Fashion Revolution Week is Fashion Revolution’s annual campaign bringing together the world’s largest fashion activism movement for seven days of action.
Fashion Revolution was founded in 2013 in England by Carry Somers and Orsola de Castro. Fashion Revolution has since grown to become one of the world’s largest fashion activism movements, working to reach a vision of a global fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people over growth and profit. The no-profit organization focuses on solutions, such as promoting designers that embrace sustainable alternatives to fossil-fuel derived synthetic fabrics and developing policy mechanisms to incentivize ecological materials.
One of the organization’s most important initiative was Fashion Revolution Day, held in 2013 on the first anniversary of the Rana Plaza tragedy. This event honored the victims while reiterating the need for transparency and accountability from brands. They asked people to display the labels on their clothes and ask: “Who made my clothes?”. A question spawning a viral hashtag across social media. This year is especially significant, as it marks 10 years since the Rana Plaza tragedy.
The event has since evolved into the annual Fashion Revolution Week, which this year takes place from April 22 to 29, 2023. The theme for this year’s campaign is Manifesto for a Fashion Revolution. Fashion Revolution Week happens every year in the week coinciding with April 24, the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster. On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh collapsed in a preventable tragedy. More than 1,100 people died and another 2,500 were injured, making it the fourth largest industrial disaster in history. During Fashion Revolution Week, the manifest is #RememberingRanaPlaza, demanding that no one dies for fashion.
Fashion Revolution celebrates the progress made in the Bangladesh Ready-made Garment (RMG) sector by the Accord. The International Accord on Fire and Building Safety was the first legally-binding brand agreement on worker health and safety in the fashion industry and is the most important agreement to keep garment workers safe to date. This year, the organization pays tribute to the joint efforts of all Accord stakeholders who have significantly contributed to safer workplaces for over 2 million garment factory workers in Bangladesh, including the Bangladeshi trade unions representing garment workers, alongside Global Union Federations and labour rights groups. It welcomes the introduction of the Pakistan Accord and would like to see the adoption and success of the International Accord replicated in all garment producing countries.
Fashion Revolution believes there is no sustainable fashion without fair pay which is why it launched Good Clothes, Fair Pay as part of a wider coalition last July. The Good Clothes Fair Pay campaign demands living wage legislation at EU level for garment workers worldwide.
The annual Fashion Transparency Index, first launched in 2017, is one tool that Fashion Revolution has developed to help bring about systemic change in the industry through research, education and advocacy. The index ranks brands and retailers for their disclosures about policies, practices, impacts and progress. Since 2016 this index has influenced brands to disclose details on their supply chains and business practices. In 2022, 48% of 250 brands reviewed disclose their first tier manufacturing lists but only 4% of brands are disclosing whether their garment workers earn a living wage.
See 10-point manifesto and Global Events here
