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Extinction Rebellion And The Fight Against London Fashion Week
The Extinction Rebellion funeral finale at London Fashion Week made headlines this past September. A group of 200 protesters donned funeral attire, their message grievously clear – we are in the process of killing our planet. The protest was written up in The Guardian and more ironically, Vogue, among other publications. Most of the articles described the event and noted the demands of the activists but there were precious few details about what was to come. Protests, demonstrations and disruptions are tools to foment awareness and support for issues that require urgent attention. The act of galvanising people to collectively express their views has – for a long time – been an instinctive method of provoking change. From…
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Extinction Rebellion: London Fashion Week Are You Listening?
Written by Emma SummerscalesBlog: http://emmasummerscales.com/ Instagram: @studiothrift This Sep XR will attempt to shut down London Fashion Week in a bid to raise awareness of the environmental destruction caused by the fashion industry. They have written to the British Fashion Council asking that it be cancelled. Do you agree with the proposed disruption and do you think cancelling LFW will make the fashion world stop and listen? Greenpeace has been campaigning about climate change since the 1970s and there’s no doubt that the actions of Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion (XR) have caused a necessary explosion in media coverage and awareness. London Fashion Week (LFW) wasn’t cancelled, but XR did…
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Fashion’s Climate Emergency
Twitter: @theeasyethical / Blog: The Easy Ethical It’s no secret that fast fashion is unsustainable, despite government attempts to keep this fact hidden. They talk about making our homes energy efficient, using public transport and eating locally, but fast fashion always seems to forgo a mention. But it needs urgent attention. Not only are we consuming fashion made of material harmful to the environment, we’re consuming it at an alarming rate. A lot of us love fashion, and a lot of us are simply unaware that our purchasing habits are causing so much environmental destruction. How many people name fashion when they talk about what they perceive to be the…
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Fashion’s ‘Now’ Culture Fuels Our Climate Emergency
London Fashion Week has always made the headlines. With its history of bold innovation, the showcase of new fashion is well established in Britain’s culture. But this September, London Fashion Week will feature in headlines of a different kind. Extinction Rebellion intends to shut down London Fashion Week and its aims are supported by science. Textile production is one of the most polluting industries, contributing 1.2 billion tonnes of cO2 equivalent (CO2e) per year, which is more than international flights and maritime shipping. And let’s not forget that cumulatively, the industry produces about 20% of global waste water. The science is stark and Extinction Rebellion’s protest must be bold. It’s…
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Dear Fast Fashion: There’s No Plan(et) B
Written by Olivia ZambriWebsite: www.gemifique.com IG: @gemifiqueco The growing millennial consumer group has emphasized the importance of becoming more educated about the origins of products and the industries they come from, and with this newfound enlightenment, companies deservedly feel the pressure to switch to less controversial practices in order to align the company’s values with those of their consumers. It is a company’s moral responsibility to determine and enforce the ethical standards that they use to market their products or services. It is also a consumer’s right to know where their product came from, how and where it was made, and whether it was tainted by any processes fueled by…
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Fashion Influencers And Our Climate Emergency
by Caitlyn HowittIG: @caitlynhowittx / @caitlyn_fashion We know that reducing our fashion footprint is a critical step that needs to be taken to reduce carbon emissions, so why do we find it so difficult to give up our ASOS addictions in favour of more ethical practices? Social media influencers. I’m a 22-year-old woman and I can’t help but wish that I was ‘one of them’. Getting sent free clothing, taking amazing selfies and making hundreds of thousands for essentially being photogenic. It really does seem like easy money. I envy them, but at the same time loathe them. It would be a completely different situation if they promoted sustainable/slow fashion, but they…
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Let Us Not Die From Habit
by Shan Purdy IG: @shanpurdyphotos Jared Diamond’s ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive’ talks about how past societies have thrived and flourished, but then died out through habit. The most interesting case study was that of the Greenland Vikings. They built churches and a cathedral, wrote in Latin and Old Norse, wielded iron tools and even followed the latest European fashion trends. They lasted almost 500 years, and finally vanished in one winter because of their inability to adapt to their surroundings; because of their inability to change their habits. When I read this, I instantly thought, ‘Well..isn’t this the way our society is heading? Isn’t this the…
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The Fashion Industry And Governmental Policies On Climate Change
by Laragh McCannIG: @100percentreloved_ Since 2018, Extinction Rebellion have been using non-violent direct action to demand the government ends its criminal inaction on the climate emergency. If you could advise government policy to set new sustainability standards for the fashion industry, where would you start? What changes are necessary for genuinely sustainable fashion? On a political level, the government should immediately pull the emergency break and communicate that since there is a climate emergency all businesses will be seriously affected for the foreseeable future. Especially those we don’t fundamentally need. With impending doom on the horizon, Fashion Week feels like a Trojan horse, its facade crumbling before our eyes to reveal…
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How To Fight Climate Change With Fashion
It’s Wednesday evening and Jenna from work has invited me out for Friday night drinks. Having riffled through my bulging and frankly disorganised wardrobe, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have nothing to wear. I scroll through the websites of my two favourite online retailers. With their clever algorithms, clothes tailored to my buying habits pop up in colourful tiles before my eyes. The range of options for delivery is huge and I settle on next day delivery. Hasn’t this become almost second nature? We identify what we want and then it’s delivered to us where and when we want it. However, the cost of our buying habits extends…
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Fast Fashion And Carbon Footprints
by Laragh McCannIG: @100percentreloved_ The fact of the matter is fast fashion is an addiction. Billions of pounds are spent in order to bombard people (mostly women) with imagery on our phones, on billboards, on magazines. Of course its difficult for us to see through this carefully designed deep, desirable fog. Sometimes it feels easiest to compare fast fashion to other addictions to understand it and our part as consumers clearly. When it comes to the tobacco industry who do you hold responsible for the problem; the smoker, or the tobacco company? The smoker needs to take responsibility yes but ultimately you wish that the billion dollar businesses behind making smoking desirable…
