Fashion Revolution


Fashion Revolution is a not-for-profit global movement represented by The Fashion Revolution Foundation and Fashion Revolution CIC with teams in over 100 countries around the world. Fashion Revolution campaigns for reform of the fashion industry with a focus on the need for greater transparency in the fashion supply chain. Starting in 2013, Fashion Revolution has designated the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh as Fashion Revolution Day and holds events each year. Between 2014 and 2020, millions of people around the world called on brands to answer the question Who Made My Clothes? The hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes became the no.1 global trend on Twitter. Fashion Revolution has numerous online publications for the public and for educational purposes. In 2015, the #Haulternative campaign was launched. They have faced criticisms specifically about the Transparency Index.

History

was founded in 2013 in response to the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh by Carry Somers and Orsola de Castro. Somers and de Castro both had experience in the fashion industry. For the previous 20 years, Somers’s fashion brand Pachacuti had pioneered radical supply chain transparency and de Castro had launched and run the pioneering upcycling label From Somewhere from 1997 until 2014. Fashion Revolution was designed as a platform for academics, designers, writers, retailers, and business leaders to encourage people to take action in the fashion industry. The organization is funded by private foundations, institutional grants, commercial organizations, and donations from individuals. Somers and de Castro launched the #WhoMadeMyClothes hashtag in 2014.

Fashion Revolution Day / Fashion Revolution Week

Fashion Revolution Day takes place annually on 24 April, the anniversary of the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse when 1133 died and over 2500 were injured. In 2016, it expanded into Fashion Revolution Week. Fashion Revolution day was also created to highlight the current climate emergency. Awareness of the exploitation of supply chain workers has also been highlighted on the Fashion Revolution day. The movement's goal is to change the way clothes are sourced, produced, and purchased.
The first Fashion Revolution Day took place on 24 April 2014. Fashion Revolution's hashtag #insideout was the no. 1 global trend on Twitter.
The second Fashion Revolution Day took place on 24 April 2015. The global reach from online news and broadcast media was 16.5 billion and 63 million people from across 76 countries made the hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes the number one trend on Twitter The YouTube video The 2 Euro T-Shirt - A Social Experiment had over 6.5 million views and won a Cannes Lions award.
In its third year, Fashion Revolution activities took place over a week, from 18–24 April 2016 in over 90 countries around the world. This Fashion Revolution Week began with Fashion Question Time at the UK Houses of Parliament. and the launch of the first edition of the Fashion Transparency Index, which scored 40 large fashion companies on the information they disclose to stakeholders and the public about social and environmental issues across their supply chains. 70,000 people around the world asked brands #whomademyclothes with 156 million impressions of the hashtag on social media. G-Star Raw, American Apparel, Fat Face, Boden, Massimo Dutti, Zara, and Warehouse were among more than 1200 fashion brands and retailers that responded with photographs of their workers saying #imadeyourclothes. Fashion Revolution achieved online media reach in April 2016 of 22 billion. On 26 October 2016, Fashion Revolution's €2 video, A Social Experiment was ranked no. 7 in the top global PR campaigns of the year at the Global Sabre Awards ceremony. The video has received over 7.5 million views.
In its fourth year, Fashion Revolution Week took place from 24–30 April 2017. On Fashion Revolution Day, the second edition of the Fashion Transparency Index was launched, with a review of the transparency of 100 large global fashion brands. 66,000 people attended around 1,000 Fashion Revolution events and there were 533 million impressions on social media posts using one of Fashion Revolution's hashtags during April. Over 2000 brands and producer groups responded, answering #imadeyourclothes.
In its fifth year, Fashion Revolution Week took place from 23–29 April 2018. Over 1000 Fashion Revolution events were held around the world, including Fashion Open Studio and Fashion Question Time at the Houses of Parliament. In April, the third edition of the Fashion Transparency Index was launched, ranking 150 brands on how much they disclose about their policies, practices, procedures and social and environmental impact.
Fashion Revolution Week continued in both 2019 and 2020. In 2020 Fashion Revolution launched a new hashtag #whatsinmyclothes focused on fabric composition and the chemicals used in textile production, linked to Carry Somers participation in , an all-women round-the-world sailing voyage to investigate microplastic and chemical pollution in the oceans.

Events

During Fashion Revolution Week, hundreds of events take place around the world. Fashion Revolution has organized high-level roundtable events on ethics, sustainability, and transparency in the fashion industry.

2014

#WhoMadeMyClothes

The #WhoMadeMyClothes hashtag was launched in 2014 by Fashion Revolution co-founders, Carry Somers and Orsola de Castro. It became the number 1 global trend on Twitter. By 2018, the hashtag received 99.6 million impressions on Twitter and 170 000 posts were shared on Twitter and Instagram containing at least one of Fashion Revolution's hashtags. The goal of the hashtag was to bring awareness to consumers about the brands that they purchase from and raise awareness for the humanitarian and ethical issues in fast fashion. Garment workers in factories responded to the movement by participating with the hashtag #IMadeYourClothes.
The movement began in England and spread through social media. On Twitter, 31.82% of the tweets with #WhoMadeMyClothes were posted by users from the United Kingdom. The top 5 countries with the highest search activity and Twitter posts for #WhoMadeMyClothes were the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Canada, and France. Celebrities including Emma Watson, Kelly Slater, and Fernanda Paes Leme used the hashtag on Twitter to support the issue.
The movement also utilized YouTube to spread awareness. To promote the hashtag in 2015, Fashion Revolution released a video titled “The 2 Euro T-Shirt - A Social Experiment”. The video showed a vending machine selling t-shirts for 2 Euros. When people went to purchase the shirt, a video played describing the working conditions in which the shirt was made. By the end, people chose to donate to the cause of increasing supply chain transparency instead of buying the t-shirt. The video has over 7.9 million views. Their 2018 campaign film uploaded on April 22nd, 2018 was awarded the Best Green Fashion Film award at the Fashion Film Festival Milano and has over 54,000 views to date.
With the hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes as the channel for the movement, there was an increase in the general awareness of the reality behind the garment manufacturing processes. With increased awareness, global fashion brands have started to increase transparency. The 2018 Transparency Index allowed fashion brands the opportunity to change and justify their supply chains. As of June 2018, 172 brands across 68 countries have revealed more information about their supply chains than in previous years. In response to the hashtag, #WhoMadeMyClothes, more than 3,838 global brands took to social media to respond with real information about their suppliers and workers.

#InsideOut

Six months after the first Fashion Revolution Day, another hashtag, #InsideOut, was created. #InsideOut became a #1 global trend on Twitter and celebrities including Christy Turlington, Livia Firth and Amber Valletta posted with the hashtag on their social media platforms. The hashtag encouraged people to wear their clothes inside out to reveal tags showing where the piece of clothing was made. Additionally, British Vogue ran a #InsideOut street style gallery on April 24th, 2014.

#Haulternative

In 2015, Fashion Revolution came up with #Haulternative, a new movement to promote sustainable fashion by encouraging people to purchase used clothing over new clothing. The goal was to encourage the purchase of used clothes to mitigate the effects of the fashion manufacturing processes on the environment. There are several key aspects to the #haulternative campaign. These aspects are:
The movement was promoted mainly through YouTube where Fashion Revolution worked with YouTube fashion vloggers to promote purchase of used clothes. The #Haulternative campaign, in conjunction with the Daily Telegraph, features fashion vloggers filming themselves doing an alternative fashion haul. Haulers who participated included CutiePieMarzia, Noodlerella, Bip Ling, Grav3yardgirl, and Shameless Maya with combined views of 2 million on YouTube. Besides the promotion through Youtube, Fashion Revolution also promoted #Haulternative by creating events with seasonal second-hand clothing pop-up stores in selected cities. On November 2019, Fashion Revolution collaborated with student ambassadors at Glasgow Clyde College to take students on guided walking tours across different second-hand clothing shopping routes.

Fashion Transparency Index

Fashion Transparency Index is an index which ranks companies according to their level of transparency based on a questionnaire and publicly available information about supply chain issues. The index was published by Fashion Revolution in partnership with Ethical Consumer during the 2016 Fashion Revolution Week. The first edition of the Fashion Transparency Index includes 40 of the biggest global fashion brands, which have selected based on annual turnover. The brands receive points for information that has been publicly disclosed on the brand or parent company website, through self-published annual reports and via third parties where there is a link between the company’s website and the third party disclosure. The rating for the Fashion Transparency Index is given by assessing 5 criteria which are: policy and commitment; traceability; governance; know, show, and fix; and spotlight issues.

Fashion Revolution publications and podcasts

Fashion Revolution publishes a variety of campaign assets, posters, brand guidelines, postcard and letter writing templates, and action kits online. The following publications have been released:
How to be a Fashion Revolutionary is "full of inspiration and ideas about how you can use your voice and your power to transform the fashion industry as we know it". It was published as part of a Fashion Revolution exhibition and given out at film screenings at UK universities.
It's Time for a Fashion Revolution displays the need for more transparency across the fashion industry, from seed to waste.
Fashion Transparency Index ranks the biggest global fashion companies according to their level of transparency based on a questionnaire and publicly available information about supply chain issues.
Money, Fashion, Power is a zine which comprises 72 pages of poetry, illustrations, photography, graphic design and editorials exploring the hidden stories behind clothing, pricing, and the purchasing power of consumers. Collectible hard copies could be purchased and a free digital version was published online.
Loved Clothes Last is a zine comprising 124 pages of poetry, illustrations, photography, infographics, articles, tips, and interviews exploring the issue of waste and mass-consumption in the fashion industry, and with a goal of inspiring consumers to buy less, care more, and know how to make the clothes you love last for longer. Collectible hard copies could be purchased and a free digital version was published online.
Fashion Revolution Podcast series comprises three 27 minute long recordings in which international fashion journalist Tamsin Blanchard speaks to researchers, supply chain experts, garment workers, politicians and activists about the intersection of sustainability, ethics, and transparency in the fashion industry.
Garment Worker Diaries is a project by Microfinance Opportunities in collaboration with Fashion Revolution which, over 12 months, visited the same set of garment workers in Bangladesh, India, and Cambodia to "learn what they could earn and buy, how they spend their time each day, and what their working conditions are like". Its interactive research reports and podcast are written to "advocate for changes in consumer and corporate behaviors and policy changes that improve the living and working conditions of garment workers everywhere".

Schools, colleges and universities

In 2014, Fashion Revolution published a quiz and an education pack for school, college and university teachers, and students.
In 2015, a new quiz and separate education worksheets were produced for primary schools, secondary schools, further education colleges and universities. These were published in English and translated into Spanish, Finnish and other languages by Country Coordination teams.
To encourage students to be curious, dig deeper, and more involved on #whomademyclothes, these worksheets continue to be developed and now include :
In July 2015, a collection of social media postings showing how teachers and students got involved the Fashion Revolution was published on Pinterest, along with a 'who made my clothes?' film library, and a collection of 'imaginative ways in which the work of artists, activists and others can be used to inspire and engage people in the Fashion Revolution'.
In August 2016, three sessions were organized at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society conference in London with academic and activist speakers talking to the theme of "Scholar activism and the Fashion Revolution: ‘who made my clothes?’" Session one focused on connecting producers and consumers, session two on slow sustainable fashion in practice and session three on engaging publics.
In June–July 2017, a free 3-week online course called 'Who Made My Clothes' was created in collaboration with the University of Exeter. Run by and featuring members of Fashion Revolution's Global Coordination Team - Ian Cook, Orsola de Castro, Sarah Ditty and Joss Whipple - the course included over 8,000 learners worldwide, and covered topics such as the pay and conditions of people working in the global garment industry.
In May 2020, a free 4-week online course called '' was created by and featuring members of Fashion Revolution's Global Coordination Team - Sarah Ditty, Ilishio Lovejoy and Sienna Somers - the course covered topics such as how the fashion industry works, how we interact with it and the impacts it has on people and planet, how the Sustainable Development Goals relate to the clothes we wear and many more interesting topics.

Criticisms

In 2016, various fashion brands criticized Fashion Revolution by questioning the methods that the organization and the website Ethical Consumer used for the Fashion Transparency Index. The index assesses the level of transparency and support for workers’ rights of various fashion brands by looking at the information released by the company and by distributing various questionnaires. In an article by Women's Wear Daily, the founder of Fashion Revolution responded to the criticisms by explaining how the index was not meant to be a way to audit the companies but rather a way to assess the accessibility of the information regarding the supply chain processes of their product to the customers. Additionally, despite the public attention brought by the various hashtags launched by Fashion Revolution, some people remained skeptical of the hashtag movements' impacts. In an article written by The Guardian, Ruth Stokes, author of The Armchair Activist’s Handbook, says that meaningful change in the fashion industry can start with a Fashion Revolution Day hashtag campaign, but must go beyond it.