Racism and the Fashion Industry

D Sustainability Issue

English - June 22, 2020 01:31 - 18 hours - 33.3 MB
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Previous Episode: Episode 0 - The Why, How and What of D Sustainability Issue with Dessie Georgieva

Next Episode: Episode 2 - Marre Muijs, founder of ESSEN | Sustainable classic shoes with an edge + on-demand manufacturing to tackle fashion's huge waste problem

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

- Maya Angelou

In the past few weeks, one issue is shaking up the whole world - racism. The murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, an African-American man, by a white police officer triggered a strong rise in the #blacklivesmatter movement with hundreds of thousands of protesters against police brutality and systematic racism across the world.

In the context of that, and due to the so many ways in which racism is embedded in the fashion system as well, there was simply no was not to talk about it.

In this episode, we address 4 questions:

Why #blacklivesmatter is the right phrase?

Why now?

What does this have to do with the fashion industry?

What can I do to help?

Sources used:

US prisons statistics

Locked-In Profits: The U.S. Prison Industry, By the Numbers

Racism is at the heart of fast fashion – it's time for change

Primark and Matalan among retailers allegedly cancelling £2.4bn orders in ‘catastrophic’ move for Bangladesh

Does fashion have a cultural appropriation problem?

Reformation founder apologises for workplace racism