KATHERINE HAMNETT CAUSES A COMMOTION AT PURE LONDON

Activist and icon, Katharine Hamnett CBE created a stampede for her infamous Second Referendum Now and Fashion Hates Brexit slogan t-shirts as she gave them away for free to the audience after her talk at Pure London today. Katharine took to the main stage at Pure London today and called out Government, policy makers, and big businesses for being complicit in the poverty of millions of farmers worldwide. Her solution…to insist on the same standard for all products created outside the EU as inside, and to reinvent British manufacturing.

“In the 1980s no-one knew there was anything wrong with the fashion industry. That has changed now, a lot of brands are changing, but a lot aren’t. Brands are unwilling because it puts up their costs. But consumer power is forcing the issue now. My overall solution is to insist on the same standards from goods outside the EU as the standards set inside the EU or they aren’t allowed in. It would create a level playing field, help clean up the environment, would mean the same health and safety and labour standards and also make the EU more competitive.”

She added that more needs to be done to re-industrialise the UK citing that our natural resources, renewable energy and embracing new technology could make Britain great again.

“We can start again as a manufacturing country. We need to start from scratch but doing it completely sustainably, change the old business model and unnecessary profit making. But this has to come from the top, it is the responsibility of the CEO’s and boards of directors to make the changes. And we need to activate trade unions for the clothing industry. Businesses need to be arm-wrestled by legislation, we’ve had 30 years of choice and now we need laws.”

Katharine’s talked closed day one of London’s largest festival fashion which saw the launch of the Conscious Fashion Campaign installation from the UN Office for Partnerships and the continuation of Pure London’s growing Power of One movement to drive individual actions to achieve collective change in the fashion industry.