SHOPPERS HAVE the power to change the world, a gathering of Irish fashion designers in Dublin heard last night.
Speaking at the opening of Fashion Evolution, billed as Ireland's first ethical fashion week, UK fashion designer and environmental campaigner Katherine Hamnett, said: "The greatest cultural shift of the 20th century worldwide has been the rise in consumer concern over environmental and social problems.
"Pressure from consumers demanding ethical and environmental products . . . can effect change and this is happening right now. It's not a passing fad, but an enduring trend," she said.
The designer, who set up her own label in London in l979, which now sells in 700 outlets in over 40 countries, drew worldwide attention in 1984 when, at a reception in Downing Street hosted by prime minister Margaret Thatcher, she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan "58% don't want Pershing", a statistic drawn from a European opinion poll. "Thatcher responded by saying that 'We don't have Pershing, we have Cruise [ missiles] and you may be at the wrong party,' which I thought was rather rude of her," she recalled.
Since 1989, when Ms Hamnett discovered the environmental and social impact of the clothing and textile industry and "that it was causing more damage to the planet than almost any other", she has been a tireless campaigner for Fair Trade organic cotton.
"If farmers grow cotton organically they increase their revenue 50 per cent which enables them to feed themselves, school their children, afford healthcare and dig wells," she argued.
Ms Hamnett has facts and figures at her fingertips and is eloquent on subjects from British politics to sustainability, nuclear power and solar power. On the latter issues, she has organised speakers for the forthcoming Hay On Wye Literary Festival in June.
Today she works with big retailers like Tesco producing womenswear and menswear such as T-shirts and polo shirts selling for €6-8 "because I want volume. I have 50,000 farmers in Mali on a UN project who want to convert to organic which would represent 17,500 tonnes of ginned [ready for weaving] cotton". The difference in price for the consumer would be minimal, she says. "We can deliver sophisticated fashion at an affordable price and we have developed a roadmap for industry to follow.
"We have more power as consumers than as voters. Industry has to sell, but consumers don't have to buy. Is paying maybe 10 per cent more for clothes such a high price to pay for delivering hundreds of millions out of poverty?"