“Last
week was Fashion Revolution Week – with Sunday 24 April marking three years
since 1,133 garment workers were killed and 2,500 injured, when the Rana Plaza
garment factory complex collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.”
So, you’ve gone vegan. You’ve invested in cruelty free
makeup brands. You’ve started transferring the rest of you household products
to ones that haven’t been tested on animals. But all the clothes you wear are
made in sweatshops where workers are paid in drivel in awful conditions for
prolonged hours. You want to start shopping for clothing ethically too but
Primark is so cheap, you have no time to browse the charity shops in search for
something that doesn’t smell like old people and there are so many trends that
you want to keep up with. You find yourself slipping in and out of thoughts
about wishing you could slot back into society and go back to being ignorant
about all of this injustice. You start to remember that ignorance felt oh so
bliss.
I’ve always stood by the firm belief that the first rule of
activism is self-care. For example, lets say you really want to go vegan but
you work full time as well as being a full time parent and you live half an
hour drive away from a superstore. You have to rely on corner shops that barely
stock vegetarian alternatives, let alone vegan. You need efficient meals for
your kids and to put it bluntly you’re bloody stressed.com. You may even have
added health issues that affect your diet. Despite all of this, vegans will
continue to insist that going vegan is cheaper. However, time equals money.
Therefore, if you don’t have the time, you don’t have the money. The added
pressure that everyone else can manage but you can’t is putting a strain on
your wellbeing. Stop. If you want to be a good activist, you have to put
yourself first if something is detrimental to your health.
Societal pressure also comes into the equation. First it was
the patriarchy, then it was capitalism, then you found out about the
normalisation of eating animals and now people are being forced into slave
labour just so you can look pretty in a skirt? It makes me angry. I want to
shout at everyone to stop and wake up to the atrocities of our world. But it
doesn’t matter how many times I slate the selfish and slate the ignorant; I
cannot force someone into something they don’t want to do. However, I can
educate.
I recently discovered the definition of a Reductarian. A
Reductarian is someone who is either intimidated by the all-or-nothing-ness of
a vegan diet or cannot transition due to other issues. Therefore, they simply
cut down on animal products, which, if you’re an avid meat eater is how you
would start your transition to veganism anyway. It took me 6 months to fully
transition and I was brought up with one vegetarian parent. I transitioned to
veganism using the first rule of activism: I prioritised my needs above
everything else.
I've embraced veganism but now I want to tackle my way through the
fashion industry. I will admit, I had no idea where to start and it wasn’t
until I went to an event in London run by Young Feminists London that I
discovered Birdsong; an ethical clothing company. Instead of actively going out
and seeking other alternatives, I was lucky the alternative came to me (this is
what I intend to achieve by writing this blogpost). I want to bring the
alternatives to other people because let’s face it, you’re probably not
thinking of the thousands of exploited people working their butts off day in
day out when you walk past Topshop and spot they have a 70% off sale. I too, am
guilty of this. And although you know there are ethical clothing companies out
there, they are all so expensive and you can’t help but prioritise the cheaper
alternatives.
To tackle this issue I want to take the same approach as
Reductarian’s take to veganism. Not because I’m intimidated by ethical shopping
but because I feel like it’s way more difficult and time-consuming to shop
ethically for clothing than it is for food. Veganism’s popularity is
ever-growing and I can easily access vegan food but I can’t buy an ethically
produced item of clothing in an everyday store. So, to start with, I want to
stop buying from big companies and support smaller businesses. I also want to
partake in regular activism surrounding mainstream fashion industries and eventually
I want to buy all my clothes from charity shops and ethical clothing companies.
I guess this blogpost is a political plea to say the demand for accessible,
inexpensive ethical clothing is here: please supply it.
I’ve devised a list of useful links below for anyone
interested in joining me in my pledge to partake in a Reductarian approach to
clothing:
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