Fashion Revolution Week (NL/EN)
(For English, see below)
Today begins Fashion Revolution Week, an annual fair fashion campaign launched to commemorate the disaster of the Rana Plaza, the Bangladeshi textile factory that collapsed in 2013, killing 1,138 textile workers.
Fashion Revolution Week 2020 is one in minor
There is still a long way to go before the fashion world is fair, sustainable and transparent. And unfortunately, the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 creates even more obstacles on that road. Large chains are withdrawing orders that have already been produced, new orders are postponed or limited in number, the lockdown prevents textile workers from working (safely), a large number of workers lose their job and in many cases are not entitled to a (worthy) benefit.
Our partners
The small brands we work with do their best to keep it bearable for both themselves and their producers: by, for example, having clothing workers sew at home with a sewing machine, by paying technically unemployed workers, by having mouth masks made for private individuals (more on this later more), or collect donations to have official mouth masks made to donate to hospitals. In this way they try to keep their staff safe at work as much as possible and to provide for their standard of living.
Employees of Coq en Pâte (photo taken before the corona crisis)
slow fashion
Our suppliers already have a more revolutionary way of working anyway: they don't work with 4-6 new seasons a year where all "old" items are replaced by new ones. New items are regularly added, but that does not mean that the older collections should be discarded (or in many cases thrown away). On the other hand, we all opt for beautiful, but relatively timeless designs, so that many items can remain in stock for years. Of course, this does not mean that we do not grant discounts to our customers, but that with a fair way of working, the profit margins are much smaller, which unfortunately means that the discounts are also smaller. We hope to compensate for this by delighting our customers with good quality clothing that is ethically and ecologically produced.
Due to the lockdown, there are of course no real life events to put the campaign in the spotlight, but online events can be found via the Fashion Revolution Belgium Facebook page or website .
The annual Fair Fashion Fest in Ghent , where you will also find us, has been postponed to November 28-29.
Today is the first day of Fashion Revolution Week, an annual campaign for fair fashion which marks the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013, where 1,138 people were killed and many more were injured.
Not much to celebrate
There is still a long road ahead before the fashion industry will be fair, durable and transparent. And sadly, the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is a very big obstacle. Large fashion chains withdraw already produced orders, new orders are postponed or limited in number, the lockdown prohibits textile worker to work (safely), a lot of them have lost their jobs and for many of them that means they will have no income.
Our partners
The small brands we have in our webshop all try their best so that their workers can maintain a sustainable livelihood. Textile workers who own a sewing machine can work from home, people whose factory is closed still get paid, the workers that still can safely work in their factory make cloth masks for non-medical purposes (more on that later) or make official medical masks that are donated to hospitals.
Textile workers in the Coq en Pâte factory (picture taken before the coronavirus outbreak)
slow fashion
Our suppliers already work in a more revolutionary way: they don't replace every "old" item (ie from the previous season) at the launch of the new season collection. They regularly make new items, but that doesn't mean the older items lose their value (or get burned or thrown away). We all work with beautiful, but relatively timeless designs which make it possible to keep them in stock for a long time, sometimes even years. This obviously doesn't mean that we don't want to give our customers a nice discount. It only means that our margins are a lot smaller which unfortunately also makes our discounts smaller. We hope we can compensate this by making our customers happy with high-quality clothing that is manufactured in an ethical and eco-friendly manner.
If you want more information about Fashion Revolution Week and the online events that are planned, you can visit the official website orFacebook page .
