What is Fashion Revolution and which is its purpose

On April, 24th, 2020 we’ve attended a Masterclass held on Zoom by Marina Spadafora from Fashion Revolution. Do you know this brilliant organization?

Fashion Revolution is a global non-profit movement among the largest in the world, represented by The Fashion Revolution Foundation and Fashion Revolution CIC with groups in more than 100 countries around the world.

Fashion Revolution is the spokesperson for numerous campaigns to reform the industrial fashion system, in particular on the importance and necessity of greater transparency in the fashion supply chain.

Born in 2013, Fashion Revolution designated the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh as Fashion Revolution Day, during which special events are held every year on April 24th.

Between 2014 and 2020, millions of people around the world asked brands to answer the question “Who Made My Clothes?”.

The Fashion Revolution Masterclass

Marina Spadafora, national coordinator for Fashion Revolution Italia and expert in the sustainability area, in her Masterclass held via Zoom, and in live facebook on the Fashion Revolution Italia channel, gave an overview on the world of sustainability in the fashion industry contextualized in a more broad awareness project that Fashion Revolution has been carrying out since 2013.

A practical lesson understandable to anyone where she told in a few words what the pillars of sustainability are and then go into the specific world of fashion and present two practical tools to deepen the topic:

• a book written by her in collaboration with Luisa Ciuni;
• a new tool available to everyone on the Fashion Revolution Italia website to highlight all those stores that are making their real value of sustainability.

What we’ve brought home from the webinar

Ethical Fashion: when we describe something as ethical it means something morally right or morally acceptable.

Ethical fashion represents an approach to design, sourcing, manufacturing that maximizes benefits for people and communities while minimizing the impact on the environment.

Sustainability: a widely accepted definition of sustainability describes it as a way to meet the needs of the present that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own.

When we talk about sustainability we must always consider the different areas of impact and in this webinar three of them are analyzed: social, environmental and economic impact.

Social sustainability

Today between 60 and 70 million workers operate globally in the world of textiles, most of them earn around $ 3 a day, which is not acceptable.

Environmental sustainability

Minimizing the environmental impact of all business operations throughout the supply chain, creating and acting not only on the basis of opportunities to increase profits but at the same time to reduce impacts on the planet must be the joint goal.

Economic sustainability

However, we must not forget that solid financial and business models are needed because, otherwise, fashion would still have no reason to exist, but this must be pursued by following certain rules, precisely ethical rules.

What about practice?

In a beautiful mix of high-value content and practical actions (which have always distinguished Fashion Revolution), also in this case, a training masterclass is also accompanied by tools that can be used immediately.

Fashion Revolution Transparency Index 2020

A screening of 250 fashion brands that, more or less, make their data visible in transparency.

A huge job that allow to have a starting point, to understand the state of the art and be able to understand how to plan the next steps.

The Revolution Map

A map with green addresses in Italy, presented by Chiara Ferrero of the Fashion Revolution Italia team, a practical tool for consumers who want to make more responsible purchases.

The Revolution starts from your closet

“How do we dress? What clothes do we buy? It is never a neutral choice. And it can make a difference“.

Luisa Ciuni and Marina Spadafora help us in what is a journey … which includes every little step.

Thanks to the work and energies of these organizations we will perhaps be able to take steps forward in a direction that transforms the world of fashion into a regenerative business model, finally understanding that sustainability in fashion is not philanthropy but an imperative.