments by Kate Fletcher, Professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen.
Last week, we launched our Impact Report for 2022. Fashion Roundtable have consistently been the first to address the challenges of Brexit; Covid-19; climate change; exploitative working practices; Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR); VAT reduction for sustainable businesses; issues around fibre and localism; and inclusion in fashion. We use our platform to highlight inequalities across the fashion industry and to effect long-lasting social, business and environmental change.
On the 17th May 2023, Fashion Roundtable, along with Shadow Minister Stephanie Peacock MP, hosted a meeting with the Parliamentary Labour Party where industry leaders outlined the dire need for urgent action for the British fashion sector, which was at one time the fastest growing creative industry in the United Kingdom.
The meeting entitled, ‘Building Community Agency Through The Purposeful Use Of Unused Retail Spaces,’ was in direct response to the state of our high streets at a national level. Research conducted by Fashion Roundtable, provided evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit, shifts to digital rather than ‘bricks and mortar’ shopping, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis have changed consumer behaviour, alongside record retail closures.
A must-read, with quotes from speakers across the country and access to our full briefing.
“There's no doubt that the British High Street has taken a battering over the last few years. Not only have retailers had to contend with Covid, but Brexit and now the ongoing cost-of-living crisis have decimated the high street as we know it. In 2021, PWC reported that 17,500 chain stores closed in 2020 alone. Now with many high streets focused on recovery, consumers want something new. “
Ahead of Their Majesties' Coronation on Saturday the 6th May, new details have been released to provide a glimpse of the Coronation Robes to be worn by the King and The Queen Consort. The new images show the Royal School of Needlework’s embroidery team conserving The King’s Robe of State, which will be worn by His Majesty on arrival at Westminster Abbey, and The Queen Consort’s Robe of Estate, which will be worn after Her Majesty is crowned, on departure from Westminster Abbey.
This Sunday, protestors gathered outside a number of fashion stores on Oxford Street, in a 'Cost of Fashion' walking tour, to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse and to honour the lives of the 1138 garment workers who were killed. We hear from some of the members of the Rana Plaza Solidarity Collective and discuss our Cleaning Up Fashion Report.
Over the last two years, The Helena Kennedy Centre within Sheffield Hallam University has been at the forefront of exposing corporate and financial institution complicity in the crisis in the Uyghur Region and identifying the risk that crisis poses to our international supply chains. Now they have launched a series of issue briefs and supply chain updates. The series is intended to keep everyone up to date on what is happening in the Uyghur Region and to help us all understand a bit better how supply chains are changing in response to the crisis. We share this and our work in this area through our ‘Cleaning Up Fashion Report.’
For this week's Informer,, we spent some time with Lottie Jackson who was up until recently Fashion Roundtable's newsletter editor. Now Lottie has published her first book with Penguin and we couldn't be prouder. See Me Rolling is a playful, illuminating memoir, but it is also a clarion call for greater diversity and inclusion. Lottie powerfully explores the ways in which we undervalue and underrepresent disabled people in our society, and demonstrates how negative stigmas about 'abnormal' bodies seep into all aspects our lives, from travel, work and education, to fashion and social media. In this dazzling debut, Lottie reveals why we must strive for change and redefine what it means to be disabled in every facet of life. She has a voice that needs to be heard.
For this week's podcast, our Slow-fashion Policy Lead Meg Pirie is in conversation with Ruth Rands, founder of knitwear label Herd. We first met Ruth at one of our initial roundtables focused on wool and Herd is one of our most cited case studies, because of their localised business model and best-practice processes, with provenance at its heart. Through her label, Herd, Ruth has shown what is possible here in the UK, sourcing everything within 150 miles.
Fashion Week came to a close in Paris last week, where our Fashion Director styled London-based designer, Feben Vemmenby's show. If you haven’t heard of the label Feben yet, then it’s certainly worth taking note. A recent Masters graduate of Central Saint Martins as an Isabella Blow scholar, her work reclaims feelings of displacement. Creating an aesthetic vision imbedded in community, her approach explores visual codes of Black life from all corners of the globe. Hear from our Fashion Director, Karen Binns on styling the show.
An Op-Ed not to be missed by CEO Tamara Cincik. Tamara explores why we need a manifesto for creative wellbeing not more International Women’s Day platitudes.
“Who else is bored? Bored of the neverending pendulum swing between riding a tide of adrenalin infused empowerment, and a continuous news cycle which highlights the endemic structural issues women and girls face. I know I am, and I know I am not alone.”
The best sustainable textile innovators at LFW proved it is possible to make fabulous fashion with better materials—so why isn’t everyone doing it?—asks Clare Press, our Global Sustainability Expert.
Mulberry has closed its iconic Bond Street store, citing the axing of VAT-free shopping as a major factor in its decision. Here at Fashion Roundtable, this is a big concern and we have already presented MPs with questions to take to Parliament. Our recent Treasury Report, powered by ACS, focused on key issues around VAT and is linked below. Click through for more.
