Many organizations, activists and celebrities are
nowadays criticizing fast fashion and what it stands
for, calling for the establishment of an alternative:
fair fashion. Just to name a couple of initiatives shedding light on the fashion world: The Fashion Revolution (you might remember its 2-euro-T-shirt social
experiment going viral); the Clean Clothes Campaign;
the Fair Wear Foundation; the documentary True
Cost; the Fair Fashion Fest that was hosted in Ghent
earlier this year; and in a more comic way, even the
Last Week Tonight show addressed the issue. With
each new Primark-dump store opening up, more people are starting to question who made their clothes.
Fair fashion was also a topic at IOB's Birthday Conference, where a Fair Fashion Roundtable was organized, moderated by prof. dr. Annick Schramme of the
Antwerp Management School. Anne de Leeuw of the
University of Amsterdam shared the findings of her
research on the effects of labour conditions on the
agency of Bangladeshi garment workers. Finally, two
practitioners shared their own fair fashion experiences: IOB-alumna Imke Verburg, founder of One Dress
for All, a project involving 100 Sri Lankan women in
good labour conditions, allowing them ownership
of the production process and decision-making
power over the use of the project's profit; and Juree
Siangsuwan, designer and founder of JSOT's HumanHeritage who aims to produce handmade, durable
and sustainable products that last a lifetime.
Through this article, Exchange to Change wants to
o