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    Naked Fashion: The New Sustainable Fashion Revolution
    Naked Fashion: The New Sustainable Fashion Revolution
    Naked Fashion: The New Sustainable Fashion Revolution
    Ebook362 pages2 hours

    Naked Fashion: The New Sustainable Fashion Revolution

    By Safia Minney, Lucy Siegle and Livia Firth

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

  • One of few books to analyse fair trade, ethical fashion and entrepreneurship, written by one of the most respected women in the industry.

  • Highly visual, featuring studio shots, street pics, illustrations

  • Contributions from celebrity supporters of fair trade and ethical fashion, for example: Emma Watson explains why Fair Trade fashion is so important to her; Summer Rayne Oakes describes how she took on the model agencies; Vivienne Westwood talks high-fashion without the high stakes for the planet

  • Supported by a number of internationally recognized designers, photographers and bloggers.

  • Ideal for fashion students, designers and anyone interested in the growing issue of fair trade.

  • Foreword by Livia Firth and Lucy Siegle.
    • LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNew Internationalist
    Release dateAug 15, 2012
    ISBN9781780260617
    Naked Fashion: The New Sustainable Fashion Revolution
    Author

    Safia Minney

    Safia Minney is a pioneer in ethical business. She is the founder of Fair Trade and sustainable fashion label, People Tree, and now brings her expertise and experience to help businesses embrace sustainability and transparency in their operations and branding. She is author of several critically-acclaimed books including Naked Fashion and Slow Fashion. She lives in London.

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      Book preview

      Naked Fashion - Safia Minney

      NAKED

      FASHION

      THE NEW SUSTAINABLE FASHION REVOLUTION

      Naked Fashion

      Published in 2011 by:

      © Safia Minney/People Tree

      The right of Safia Minney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

      All photographs © People Tree or individual photographers as credited.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the Publisher.

      Author, Editor and Creative Director: Safia Minney

      Managing Editor: Sarah Tolley

      Editorial Support: Liz Wilkinson, James Minney, Liz Hitchcock, Michiko Ono, Stephanie Chaplin, Antony Waller, Ben Corley

      Designed for New Internationalist by Ian Nixon.

      Author acknowledgements

      Many thanks to our friends at New Internationalist – Dan Raymond-Barker, Ian Nixon, Chris Brazier and Fran Harvey, to all of those who kindly contributed to this book, the People Tree team and everyone who is helping to change lives by choosing Fair Trade.

      Special thanks to Andreas Pohancenik and Miki Alcalde who inspired me to write this book. Also to Phil King, Alex Nicholls, Roger Perowne, Stuart Raistrick, David Riddiford, Jane Shepherdson, Rowena Young, Kees van den Burg, Oikocredit, Shared Interest and Root Capital.

      While every effort has been taken to ensure accuracy, the Publisher and Co-publisher cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions. No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of material in this publication can be accepted by the Publisher or Co-Publisher.

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

      ISBN 978-1-78026-061-7

      Foreword

      Received wisdom is often quite dim. As an example, we are told constantly that today’s mainstream fashion industry is all we might desire and all we should expect. It isn’t. As made clear through some of the stirring eye-witness accounts of life as a garment worker on the Global Assembly Line in these pages – such as Liz Jones’ account of a visit to Dhaka – there are some startling holes in the claims of the world’s biggest fashion brands that they offer unparalleled opportunity for both consumers and developing world workers.

      The strength of this book is that every page turns the conventional view of the fashion landscape upside down, gives it a good shake and (charmingly) disposes of the offending idea in the nearest trash can. Instead, we are offered just about the most inspiring alternative models (of business, shopping, working – and even actual alternative models in the form of Summer Rayne Oakes) imaginable. And this is genuinely liberating.

      We should hardly be surprised because People Tree, the brand created by Safia Minney, has no truck with the pervading fashion business model which involves inadvertently or purposely chewing up environmental resources and capitalizing on the world’s most vulnerable and dispensable workers. And People Tree and Safia Minney bring you this book. Their approach is unashamedly producer-centric and with a long-term view of the planet and its citizens. All of which means that when you embrace this sort of fashion and creativity you do more than design, write about or buy a vest-top or pair of jeans. You support communities, protect indigenous textile weavers and designers, help to realize Millennium Development Goals such as getting girls into education and bolster ecological resilience. As the actor Emma Watson explains, Fair Trade fashion brings genuine and measurable results to some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.

      Not surprisingly, up-and-coming designers, writers, commentators, stylists, textile producers and graphic designers, illustrators, artists – you name it! – are all attracted. They want their professional lives to have resonance and purpose. They recognise that fashion is an important tool and they see the examples of design companies such as Terra Plana or From Somewhere who do things differently. As people working to raise the profile of fashion that matches ethics to aesthetics, we meet these potential change-makers all the time. Sometimes we’re inundated with questions! Now we can gently usher them towards Naked Fashion as an indispensable primer.

      Ladies and gentlemen, the Fashion Revolution is now under way!

      Livia Firth

      Lucy Siegle

      London, July 2011.

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      CHAPTER 1

      Fashion – The Un-Glam side

      The real cost of fashion: people

      Liz Jones travels to the slums of Bangladesh

      Fashion’s impact on the Earth

      CHAPTER 2

      Fair Trade: Part of the solution

      Changemaker – Chris Haughton, illustrator

      World Fair Trade Day

      The Fair Trade Movement: Japan

      Leeyong Soo – Vogue and beyond

      Growing up with Fair Trade fashion

      Using their skills for the alternative: Ben Corley, business management student, and Alicia Reguera, graphic design intern, on their experiences in Fair Trade fashion

      Vintage Fashion: Part of the solution

      Interview with Wayne Hemingway, founder of Red or Dead and Vintage Festival

      Vintage Fashion – Get Involved

      CHAPTER 3

      Media and mindsets

      Caryn Franklin, journalist and commentator, on her latest project ‘All Walks Beyond the Catwalk’

      Andrew Tuck, UK editor of Monocle, on a new approach to magazine journalism

      Adam Harvey from Masterpiece on catalogue retouching and how much is too much?

      Andreas Pohancenik, typographer, discusses how design helps us to question the norms

      Lovebirds – Newly formed London-based design studio

      Geoff Wilkinson, musician and producer

      Mark Edwards, photographer and founder of the Hard Rain project

      Changemaker – Miki Alcalde, photographer and Fair Trade supporter

      CHAPTER 4

      Styling a new industry

      Changemaker – Summer Rayne Oakes, model and activist

      Eleni Renton, founder of ethical model agency Leni’s

      Tafari Hinds, Jamaican-born model turned musician

      Gemma Rose Breger, stylist

      Gail Rhodes, make-up artist

      Redman and Rose, stylist and photographer team

      Clea Broad, stylist and upcycling expert

      Forest and Fauna fashion shoot

      CHAPTER 5

      Designing a new industry

      Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer and activist

      Orla Kiely, fashion designer

      Mihara Yasuhiro, fashion designer

      Tsumori Chisato, fashion designer

      Emma Watson, actor and People Tree collaborator, visits Bangladesh

      Bora Aksu, Turkish-born fashion designer and long-time supporter of Fair Trade

      CHAPTER 6

      Fair Trade supply chain

      The Fair Trade supply chain

      Hand skills

      Producer Profile – Agrocel, organic cotton farmers

      Producer Profile – TARA Projects, Fair Trade accessories producer

      Changemaker – Monju Haque, founder of Bangladeshi Fair Trade outfit Artisan Hut

      Fair Trade principles

      Making Fair Trade fashion happen – the People Tree UK team

      People Tree autumn / winter 2011 fashion shoot

      CHAPTER 7

      Changing the industry

      Jane Shepherdson, ex-brand director of Topshop and CEO of Whistles

      Melanie Plank, trend forecaster at WGSN

      Claire Hamer, fashion buyer and champion of sustainable fashion

      CHAPTER 8

      Ethical brands

      Fair Trade and ethical fashion: an introduction

      Ethical brand directory

      Killer facts

      Tom Andrews of Epona

      Kerry Seager & Annika Sanders of Junky Styling

      Galahad Clark of Vivobarefoot shoes

      Orsola de Castro of From Somewhere

      Tara Scott of Tara Starlet

      Ben Ramsden of Pants to Poverty

      Carry Somers of Pachacuti

      Abi Petit of Gossypium

      People Tree

      Index

      Introduction

      Creativity, compassion and consumption have to learn to go hand in hand. At 18 years old I worked in the advertising industry. I’d see talented creatives at the top of their class scoop up creative awards in the finest London hotels and at Cannes. Bathed in golden light, champagne flowing, surrounded by beautiful people – but then we’d be out at lunch and they’d confide about how uncomfortable it was to create advertising for products that nobody needed, that polluted the planet. They’d say, what about spending our energy-raising awareness and finding solutions to the real issues of human rights, poverty and environmental destruction? what about promoting social inclusion, more responsible consumption and more sustainable lifestyles? what if design, creativity and media could be used to change the world?

      For many people at that rat race / ‘what’s the point of it all?’ moment in their career, travel or time alone in nature has triggered a crucial switch away from our habitually amused-to-death lives. Get some fresh air. See parts of the world that function very well without our level of consumerism. See how conventional economics and consumerism are stripping land and natural resources away from farmers and fisherfolk and concentrating it all into the hands of a few business owners, investors and their army – the advertisers, creatives and marketeers who make consumption so seductive, even at the cost of our planet and our sanity. Exactly what happened in the 1950s in the West is happening in India today, as women in the villages are seduced by fashion and beauty billboards to buy one-rupee sachets of shampoo.

      This book looks at how fashion, an industry and a tool for popular culture, is changing. From rural villages in Bangladesh to ‘upcycling’ ateliers in London and Melbourne and boutiques in New York, Tokyo and Paris, sustainable fashion pioneers, creatives and consumers are demanding a fashion industry free of worker exploitation. They are talking about a new industry that sustains this planet, that looks at real role-models and does not exploit our insecurities through ‘body fascism’.

      The world is seduced by the imagery of the global fashion brands. We hope Naked Fashion will inspire you to be part of the change we need to be.

      Safia Minney

      London and Tokyo, July 2011

      MIKI ALCALDE

      SAFIA MINNEY

      CHAPTER 1

      Fashion: The Un-Glam Side

      Home to garment factory workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

      People Tree and its sister NGO Global Village

      SAFIA MINNEY

      People Tree and its sister NGO Global Village have been supporting garment factory workers since 1996 – helping them fight for their rights through their trade union by financing the secretariat, marches and materials for the National Garment Workers Federation, Bangladesh.

      Why are the clothes you buy so cheap?

      Does the brand you love take care

      of workers’ basic human rights?

      The real cost of fashion: people

      Safia Minney’s journey began in the advertising industry. But she soon saw the reality beneath the glossy image: sweatshops, slums and child labour.

      The price tag on the fashion you buy rarely covers the real social and environmental costs – and here’s why. For many developing countries, clothing manufacture is a leg-up into industrialization and so-called development, and is a substantial part of their earnings. In Bangladesh, clothing exports account for 70 per cent of GDP and the industry employs over three million workers, mostly women. The clothing industry offers opportunities to low-income countries because of the relatively low cost of setting up factories, and a burgeoning population that provides a constant supply of deft hands as semi-skilled labour. Developing countries end up competing with each other to be the world’s garment factory, in what has been called a ‘race to the bottom’ for wages, health and safety and job security.

      I rarely fly business class, but when I did some 10 years ago I picked up an in-flight magazine with an ad boasting, ‘Rosa 50c now 30c an hour’. Rosa was a garment worker in Honduras and, back in the mid-1990s, her hourly rate had fallen. The advert was using Rosa to seduce me into bringing my clothing orders to her factory, where she and her friends were waiting to stitch my clothing and there was no labour union to get in the way. There is a similar situation in Bangladesh, where, despite inflation running at seven per cent each year, labour costs have stayed the same. The minimum wage in Bangladesh only increased in November 2010 to 3,000 taka ($40) per month, after 10 years at 1,660 taka ($21).

      In search of a livelihood

      2010 was a turning point, which for the first time saw more people living in cities than in the countryside. This is not just thanks to the concentration of wealth, investment and work opportunities, and not just to the world’s population having grown from 4.5 billion to 6.6 billion in the last 30 years. Something more sinister and systematic is going on. The last three decades have made subsistence living and farming a struggle, with governments, advised by national and multinational businesses, shifting the terms of trade to favour large and intensive farms. Appropriation and privatization of the ‘commons’ (the common land and forests that were shared by communities) has also stolen away the lifeline for many families. The Modhupur Forest and other forested areas in Bangladesh have shrunk to 10 per cent of their original size in just 30 years, displacing and impoverishing hundreds of thousands of people.

      With farm-produce prices hitting an all-time low, farmers struggle to cover their production costs, and are increasingly at the mercy of seed and chemical companies. Work that once earned a decent living has become full of economic insecurity, and climate change is pushing the farmer closer to the edge. Little wonder, then, that 100,000 farmers have committed suicide in India over the past decade and that the rural population is marching to the cities to find work

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