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The Rana Plaza's impact on the Fashion Revolution
The Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh happened on 24 April 2013. It housed five garment factories and killed 1,134 people and injured more than 2,500. The building was built with low quality materials, under poor conditions and wrongful approval of constructions, yet the factory stayed active until the disaster.

Companies that had placed an order around or at the current time of the disaster include United Colours of Benetton for Italy, Mango for Spain, Matalan for the UK and Primark for the UK/Ireland ; easily some of the bigger names within the fashion industry and the high street market.

After the disaster calculations that were done based on International Labour Organisation convention 121 showed that the families affected by the Rana Plaza collapse were owed $30 million in compensation. Finally, after more than two years of negotiations that consisted of backroom deals, activists protesting and chaining themselves to shops, global petitions and statements by G7 leaders, the Rana Plaza donors trust fund met its target of $30m. However before this there was a lot of problems caused by the slow responses from key brands, one in particular being United colours of Benetton. When the lack of response became a crisis, a worldwide campaign began to pressure brands, including Benetton, to donate. The company as we know was producing at Rana Plaza, has an annual turnover of $1.6bn, and donated just $1.1m in April 2015. A shockingly small amount in comparison to the demands and anger raised through their lack of appropriate response and compassion, alongside the huge turnover they make each year.

About 250 companies signed two initiatives designed to drastically improve safety in 2,300 factories manufacturing western brands. These are; the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, and the less restrictive Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Over the fear of western buyers ceasing to manufacture and buy, thousands of factory owners have invested and installed fire doors, sprinkler systems, electrical upgrades and more solid foundations, eradicating more than 97,000 previously identified safety hazards in facilities, covered by the Accord on Fire and Building safety alone.

What do they do?
The main mission of the Fashion Revolution is to join people and organisations together to have the common interest of changing the whole idea of clothes production. This involves the stages of sourcing, producing and consuming clothes (from farmer to consumer basically)- the hopes of this new way of production is that clothing is made in a safer, fairer and cleaner way.

People part of the revolution call themselves ‘Pro-Fashion protesters’ as they are not out to depreciate or scrutinise certain individuals or brands; this is the approach chosen as it works to help show people who may not be using the most ethical practices that they have the power to make a change and benefit the greater good.

What they stand for
Fashion revolution, as a collective, believe in a fashion industry that values people, the environment, creativity and profit all equally. This is their main aim and what they are trying to reach with brands and manufacturers globally. The best way to explain the mission that Fashion Revolution is on is explained using this 3 part framework by researchers Rebecca Early and Kate Goldworthy.

The first part is the Model; The business of fashion

The concept of 'Fast Fashion' which is where the demand for new and quickly produced fashion has been scaled up and increased dramatically in the last 30 or so years. Due to the scale and speed required to supplement the fast fashion industry more employees who work for cheap pay and in cheap working conditions are required. Due to this, more frequent and deadlier factory disasters are happening; all for the sake of getting a design from concept to shelves in half the time it should take.

In recent years, Fashion brands costs are rising; this is from rising labour, raw material and energy prices. However the price we pay for our clothes is still very low. This shows a clear imbalance of where the system really is not working. Fashion Revolution believes in changing the industry and therefore changing the way clothes are produced and consumed, this will result in a need to change business models and multiple solutions will be required.

Materials- People and Planet
An unbelievable pair of trends that still remain in today’s society are Human rights abuses and environmental degradation. Within many of your favourite brands’ supply chains basic health and safety measures simply do not exist. Wages for workers in these supply chains is rarely enough for them to live on, resulting in many people in countries where clothing is produced living in extreme poverty.

Environmentally wise, our clothes are having a large impact here too. Within dyes, fertilisers, laundry and treatment products are chemicals which are found to end up in rivers. Copious amounts of water are used to produce clothes through growing cotton and wet processing (dyeing and laundering), this water used is not sustainable. Lastly, 3% of global CO2 emissions is direct result of the fashion industry according to the Carbon Trust.

Mindset- Change the way we think about buying clothes
The mindset of how we think about fashion has to change also. Over the past 20-30 years our consumption of clothing has become very different, by us buying lots more clothes for far cheaper prices, the purchase rate of clothing has increased by 400% in the past 20 years...

Cheap retailers are fueling this problem by charging far less that what the product is worth, meaning that buying new clothes becomes a throwaway habit. This results in consumers creating an addiction to the speed and volume of the fast fashion world; the true cost of cheap and fast clothing is more detrimental than meets the eye and people need to wake up to this harsh reality. People need to care less about following trends and wear the clothes they already own- buying less cheap and readily available clothes will help combat this issue.

Who started it?
Fashion Revolution was started by fashion designers Orsola De Castro and Carry Sommers. Orsola De Castro was a designer before she co-founded Fashion Revolution. Her career before the movement was also in sustainability and making changes within the industry as she was at the helm of the pioneering label ‘From somewhere’ which was in fact an upcycling brand itself- this brand ran from 1997 to 2014. Similar to the other Co-founder De Castro, Carry Sommers was also a fashion designer before starting up Fashion revolution in 2013. 20 years prior to this, Sommers had her own fashion brand called Pachacuti; this company radically pioneered the concept of supply chain transparency. This process involves precisely pinpointing the GPS coordinates of each stage of the production and manufacturing process.

Impact the movement has had
* Throughout 2019, Fashion Revolution has reached its biggest impact statistics ever, they achieved their aim by using their signature hashtags #whomademyclothes which connects consumers and raises awareness of where their clothes came from. The other hashtag that is used to spread the world of the revolution is #imadeyourclothes which is used in response to the consumer hashtag for the manufacturers to shed light on the work they do and where clothes actually come from. *

Economic Development
In order to combat clothing consumption and sustainability, the Environmental Audit Committee has outlined new economic models for the fashion industry that the government are attempting to enforce. One proposal put forward suggests fashion retailers apply changes such as recovering and reselling products that consumers no longer want, aiming to limit the amount of clothing created by the company and therefore, decreasing clothing consumption. Similar to this, other propositions have been put forward, for instance renting their clothing or developing a subscription model which allows customers to exchange items while still bestowing the incentive to use each garment multiple times. In combination with potential alternatives recognised by the government, an increase in second-hand clothing companies has developed. For example, websites such as Depop enables users to sell their unwanted belongings (not just clothing), leave reviews on the sellers or buyers profile and reduce landfill.

Growth of Sustainable Fashion
The growth of sustainable fashion has been documented by Ethical Consumer’s Market report ; the report explained that “Ethical clothing increased by 19.9% and buying second-hand clothing for environmental reasons increased 22.5%, in a year which saw much media about the environmental impacts of fast fashion”. This highlights the importance of media for sustainable fashion as it enables the significance of ethical products to be broadcasted and offering solutions through developing an organic lifestyle by using sustainable items. The “who made my clothes” movement has also contributed to the media’s emphasis on sustainable fashion, enabling sustainable fashion brands to deliver their message to consumers in an accessible and interactive way.

Traid Charity
Similarly to the “who made my clothes” movement, charities such a Traid aim to reduce clothing consumption and improve working practices in the textiles industry. In the UK, Traid has over 1,500 charity clothes banks, home collections and charity shops which enables them to prevent around 3,000 tonnes of clothes waste. Traid uses the money raised from their stores to fund global projects; for example, reimagining Bangladesh’s fabric waste, creating a sustainable cotton future in Ethiopia and ending child & forced labour in the garment industry in both Nepal and Afghanistan, therefore motivating consumers to shop at Traid stores. They have also created the concept of the “#Secondhandfirst” which encourages customers to pledge to make a percentage of their wardrobe strictly second hand and allows them to tweet Traid with their progress using the hashtag. This is only one example of a charity dedicated to promoting the second-hand market, other cases with a similar goal includes Thrift+ and Fashion For Change. Therefore, the combination of both political and social factors has lead to the development of increased support for sustainable fashion, highlighted the necessity of cutting clothing consumption and enabled movements such as “Who made my clothes” able to thrive and spread their message.