[Music]
thank you so one of the things I heard
this morning is that there’s a very fine
line between craziness and courage I’m a
55 year old badly dressed man talking to
you today about fashion I think that
puts me firmly in the bracket of courage
so I’m going to start with a question to
you all I’m sure many of you go sort of
shopping at the weekends to Primark hmm
you know Zara and you know you buy great
fashionable clothing incredibly cheaply
for wearing so the question I’m going to
ask is this it’s fast fashion a good
thing or not so I’d like to see a show
of hands who here thinks that fast
fashion is a good thing
this was not what I was expecting
who thinks it’s a bad thing that’s
interesting because we’re addicted to
fast fashion in fact people think that
the number of clothes we we buy will
grow by around 60% in the net by 2030
and what’s not to like about the
industry it sells itself on style
creativity beauty glamour it contributes
and in almost twenty three billion
pounds to the UK economy and it employs
800,000 people it’s a way of living for
many of us and it’s something that’s
part of our mainstream but sometimes
courage is about questioning industries
such as this sometimes courage is asking
the questions the industries like this
don’t want you to ask so let’s have a
look at the flip side of the industry
let’s have a think about what’s the
social environmental impacts of getting
these cheap clothes onto our high street
and sometimes
these implications are harsh in April
2013 the Rana Plaza factory in
Bangladesh garment factory collapsed
1000 garment workers were were killed
and two and a half thousand were injured
they were making clothes that are ending
up in our high street and unfortunately
the situation hasn’t really improved
since then in fact a recent survey found
that 50% of garment workers are not paid
the minimum wage and actually the
discrimination against women garment
workers is even higher and it’s not just
the social impacts the fashion industry
is believed to be the fourth most
polluting industry in the world the
fourth most polluting it creates carbon
dioxide emissions carbon dioxide’s leads
to climate change and we’ve seen what
the horrific impacts of climate change
can be through the recent storms in the
Caribbean the Hurricanes in and America
the amount of carbon that the industry
will create in a year by 2030 will be
the equivalent of driving 230 million
cars on the road and it’s not just the
carbon it creates it also creates a lot
of waste
so only 20% of the clothing though that
we get through gets recycled much of the
rest is dumped into African markets that
harms their economy and it stops any
chance of them developing their own
industries because it’s clothing that’s
just dumped on them so my contention is
that the environmental and social damage
that this industry is causing is quite
significant so the questions got to be
is it worth it so the average woman in
the UK spends 768 pounds a year on
clothing that’s around sixty four pounds
a month most bits of clothing are only
won seven times and then they’re not
worn again in fact somebody recently
worked out that there’s 30 billion
pounds worth of clothing 30 billion
pounds of clothing sitting in our
wardrobes that has
being bought worn for a year so does
buying this stuff make us happier
well survey after survey after survey
suggests we’re scratching an itch but
it’s not improving our happiness in fact
there was a recent survey in the US
which found that 1 in 10 women when they
opened their wardrobe actually feel more
depressed when they look at their
clothes because they don’t think they’re
sufficiently fashionable so what I’ve
been doing in the past 3 years with the
new charity I’ve created it’s trying to
question the industry and to find
alternatives but I don’t want to be doom
and gloom about it I don’t say you can’t
buy this you shouldn’t do this we all
deserve a fulfilling enriched lives but
can we do it in a way which doesn’t
trash the environment and what’s amazed
me is that if you go out there with a
bold statement if you go and challenge
the norm but if you do it in a really
positive way you can build an amazing
organization so I’ve been running hubbub
for 3 years I started with 25,000 pounds
this year the organization’s had a
turnover of one and a half million
pounds purely because we have a set of
principles that go out to challenge the
norm and on fashion I think there’s
something that all of us can do when we
go shopping and in our everyday lives
that will change the normal will
challenge this industry and that might
be a courageous thing to do on a very
small scale but I think it’s an
important thing to do so I’ve got five
ideas for how we can start to challenge
the fast fashion industry the first one
is to pause before you buy anything do
you really need that piece of clothing
is it something that is going to really
enrich your lives and what’s what’s the
backstory to that it’s better clothing
and this was done brilliantly in Berlin
this is a picture of a vending machine
in Berlin and it says have a t-shirt
there are only two euros lovely white
t-shirt two euros put the money into the
vending machine and then if you do that
it says oh hi a minute just watch this
film and the film tells the backstory
behind it of the t-shirt that was made
in Bangladesh the working conditions and
you know the amount of chemicals and
water that was used to create that
t-shirt and then it says do you really
want to buy the t-shirt and it’s amazing
the number of people who decided to
need their 2 euros to helping the
garment workers rather than to buy the
t-shirt it’s a great way of pausing and
getting people to think before they buy
the second thing I think we should do is
challenge so there’s this thing called
Black Friday which has been dumped onto
the UK economy from the US which
basically encouraged us to spend money
we don’t have on stuff we don’t want so
we went to a whole lot of universities
and said let’s challenge Black Friday
let’s have bright Friday let’s do
everything we possibly can to enjoy our
lives volunteering meeting with friends
other than going having a fight over
t-shirt in Primark and we’ve got
students to create a magazine which
basically shown the lights and the
absurdity of some of the things that the
fashion magazines are selling us so you
know can you buy happiness no you can’t
and we got them to come up with loads of
brilliant ideas about things that might
happen if the fashion industry gets
faster and faster and faster so the one
I liked best was a new company called
deliver shoe which basically delivers
you shoes whenever you want them and you
know this could be a whole new way of
taking fast fashion to an extreme level
so the second thing is challenge the
industry the third thing is is gain new
skills regain lost skills you know
clothing can be up cycled it can be
personalized it can be made to look
fantastic you just have to learn some
new skills to do that so you know we
want increasing number of workshops
about upskilling and re-skilling
bringing mainly women together to learn
new skills that makes their clothing go
further and then they’re sharing you
know there’s lots of events called
swishing or sharing where basically you
can recycle or move around clothes that
you perhaps no longer want but somebody
else might find it really interesting
we’re doing a campaign at Halloween
called so spooky scw spooky which is
about halloween outfit so run buying a
Halloween outfit
why not swap and share what’s what other
people have got saving you money and
saving the environment and we’ve run a
campaign with Mothercare called gift a
bundle where we get mums together who’ve
got beautiful outgrow
baby clothing in their wardrobes they
get together with other mums they create
beautiful gift bags they take them to
mother care and then at Mother’s Day
they become a gift from a mother to
another handing out to those families
who need those clothes more so sharing
is a really important part of the
circular economy and finally make the
most of your money big business is
actually starting to move in the right
direction so this is a dress from H&M
can anybody guess what it’s made of it’s
recycled ocean plastic they fished
plastics from the ocean and they created
this amazing dress they spend millions
every year looking at what are the
materials that we’re going to be wearing
in the future so they’ve got some
material they’re making out of citrus
peel lemon and orange peel it actually
makes a beautiful material so they’re
looking at ways to find new materials
which are not so environmentally
damaging they’re also hmm
the biggest spender in the world on
organic cotton so there are certain
companies and I could name a few others
in the fast fashion industry that are
making the right steps and I think when
you do go and you spend your money think
about where that money can be spent this
sends a really strong message to the
fashion industry that that people do
care about this and this is important
for sort of the future of our
environment and also for the well-being
of garment makers across the world so I
was going to ask have you changed your
mind but I hadn’t got a lot to go on
because basically all of you were
agreeing with in the first place but
what I hope is that what I’ve shown you
is that there is a different way to
think about fashion that we need to
think about the environmental and social
impacts of the fashion industry that
sometimes it takes courage to question
the mainstream but it also takes courage
on a very small step to think about
daily habits daily routines shopping
patterns things you do in your everyday
life so courage can be at a very small
level but if we all do it together many
of us it will send a stark message which
can transform a bigger industry thank
you
[Applause]
[Music]
thank you so one of the things I heard
this morning is that there’s a very fine
line between craziness and courage I’m a
55 year old badly dressed man talking to
you today about fashion I think that
puts me firmly in the bracket of courage
so I’m going to start with a question to
you all I’m sure many of you go sort of
shopping at the weekends to Primark hmm
you know Zara and you know you buy great
fashionable clothing incredibly cheaply
for wearing so the question I’m going to
ask is this it’s fast fashion a good
thing or not so I’d like to see a show
of hands who here thinks that fast
fashion is a good thing
this was not what I was expecting
who thinks it’s a bad thing that’s
interesting because we’re addicted to
fast fashion in fact people think that
the number of clothes we we buy will
grow by around 60% in the net by 2030
and what’s not to like about the
industry it sells itself on style
creativity beauty glamour it contributes
and in almost twenty three billion
pounds to the UK economy and it employs
800,000 people it’s a way of living for
many of us and it’s something that’s
part of our mainstream but sometimes
courage is about questioning industries
such as this sometimes courage is asking
the questions the industries like this
don’t want you to ask so let’s have a
look at the flip side of the industry
let’s have a think about what’s the
social environmental impacts of getting
these cheap clothes onto our high street
and sometimes
these implications are harsh in April
2013 the Rana Plaza factory in
Bangladesh garment factory collapsed
1000 garment workers were were killed
and two and a half thousand were injured
they were making clothes that are ending
up in our high street and unfortunately
the situation hasn’t really improved
since then in fact a recent survey found
that 50% of garment workers are not paid
the minimum wage and actually the
discrimination against women garment
workers is even higher and it’s not just
the social impacts the fashion industry
is believed to be the fourth most
polluting industry in the world the
fourth most polluting it creates carbon
dioxide emissions carbon dioxide’s leads
to climate change and we’ve seen what
the horrific impacts of climate change
can be through the recent storms in the
Caribbean the Hurricanes in and America
the amount of carbon that the industry
will create in a year by 2030 will be
the equivalent of driving 230 million
cars on the road and it’s not just the
carbon it creates it also creates a lot
of waste
so only 20% of the clothing though that
we get through gets recycled much of the
rest is dumped into African markets that
harms their economy and it stops any
chance of them developing their own
industries because it’s clothing that’s
just dumped on them so my contention is
that the environmental and social damage
that this industry is causing is quite
significant so the questions got to be
is it worth it so the average woman in
the UK spends 768 pounds a year on
clothing that’s around sixty four pounds
a month most bits of clothing are only
won seven times and then they’re not
worn again in fact somebody recently
worked out that there’s 30 billion
pounds worth of clothing 30 billion
pounds of clothing sitting in our
wardrobes that has
being bought worn for a year so does
buying this stuff make us happier
well survey after survey after survey
suggests we’re scratching an itch but
it’s not improving our happiness in fact
there was a recent survey in the US
which found that 1 in 10 women when they
opened their wardrobe actually feel more
depressed when they look at their
clothes because they don’t think they’re
sufficiently fashionable so what I’ve
been doing in the past 3 years with the
new charity I’ve created it’s trying to
question the industry and to find
alternatives but I don’t want to be doom
and gloom about it I don’t say you can’t
buy this you shouldn’t do this we all
deserve a fulfilling enriched lives but
can we do it in a way which doesn’t
trash the environment and what’s amazed
me is that if you go out there with a
bold statement if you go and challenge
the norm but if you do it in a really
positive way you can build an amazing
organization so I’ve been running hubbub
for 3 years I started with 25,000 pounds
this year the organization’s had a
turnover of one and a half million
pounds purely because we have a set of
principles that go out to challenge the
norm and on fashion I think there’s
something that all of us can do when we
go shopping and in our everyday lives
that will change the normal will
challenge this industry and that might
be a courageous thing to do on a very
small scale but I think it’s an
important thing to do so I’ve got five
ideas for how we can start to challenge
the fast fashion industry the first one
is to pause before you buy anything do
you really need that piece of clothing
is it something that is going to really
enrich your lives and what’s what’s the
backstory to that it’s better clothing
and this was done brilliantly in Berlin
this is a picture of a vending machine
in Berlin and it says have a t-shirt
there are only two euros lovely white
t-shirt two euros put the money into the
vending machine and then if you do that
it says oh hi a minute just watch this
film and the film tells the backstory
behind it of the t-shirt that was made
in Bangladesh the working conditions and
you know the amount of chemicals and
water that was used to create that
t-shirt and then it says do you really
want to buy the t-shirt and it’s amazing
the number of people who decided to
need their 2 euros to helping the
garment workers rather than to buy the
t-shirt it’s a great way of pausing and
getting people to think before they buy
the second thing I think we should do is
challenge so there’s this thing called
Black Friday which has been dumped onto
the UK economy from the US which
basically encouraged us to spend money
we don’t have on stuff we don’t want so
we went to a whole lot of universities
and said let’s challenge Black Friday
let’s have bright Friday let’s do
everything we possibly can to enjoy our
lives volunteering meeting with friends
other than going having a fight over
t-shirt in Primark and we’ve got
students to create a magazine which
basically shown the lights and the
absurdity of some of the things that the
fashion magazines are selling us so you
know can you buy happiness no you can’t
and we got them to come up with loads of
brilliant ideas about things that might
happen if the fashion industry gets
faster and faster and faster so the one
I liked best was a new company called
deliver shoe which basically delivers
you shoes whenever you want them and you
know this could be a whole new way of
taking fast fashion to an extreme level
so the second thing is challenge the
industry the third thing is is gain new
skills regain lost skills you know
clothing can be up cycled it can be
personalized it can be made to look
fantastic you just have to learn some
new skills to do that so you know we
want increasing number of workshops
about upskilling and re-skilling
bringing mainly women together to learn
new skills that makes their clothing go
further and then they’re sharing you
know there’s lots of events called
swishing or sharing where basically you
can recycle or move around clothes that
you perhaps no longer want but somebody
else might find it really interesting
we’re doing a campaign at Halloween
called so spooky scw spooky which is
about halloween outfit so run buying a
Halloween outfit
why not swap and share what’s what other
people have got saving you money and
saving the environment and we’ve run a
campaign with Mothercare called gift a
bundle where we get mums together who’ve
got beautiful outgrow
baby clothing in their wardrobes they
get together with other mums they create
beautiful gift bags they take them to
mother care and then at Mother’s Day
they become a gift from a mother to
another handing out to those families
who need those clothes more so sharing
is a really important part of the
circular economy and finally make the
most of your money big business is
actually starting to move in the right
direction so this is a dress from H&M
can anybody guess what it’s made of it’s
recycled ocean plastic they fished
plastics from the ocean and they created
this amazing dress they spend millions
every year looking at what are the
materials that we’re going to be wearing
in the future so they’ve got some
material they’re making out of citrus
peel lemon and orange peel it actually
makes a beautiful material so they’re
looking at ways to find new materials
which are not so environmentally
damaging they’re also hmm
the biggest spender in the world on
organic cotton so there are certain
companies and I could name a few others
in the fast fashion industry that are
making the right steps and I think when
you do go and you spend your money think
about where that money can be spent this
sends a really strong message to the
fashion industry that that people do
care about this and this is important
for sort of the future of our
environment and also for the well-being
of garment makers across the world so I
was going to ask have you changed your
mind but I hadn’t got a lot to go on
because basically all of you were
agreeing with in the first place but
what I hope is that what I’ve shown you
is that there is a different way to
think about fashion that we need to
think about the environmental and social
impacts of the fashion industry that
sometimes it takes courage to question
the mainstream but it also takes courage
on a very small step to think about
daily habits daily routines shopping
patterns things you do in your everyday
life so courage can be at a very small
level but if we all do it together many
of us it will send a stark message which
can transform a bigger industry thank
you
[Applause]
[Music]
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