Detox Your Wardrobe with A Fashion Fast to Oppose Fast Fashion
The Six Items Challenge is a campaign by Labour Behind the Label that challenges participants to choose just six articles of clothing and wear these only for six weeks. The Fableists are taking part, so please join us!
The official challenge runs from 5 March to 17 April 2014 but Labour Behind the Label encourages participation at any time of year.
There are a few exceptions that are permitted. Your ‘6 items’ do not include any underwear, socks, shoes, accessories, performance or work-out clothes (cycling gear etc.), work uniforms (including suit, shirt, tie, or whatever is required by your employer), or pyjamas. If the season and climate require it, you can also pick one coat as an extra item. Work uniforms may also include a suit/white shirt etc., if this is required by your employer.
You can have fun with it and are encouraged to accessorise and mix and match as much as possible. The goal is to raise awareness of the dangers of fast fashion and shift the way that you think about your wardrobe and buying clothes.
What is ‘fast fashion’?
According to Labour Behind the Label:
Fast Fashion is a relatively new phenomenon where brands change their stock every 4 to 6 weeks to keep up with the very latest fashion trends, at a price which makes the clothes cheap and disposable.
Fast Fashion is the drive to increase profits and get products into our high street shops faster and faster, to satisfy an insatiable desire for new trends; the drive to sell more, consume more, make more, waste more. This drive has disastrous consequences for the people who make our clothes.
The Six Items Challenge is designed to challenge our increasing reliance on Fast Fashion.
Further to our Facebook posts from yesterday, Matt Cooper from The Fableists is leading the way and taking part as our team representative! As we’re starting almost a week late, Matt has pledged to take his challenge up until April 24th, the one year anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh.
We will post the 6 items that Matt has chosen on our blog over the coming days, as well as updates on how it’s going. How can you get involved?
- Sign up to participate in the challenge yourself at this link. Do not be afraid of failure. The end goal of this campaign is to raise awareness of issues that face garment workers as well as funds. It is also to change your reliance on fast fashion, so any shift in mentality where this is concerned is a win.
- Sponsor Matt in his efforts by visiting our fundraising page here. Every little helps, so please dig deep!
- Share our posts on FB, WordPress, twitter and Pinterest about the challenge to help spread the word about this great campaign.
- Visit Labour Behind the Label to find out more.
Where do the Funds Raised Go?
They go towards fighting for garment workers’ rights. The following is from Labour Behind the Label:
Garment workers don’t have the unlimited choices we have. £3, not much is it? The price of a sandwich, a copy of a fashion magazine or a cheap t-shirt in some of the UK’s leading high street stores. But this amount is double what many workers can earn in a day making clothes for the UK market.
The reality is that UK brands want more and more from their suppliers while giving less and less. Long hours, daily overtime, poverty wages and unstable job contracts all hamper basic needs such as buying food, healthcare, education and accommodation.
This is the norm for garment workers across the globe.
At Labour Behind the Label we don’t advocate boycotting brands as this often has a negative impact on workers, but we want consumption needs to slow down, the pressure on workers and the constant precariousness of jobs and wage levels needs to be addressed.
By exploring this issue through the Six Items Challenge and fundraising for Labour Behind the Label, you can play a vital part in contributing to the work we do in supporting real people in their struggle for better rights and working conditions.
Here is an idea of what your sponsorship can do:
£5 can help distribute materials to local groups for awareness raising meetings and events.
£10 can go towards conducting vital research into working conditions in factories around the world.
£20 can help respond to Urgent Appeals for intervention on behalf of workers in need.
£200 can cover the cost of meeting and lobbying companies and government bodies to legislate for better protection for supply chain workers.
£300 can print education resources to ensure schools and universities have access to global workers’ rights issues.
£500 can bring a garment worker to the UK to speak about their experiences and help lobby for change.
Get in involved and get in touch to tell us about what you are doing.
The Fableists
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