Sparking a fashion revolution in the classroom.

This year has been a year of change and adventure for me, moving to Spain and teaching English w has been an experience topped with Paella and Tapas. Education is a true tool for change and I was fully aware of this going into the classroom, I wanted to inspire these children, and to help them challenge and think about things in a different way.

Fashion revolution (22nd-28th April) started after the Rana Plaza disaster on the 24th April 2013. The workers were forced to go to work, even after telling their bosses about the perturbing cracks growing in the infrastructure. Then the building collapsed killing 1,138 innocent people, mainly young women. This crisis is a physical symbol of some of the many issues and tragedies that are created by the clothing industry. This public outcry saw a response and so the fashion revolution was born in order to combat change. This global movement encourages people to ask the hard questions like ‘who made my clothes?’, demand for better – for more transparency within commodity chains and for the fashion production model to be reformed. 

To help people envisage the complex life of their commodities from the land, to the factory, to be dyed, to the shop and everywhere else in between. 75 million people are involved in this process and we are all connected to these people over space and time and therefore we have a responsibility to these people and to the planet, which this industry is reliant on. Environmental issues are rife throughout the clothing procedure, with it being the 2nd most polluting industry in the world. The current model produces a grotesque mass of clothing and our over-consumption carries on fuelling this process, so much so that clothing is seen as single use and ends up in landfills to be forgotten about. Our society revels in new purchases and advertising plays on people’s emotions to secure the next sale. Americans alone throw away around 14 million tonnes of garments every year. The figures are staggering as our throw away culture is in full force.

These unsustainable practices need a shift in mind set – to see old as the new new, to buy second hand, to appreciate the clothes we have and to be curious about what the footprint of our purchases are and who is affected by them. 

What we did -

Within the class-room we discussed these concepts through a presentation and interactive sessions - the children were asked to find the label on the clothes and call out where it was made. We drew up the countries making connections within the list - most being made in Asia. Then we talked about the conditions in some factories and how this could be the places in which our clothes were made - we talked about child labour, bad conditions, long hours, difficult work, straining work, dangerous chemicals and other conditions. After an animated discussion, the children shared their thoughts and ideas about how we could make everyday changes. These wonderful ideas were then crafted into activist posters about what they had learnt, mainly in English but some in Catalan and Spanish too.

The response from the children has been an inspiring one. Seeing them get excited about their fashion consumption is something to be proud of, seeing them running up to me in the corridors and telling me where their jumper was made from has shown me a curiosity for this movement which is what I had hoped to spark.