swapbradford-blog

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The extreme cost of working in stressful conditions without proper care

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Here’s the finished zine made for the residency. Really pleased with it! Next job is to make a hard copy.

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Intro to SwapBradford

This is written as the introduction to a zine I’m putting together about the residency. Any feedback is welcome!

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SwapBradford

As a woman in her late 30’s living in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, there’s a big part of me who is horrified by the human and environmental cost of the fashion and textile industry and desperately drum beats in an effort to change the system. In the same moment I despairingly look at the complexity of this system, how unimaginably difficult that seems and want to unlearn everything about Rana Plaza, the yearly estimated 350k tonnes of usable clothing becoming landfill in the UK, carcinogenic synthetic dyes and pesticides and their over-reliance on oil, bury my head in the nearest H&M and buy something to make me feel better.

Right that’s all a bit flippant isn’t it, but the reality is we’re in the shit as far as clothing goes, and maybe my overarching message is; what is actually gained by a bulging wardrobe? People are dying (actually dying, not to mention being permanently disabled and globally economically exploited, I’m including all you ‘fashionistas’ here) and our environment is suffering as a result of the cynical and manipulative culture of the fashion industry. As SwapBradford I’m trying to find a balance, trying to unpick the reasons and affect a change. But it’s complex - stop buying ‘fast fashion’ and the global industry collapses, plunging millions of workers and whole economies into recession. Keep supporting this industry and people and the environment continue to be brutally exploited; a full time garment worker receiving the living wage in Bangladesh will only meet 60% of their needs if they live in slum conditions, in China whole rivers run red as a result of chemical dyes leeching into the ecosystem.

So what’s the answer? Can we have our LBD and wear it?

So around 8 years ago I decided I couldn’t keep investing in this system, I couldn’t bear the thought I was continuing to buy into an unchecked culture of mass exploitation and environmental destruction. I made a decision not to buy any clothes that hadn’t come from a reclaimed or recycled source or that couldn’t be transparently tracked from seed to dye to production, sales and the whole supply chain was committed to sustainability and fair-trade. I’m not that rich or have that much free time to research every item of clothing. So I organised swaps, lots of swaps and at all levels tried to keep clothes at least out of landfill. I only had one rule, if it doesn’t fit you can’t have it. Just because the garment was seen as free it doesn’t mean there isn’t a responsibility to care for it as if it was a high fashion couture piece.

When the opportunity to respond to 23:57 at Fuse came up, I wanted to invite people to think about different aspects of their clothing and actively question our relationship to the culture of the garment industry. Conscious of pushing a particular agenda, the residency was playful, with curiosity at it’s core. Included were ways to be involved in global campaigns who pressure manufacturers to be transparent about their garment workers, take responsibility for paying living wages and ensuring people’s working conditions are safe. see #WhoMadeMyClothes

We live in a culture where we’re trained to rejoice in clothing bargains, but not ask questions about why items are so cheap. The reality is clothes are cheap because the people who make them are paid very little. The alternative is buying clothes with a fair-trade standard by sourcing directly from independent designer/makers or buying garments which carry the international fair-trade mark, guaranteeing the worker a fair wage for their labour. Both of these choices, by high-street standards, are hard to come by and, as an expensive option, are at odds with the culture of a chameleonic ‘look’ that we’re urged to strive for. This can make for a complex set of consumer decisions, which by and large are unfulfilled by the high street.

The residency has made me for the first time look more closely at the materials and fabrics our clothes are made from, and the environmental impact of base material and manufacturing techniques. For instance cotton farming uses 22.5% of the world’s insecticides and 10% of all pesticides. Some synthetic fabrics are made with petroleum, a non sustainable source of material, and with the COP21 agreement will (should) be off the table by 2050. Bamboo is processed using a large volume of water and chemicals to bind it in order to make it into a usable fabric. Currently there are no perfect solutions, but there are a number of ‘good fits’.

There is a danger of becoming burdened with statistics, missing the point of the project. SwapBradford and the workshops were planned so visitors could engage with it at different levels. I’m interested in people’s relationship with their clothes, and how this can be used to think about the global impact of the garment industry, become involved with campaigns which address the inequalities in the garment and textile industry and to explore and share the alternatives to the treadmill of fast fashion.

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Being a completely un christmasy person (I’m only dimly aware that Christmas is next week) this kind of thing totally passes me by. However reading through the WRAP website, which has become my new favourite place on the internet, this seems like a great idea and theres now the very real possibility my parents will be forced into christmas jumpers

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SwapBradford Residency

a MASSIVE thank you to everybody who came along and participated in the residency, offered ideas, solutions, questions, clothes, workshops, discussions and the rest!

Your input made the project so thank you!

Next will be putting the zine together, planning more swaps in the future and continuing to post up onto this blog.

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Take a read of the WRAP UK report on the use of clothing in the UK providing the first big picture look at the financial and environmental impacts of clothing. ‘Valuing our clothes’ is a summary of the key findings of a major piece of research including evidence from a new survey of consumer behaviour of almost 8′000 people. 

The report highlights that changes to the way the UK supplies, uses and disposes of clothing could: reduce the carbon, water and waste footprints of clothing by 10-20% each; and cut £3 billion per year from the cost of resources used in making and cleaning clothes.

The report sets out opportunities for the clothing sector from major retailers to manufacturers to reduce the impact of clothing – and gain business benefits from doing so.

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Angelina in her new Cardigan as well

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Angelina in her new silver waistcoat

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Deb has swapped a bag of clothes for this green dress. "I'm not a shopper ,I'm a swapper"

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Yvonne with her new hand made bags

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Kiran has re-used some “Dorothy” fabric to hand make a bag

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Alex has restyled this shirt by taking off the sleeves.

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Terry weaving on the door

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Kay ,who brought us in a big bag of unwanted clothes swapped them for a beautiful blue coat

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The fantastic dyeing workshop looking at natural and synthetic dyes with Richard from The Colour Experience. Richard introduced us to objects from the Society of Dyers and Colourists archive which have been traditionally used to dye clothes including indigo, woad and cochineal, only the female bugs are used when making this rich red dye. Then we used different dyestuffs commonly found in your kitchen; coffee, turmeric, henna and tea to colour fabric. The fabric has been woven fromsix different materials including cotton, wool, linnen and rayon, to show how dyes take to different fabrics

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Brand new bags made from re used off cuts of fabric from "Dorothy" costumes