Tuesday 6 October 2009

It's been a while, but for good reason.



Sorry for not updating in such a long time. I have been so caught up with uni and moving into my new place I haven't really had any time. I have two things for you guys anyway just to say sorry for not being there, so please forgive me!

First off, don't miss this major new exhibition by SHOWstudio, the award-winning fashion website led by Nick Knight, one of the world's most influential fashion image-makers which is at Somerset House in London.

Our experience of fashion is changing. In these times of instant, digitally-fuelled information, the fashion image is no longer confined to the static world of the printed photograph. Today we are confronted with a dramatic new fashion universe, where photography, film, performance, music, art and technology combine to create an infinitely richer landscape.

Since launching nine years ago, Nick Knight's fashion website SHOWstudio.com has pioneered the most imaginative and exciting forms of fashion for the Internet. These have both informed and inspired the current fashion revolution. In championing the new medium of fashion film in particular, SHOWstudio.com has harnessed the potential of new technology and the Web to completely reinvent the fashion image and the way we experience it.

SHOWstudio.com collaborates with some of the most influential and acclaimed figures of contemporary fashion, including John Galliano, Kate Moss, Maison Martin Margiela, Comme des Garçons and Alexander McQueen. Alongside these established names, SHOWstudio.com has also supported and nurtured emerging talent, including Gareth Pugh, Louise Goldin, Marios Schwab and Rodarte, offering exciting new designers an important global platform for creative expression.

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What I have next for you is much more important and I really feel passionate about it. Sweatshops, child exploitation in developing countries because the Western World is asking for so much that they have to. The barrier between rich and poor is stretching further and further.

We love fashion. But the clothes we buy in the UK come at a terrible cost. Millions of workers around the world suffer poverty wages and exploitation, producing cheap fashion for our shops. This can’t go on. We have to demand a fashion industry that respects workers’ rights. Our government must act now to protect the people who make our clothes.

War on Want is leading the biggest ever call for the government to regulate companies and put an end to the exploitation of overseas workers. They are asking people to add their faces, names and voices to our campaign against sweatshops. Their aim is to have 50,000 people join our call for immediate government action. It’s an ambitious goal, but together we can bring an end to sweatshops.

War on Want’s research on the sweatshop conditions facing the workers who make our clothes has made front page news and attracted attention nationwide. Yet in spite of widespread awareness of the issue, it is not always clear what practical steps members of the UK public can take to end sweatshop labour abroad. Asking companies to regulate themselves hasn’t worked. Boycotts have only led to further job losses.

Real change can only be achieved through government regulation that protects the rights of workers supplying UK companies. War on Want is leading the biggest ever call to end the exploitation of workers. We are demanding that the government regulate the business practices of UK retailers to ensure that overseas workers are guaranteed a living wage, decent working conditions and the right to join a trade union. Gordon Brown must commit to government action. This is a big job – change won’t come overnight. But it’s also a necessary one. Together we can end the injustice of sweatshops, and ensure the dignity of workers everywhere.

Many of you may have watched BBC Three documentary Blood, Sweat & T-shirts in May 2008 where six young fashion lovers swap shopping with working in India's cotton fields and clothes factories. Stacey Dooley from that show has gone above and beyond to stop children in sweatshops and factories from being exploited and treated like slaves for less than 50p per day. She has here on show on BBC now, Stacey Investigates, which is available on BBC iPlayer which shows you the worse of the worse and it brought a tear to my eye. Children shouldn't be working like this in 2009, it is time to change.

Please sign up to the petition to let the Prime Minister know we want to know where are clothes are coming from and who is suffering for it? Child labor is wrong and it should be stopped, not just in fashion, but in all industries.


SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!

Here's a couple of clips....



3 comments:

  1. I love your blog and am so encouraged by your thoughtful, intelligent comments! I am always so happy to see students becoming engaged in this issue and your blog is one of the better ones! Thank you! Lisa

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  2. I hadn't heard about this show. I did a similar thing in 2007, but with no cameras. I eventually wrote a book about the experience.

    Anyhow, I think it's great that you are entering the industry asking these questions. You'll have a better chance to enact change from within.

    I watched the Nepal clip and while it's heartbreaking, I was disappointed the host didn't put things in context. The worst thing about child labor isn't that it exists, but that some children have to work to help feed their families.

    Child labor is a symptom of extreme poverty. Instead of figuring out how to keep children from making clothes, we should figure out how to help the child's family so they aren't in the position in which they have to have their child work.

    The industry needs work for sure, but folks much smarter than me believe that it can be a tool to lift people out of poverty.

    Anyhow, keep asking questions and good luck in school!

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  3. Hello! Thanks for supporting our Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops campaign! Your article on our campaign is brilliant and it is great to hear that fashion students like you (who are the future of fashion after all!) are blogging about these issues. Keep up the good work and please carry on blogging about our new actions, as it gives people a chance to make a real difference to the lives of workers who produce our clothes!

    Zoe from War on Want
    zlaw@waronwant.org

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