Parliament has failed us, now it’s time to build the vision of fashion we want ourselves

This week the biggest ever inquiry into the UK fashion industry was tabled by Parliament. Presenting wide-ranging and key recommendations for policies and legislation to end fast fashion (one of the world’s biggest industry contributors to climate change). Ministers rejected EVERY SINGLE RECOMMENDATION made by Fixing Fast Fashion Report: Clothing Consumption and Sustainability.

Conducted by the Environmental Audit Committee, the report cites startling truths on overconsumption including that, come 2050, almost three planets will be required to resource current lifestyles.

The government’s passivity of the urgency for change has sent shockwaves through the public, environmental activists and fashion designers. Ministers’ rejection of the report’s direct and tangible solutions to the fashion industry’s prolonged damage to the environment is especially startling as just last month, Parliament declared a state of climate emergency.

The report evidences urgent need for fast-acting, top-level action to tackle the current system’s environmental destruction and to clean up dire working conditions. Its recommendations to appease throwaway culture include a 1p garment tax. It also promotes a sociocultural shift by encouraging clothing design and mending lessons in schools and tax incentives for repair services.

The facts are unavoidable and they are sinister. It’s critical that prompt action is taken to regulate fashion’s contribution to climate damage. Producers must slow down and stop producing. A move, of course, that requires legislation and policy change enforceable by the government.

Parliament’s refusal to legislate towards positive cultural and environmental change confirms the uncertainty of the period we’re in. It is also a crucial turning point in history for us to reclaim our power and devise empowering new alternatives.

“By 2050 the equivalent of almost three planets could be required to provide the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles” says the UN.

This rejection certifies loud and clear that the government as an institution is not fit for service in a just and equal society that people are calling for. This indifference illuminates the institution’s archaic, rigid structure as obsolete in times where people are demanding more and better for our lives.

Supported by critical movements like the Women’s March and Extinction Rebellion, we are shaping new parameters for the world we want to live in. That requires models founded on agility, adaptability, responsiveness and compassion (AKA antonyms for the current state of UK Parliament). As a society that wants more, we are outgrowing the function that this government can serve.

This inaction serves as a mirror reflecting back to us where our collective power has long been absorbed in this out-of-touch institution – sustaining class difference, healthcare cuts and social divisions whilst funding £80,000 salaries for its MPS.

Beating on Parliament’s door is not working because Ministers and MPs don’t want to hear us. Stepping forward, we must channel angst into action and create the vision of the future we want. No one person can take on the entire epidemic of climate change, but we must recognise our responsibility to do our bit, wise-up, recognise our own power and act on it.

That requires a considerable perspective shift, redefining where our power lies and initiating new solutions – solutions that do not rely on winning the attention of unconcerned Ministers and MPs. It means focusing on the mass empowerment and emancipation of the UK’s citizens by recognising that the power is with us, not them.

Sans government, how can we step forward with determination and resolve to create positive, radical social and cultural change?

Money and technology. Whilst these commonly evoke cautious reactions, a paradigm shift from defensiveness to opportunity thinking could be the answer to reshaping fashion.

Embracing our capital power in a consumer-led society, we can initiate change through the way we spend. Money, regardless of how much we think we have, is a form of power, and reframing the act of spending and consumption is a positive force. Every pound we spend is a choice that creates the world we want to live in. Becoming conscious of this, we can cut off the power supply of fashion’s worst offenders forcing brands to either adapt to our demand or dissolve.

“Every time you spend money you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” says Anna Lappe

In addition, at the rate of technological advancements, dominant power is moving from the hands of the traditional lawmakers and into the hands of the app-makers. Instant communication allows for global awareness-raising, birthing ‘clicktivism’ – the means through which anti-Trump protest marches were organised to take place simultaneously across the world. It allows for global networking and faster inspiration, creativity and creation for problem-solving through inventions, knowledge and environmental solutions.

Searching for solutions to fast fashion, legislation, education, media, brands and consumers all entwine in a messy and complex web of a globalised landscape. The government is continuing to fail us as citizens and its unwillingness to fix fashion could be the catalyst needed to spur a radical paradigm and culture shift.

Author: Holly C. Campbell

Holly-Campbell@live.co.uk