The Keep Boutique held the event to support Fashion Revolution Day
Brixton shop The Keep Boutique did their bit to support Fashion Revolution Day last week, taking part in the global campaign for more sustainable fashion sweeping the sartorial world.
Founded in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, in which 1133 workers died, the campaign aims to address ethics in fashion by encouraging consumers to wear clothes inside-out and ask: Who made your clothes?
The collapse shook the foundations of the fashion world and made many people begin to question just where their clothing was coming from, with fast fashion giants such as Zara, H&M and Primark coming under fire.
Kate Richards, owner and founder of The Keep Boutique, in Brixton Village, turned clothes inside out in her store to honour the initiative, and also held a late night opening with discounts for those who attended with their clothes reversed.
She said: “Having turned many of the clothes inside-out within the shop, I was able to have conversations with people who would otherwise not have heard about Fashion Revolution Day. As a result, the day was a great way to raise awareness.”
Ms Richards said that although the campaign is fundamentally important in creating a culture of ethical peer pressure among fashion lovers, there is still a long way to go until the fashion world is a fairer place.
“With modern technology, 24-hour media and globalisation, our desire for newness is stronger than ever,” she said.
“Similar to the food revolution, customers are only recently starting to think about where their clothes come from. However, because we don’t ingest them, the impact of dirty fashion, unlike dirty food is not so direct.”
The mass campaign targets consumers with a combination of events and participation via social media, using the hashtag #insideout, something that Ms Richards thinks is vital.
She said: “In the case of Fashion Revolution Day, it was the combination of individual events, and a huge social media buzz that generated one very loud call for change amongst a disparate community.”
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