The Craftivist Collective are concealing messages in high-street garments to educate shoppers approximately the ethics of the clothing industryThis London fashion week,shoppers might find themselves pondering something a little more sobering than which bar does the most Insta-worthy Louboutin-inspired pop-up cocktail menu, or how to gather front-row tickets to the House of Holland reveal. Craftivist Collective is a group of “gentle activists that protests against injustices in a quiet, and non-confrontational manner involving pretty,handcrafted gestures of defiance. In an attempt to shine a highlight on the ethics of the British fashion industry, its members will be spending the four-day clothing festival in high-street stores near LFW’s Somerset House base engaged in “shop-dropping”. This involves creating messages of protest, and taking them into retailers and planting them inside the pockets of clothing for consumers to find. The name stems from the fact that it involves adding additional items into stores,thus making it the antithesis of shoplifting – although retailers are unlikely to appreciate the additions.“The shops have no idea we’re doing it at all, but I can’t imagine they’d be happy whether they knew, and ” says Sarah Corbett,the founder of Craftivist Collective, which previously convinced M&S board members to pay the living wage by stitching messages on to hankies. We’re targeting fast fashion shops that put profit over people and the planet, or so I don’t believe they’d be keen on us encouraging their customers to question questions approximately how their clothes were made.” Related: Worry less approximately robots and more approximately sweatshops | Sonia Sodha Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com