There are events that change our world and people who take those events and
use them to awaken our conciousness further. Carry is one of those people who
did that. After the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013 she could see what needed and
could be done to remind us of those who died making our clothes and to champion
and keep safe those who still do.
I first met Carry at the Fashion Revolution anniversary
day on the 24th of April 2014. I had asked Dolly Jones the then online
editor at Vogue (now Chief Content Officer at Eco Age) if I could go shoot a
street style gallery around the day, she was in full agreement. I met both
Carry and Orsola that week at various events. When I started photographing my
Inspirational Women I knew I would love to photograph them and tell their stories. Time passes, quickly or slowly where ever you
are in life or circumstances you find yourself in and suddenly it was 2019 before
our paths crossed again. Perfect timing really in a way. During the convening years
Carry with Fashion Revolution has built so
much further on that first year. Fashion Revolution is now a global powerhouse.
Championing the people globally who make our clothes or grow the materials that
make them. Their continued quest for transparency within the fashion industry
to come clean, in every sense, with their production practices. As with all my wonderful
Inspirational Women Carry has had a very full and colourful career. Enjoy her
story as much as I do bringing it to you.
D: I like to ask about the past before we come into the now and
then ask about the future. As I am interested in the formative years, did you
have an interest in fashion when you were young?
C: I wouldn’t say fashion per say I certainly never had any money
to buy fashion, I loved going to jumble sales and living in Devon there were a
lot of old people with nice clothes, so really enjoyed going to those. I once got
an amazing Chanel suit that I somehow gave back to a jumble sale as I thought
at the time, I was never going to wear it because it was brown and now of
course I kick myself. So, lots of sort of jumble sale and vintage shops that’s
where most of my clothes came from. I certainly had my own style, but I
wouldn’t say I was particularly interested in fashion.
D: In school what did you study? Were you interested in art and
that side of things?
C: I was but you could do either Art or Spanish and I wanted
Spanish so I had to give up Art and actually hadn’t really picked up any
drawing materials until a couple of years ago when I took up drawing still life’s
which I have been loving. I always knew I had drawing and painting as both my
grandparents were artists, so I always knew there was that creative side. It
just hasn’t been through any sort of academic process. I was always good a
languages but I never really knew what else to do. I always had a real interest
in Latin America and the cultures of Latin America from a really early age. I
remember asking for a book, a picture book about the Incas I was really quite
young, so there was something from an early age that caught my fascination
about Peru in particular.
D: Do you think
fairness and fair trade was in your DNA as a child? What where your influences,
Family, friends?
C: Definitely there was a real sense of fairness and justice and I
am sure that came from my parents as well so I definitely think there was a
real strong sense. I don’t think it’s what they did so much, my father was an
accountant, my mother worked in a printers doing some of the graphic design and
set up her own play group. They were very involved in the local church I don’t
know I think it was just sort of the way of life and the culture. I was brought
up learning about people from different parts of the world. Definitely a sense
of what was right and wrong and justice. I think I have taken it a lot further
than my parents. I remember being out on the streets in support of CND, the Nicaragua
solidarity campaign, no grants no chance, this was when I was 15, 16, 17 and I
think part of it was I was in a hippish crowd so we were all maybe a bit more
inspired by the 60’s as that was quite a revolutionary time as well. Not
politically active but a bit more socially engaged, maybe than a lot of people
around that time who were - you know
late 70’s early 80’s stuff, quite a superficial culture, I definitely hung out
with people who were more socially engaged.
D: Did you go to University?
C: Yes, I went to University and studied modern languages. I then
went on to do a masters in Native American studies. Which if anyone had told me
a school you could study anthropology, I absolutely would have studied anthropology,
no careers guidance no ideas about anything like that existed at the time or that completely
would have been the route I’d have taken. So that was why my masters was in
Native American Studies and I loved that. I was going to do a PhD. I had full
funding for the tutorial, accommodation, living expenses and then Pachacuti got
in the way.
Carry is the founder of Pachacuti and is still a director in the
company. Pachacuti is a gorgeous Fair Trade Panama Hat company. They have a
totally transparent supply chain, they have GPS co-ordinates to each of theirweavers houses. They can also trace the straw their hats are made from to the
communities in Ecuador who grow and harvest it for them. They do this “in order
to guarantee the highest social and environmental conditions throughout its
supply chain”.
D: From 1992 until 2013 you created and grew Pachacuti. At what
point after Fashion Revolution started did you know you had to hand it over to
your husband to continue? Was it hard to give it up?
C: It wasn’t hard at all to give it up. I was really ready to give
it up. It was definitely the December, December 2014 and we were just about to
get some of our first grant funding. I funded Fashion Revolution for the 1st
year, I gave it a £5,000 loan. That was all we had to do our 1st
year, photo shoot with Trevor Leighton, everything that whole global activism
was on £5,000. So I reckon it was December 2014 and I remember my husband
asking “how many days a week can you give to Pachacuti next year?” and I was
like, I think I said a day a month and its not even that. The work I was doing on Fashion Revolution
was completely full time and I was working really long weeks. I guess all the
way through until Christmas when Stevie, who is the accountant, joined us, she
really took a lot of pressure off me. It made a big difference.
D: Sienna is your only daughter and she is now working alongside
you in Fashion revolution. Is she working in Pachacuti too?
C: Not in Pachacuti anymore. She used to model for Pachacuti, we
used her in photoshoots a lot. She is now working in the policy side of Fashion
Revolution with Sarah Ditty our head of policy. At the moment she is working on
the research for our white paper which will be coming out at the beginning of
December. She does the research for the Fashion Transparency Index every year,
along with other researchers. One of the main projects that she is working on
at the moment is Policy Dialogue Toolkits which are in conjunction with the
British Council. So were working on the pilot phase, we choose two country
co-ordinators every year. Last year we had India and the Philippines
this year its Kenya and Rwanda
and they can choose a topic either social or environmental whichever is really
pertinent in their country. Its then bringing together different stakeholders
from all different areas to actually work out what needs to be done, what needs
to change and what are the policy recommendations. Some of the times these are
people who have never spoken before. In the Philippines where they looked at second-hand
clothing, second-hand clothing is actually illegal in the Philippines. But
still people are importing and selling it. So the question is, do the laws need
to be strengthened or do they need to be changed? Actually, bringing together
people who are potentially in conflict, to work out what to do going forward.
So really interesting and really impactful.
D: When you stared Fashion Revolution did you have a clear path of
where you wanted to go with it or was it more learning as you went along?
C: It was kind of a mixture and I think, it would have been a
clear path, when I had the idea it was almost fully formed, I had the name
Fashion Revolution the idea of doing something on the anniversary (of the Rana
Plaza disaster), knew it had to be about transparency. With Orsola we were both
almost like mirror images we were both very similar in so many things, but also
different in a lot of things. We are both risk takers, we are both visionary,
we are creative visionary thinkers we knew very much where we wanted to go and
what we wanted to do. But I think we also weren’t prepared for the huge momentum
behind it, once we stared talking about what we were doing and people started
to hear about it and said, well could we do Fashion Revolution in the USA, in
Kenya, in Colombia and Australia and you know suddenly we were in 62 countries
in the 1st year and then it’s almost like how do we then put those
structures in place? That is something we are working hard on and that’s part
of the reason I am trying not to travel much up until Christmas as we are
really trying to put those structures in place globally to make sure we are
protected, that we have the right legal structures, insurance, volunteering,
safeguarding all of that, needs to happen. So, it is a challenge, we have a
much bigger team now than we had a year ago so it is amazing.
D: Talking about transparency with the big labels I know is
challenging how then do we get the private white label companies on board? How
do you even reach them? So that the public are aware that they even exist. They
are kind of not even there, hiding in plain sight, how do we make them accountable
as well?
C: I know, it is interesting. It is an area we are, nobody is
really looking at, they are huge, people like Li & Fung they are massive, some of the biggest brands
produce with them. So maybe we do need to think about incorporating them into
our Fashion Transparency Index. Because we are look at brands and we are
looking a retailers. They are below the radar and it is definitely something we
probably need to be looking at. But then it is who do you include? Do you
include big textile factories, and suppliers because some of them could
potentially be turning over enough. It’s interesting it always really hard to
know where to draw the line. I think the main thing is holding the brands
accountable because they are having their clothing made there. A lot of them
are then sourcing from Li & Fung especially in the States. A huge
percentage of their clothing comes from some of those big private manufacturers,
so that will have a knock-on effect as well. The Fashion Transparency Index has
really proved itself as a way of pushing the brands harder and faster towards
transparency. We know anecdotally from so many brands, ASOS say it’s like
having a free consultation exercise every year when they receive the feedback
from their questionnaires. Its positive and I think instilling that sense of
competition really works between the brands. Whether that’s on a luxury level,
on a sportswear level we really do see that working.
D: What do you think when people say that sustainability is the
buzz word for our times?
C: I don’t think it is a trend. People said this about
transparency a couple of years ago. It is the industry changing and it has to
change. We can’t go on as we have been, you know people are beginning to
realise how broken the industry is and we can’t have all of the activism that
is going on now and the awareness of the climate crisis and what we are doing
to our eco systems and the micro plastic pollution and just carry on consuming
the way we have done. We simply can’t do that we’ve got to look for alternative
ways and we are seeing that happen. We are seeing the resale market growing 21
time faster than the retail market in the last 3 years. You know this has really
changed, this is really happening, this isn’t a trend they have estimated that
the resale market will be bigger than fast fashion within the next decade. So I
think, I don’t think this is a trend, and it can’t be a trend. People are aware
that we really are in an age of climate breakdown that we do have to make
changes. We might have to make sacrifices, or we might just have to learn to do
things that are equally exciting and give us that same buzz by going to a
clothes swap for example. The joy of finding something AMAZING, Sienna has the
most incredible long, brand new Alice Temperley dress she got at a clothes
swap. Or going to charity shops, I’ve got old Valentino trousers, the things
you can find for under 10 quid in charity shops is astonishing.
D: That’s why clothes swaps will be important going forward as
people will be encouraged to let go of pieces they are not using anymore.
D: London Fashion Week, do you feel they seriously took on board
what Extinction Rebellion were saying?
C: I don’t really think you can take on board what Extinction
Rebellion were saying because calling for the cancellation of London Fashion
Week isn’t going to happen. It’s how do we work with London, Paris, Milan, New
York to create a better industry model. I mean I was speaking at New York
Fashion Week at the beginning and at one of the events I talked at was the
Helsinki symposium they held one at different Fashion Weeks. I was asked about
that, if you look at countries like South Africa, they had just announced the
previous week that they were going to make their South African Fashion Week
sustainable, as sustainable as possible by 2025. They are going to be working
with Fashion Revolution. They are going to be working with local designers who
are using local materials and tailoring. Really seeing this as their point of
difference. Supporting that, and people who are trying to protect the local
environment and the eco systems and we can see this happening. We need to see a
change to a more regenerative model as the industry is incredibly wasteful. The
amount of waste from these shows that are put on for half an hour. The props
for photoshoots, the amount of clothes that people get in that can never be
sold again. We need to look at better ways to do all aspects of fashion. The
supply chain is really important but we also need to look at photoshoots and
shows and find different ways. That is why the Fashion Revolution ‘Open Studio’
initiative is so valuable because it’s all about transparency. The designers
don’t have to go anywhere and put on expensive shows, they are opening up their
studios, they are inviting people in to see their processes, it makes them
accountable. They are talking about their zero waste pattern cutting. They are
talking about the repairs they do, they are talking about the whole design
process and where circularity comes in and what their thinking is in terms of
materials and sustainability and I think that’s really valuable as well both for
the press and for their customers.
D: What next for Fashion Revolution? Where do you see yourself in
the next 10, 20 years?
C: Oh gosh 10, 20 years is a long way ahead, I will be able to
answer that question better after we have our workshop on the theory of change,
we did one a few years ago and we felt it was time to do a new one. That will
be a really good time to sit and take stock of our vision.
Transparency and the need for transparency, will not be solved
quickly, we have seen change, we have seen a lot of progress especially in
terms of publishing first tier fact fees. But there are still only 10 brands
publishing the list of their raw materials suppliers out of 200. The processing
facilities was 18% this year. The is a lot that’s needed in terms of
traceability and that sort of helps with accountability and that means if
someone gets sacked from one of those factories for being part of a union, it
does mean you can go back and put pressure on those brands, or several brands,
that are sourcing there. It has meant that people have beent reinstated. As
opposed to factories who aren’t publishing their lists. So, we know from unions
that that it does make a difference.
All the brands are talking, you mentioned sustainability being a
buzz word. But how do you know the brands are sustainable unless they actually have
goals, are transparent about what their goals are and their progress toward
those goals? Only 15% of brands have any measurable long-term goals on reducing
their use of virgin plastic. You know that’s 15%. For all of their talk about
sustainability and sustainable raw materials. If you look at those who have a
sustainable materials strategy that’s reasonably higher and is nearly a 1/3 of
brands. But what are you doing about it? What are you doing in terms of
sourcing raw materials more responsibility? We need to able to cut through this.
They are very good at their visions and mission statements, but we need to know
really what the impact is on the people in the supply chain. What the impact is
on the environment, on the forests, on the Amazon deforestation, we need to
know that information. So transparency is still going to be an issue in 10,
even 20 year’s time. In terms of sustainability it has been estimated that we
needed an 80% emissions cut by 2015, in fashion, to align with the 2 degree Celsius
warning. Whereas actually the industries emissions are expected to increase by
60% by 2030. So, a 80% reduction is needed and a 60% increase happening. There
are lots of brands talking about “oh yes we are cutting our emissions on this
we are cutting our emissions by 50% but we’ve got plans to double our production.”
We’ve got to innovate, brands have got to help their customers to buy less, to
keep their clothes for longer, to offer repair facilities, which at the moment are only for luxury items like
handbags and shoes and that sort of thing.
D: I love your garment workers diary initiative. What a great way
to highlight the cost of living and wages when there are no unions for them to
speak up for them. You are their union. How do you expand this into other
countries so that the garment workers do have a voice and a union?
C: Yes, the garment worker diaries was a really significant
project. It was the biggest ever research done over a year with 540 garment
workers, so that’s not something we can replicate easily without significant
funding. But, through the ‘I made your clothes’ initiative that’s one of the
ways to give the producers a voice to talk about their problems, their
conditions. We need more people doing that. We are publishing our white paper
so that will have a lot of insights into the state of the industry, as well. Being
the platform that other unions can use as well, we have people like Industrial
Global Union and Solidarity Centre who actually use our website to promote
issues or to publish blogs. Both of them use our platform and social media
channels and will link up with them on campaigns so its really important we
align ourselves with the unions and as we are quite nimble it does mean that if
anything happens we can react quite speedily and help to mobilise the everyday
citizens who are engaged in activism.
D: How do we encourage the slow down of fast fashion? Which parts
of society are consuming the most?
C: There is a lot of research that shows that people really can
change their habits quite quickly, in the face of the right impetus. If the
youth climate strike and the UN report that just came out aren’t impetus enough,
I don’t know what is. But I think its also seeing influences change, friends
change. I was really shocked watching the ITV on fast fashion that Orsola was
on. They did their own research and I think there was something like 37% of
people who had never bought or would never buy second-hand clothing. Which I
still find astonishing. But I think a lot of it fundamentally is education. It
is very easy to be in your sustainability bubble and microcosm in London. Going
to a lot of events were people are thinking the same. Everyone knows about the
issues, everyone’s so much further progressed. When I come up here and if I go into
Stoke or Manchester the average people don’t know about these issues. Some are
only catching up with the fact that turtles are getting caught in plastic bags,
which was knowledge 10 years ago, it a long way, they are far off understanding
anything to do micro plastics and the need to wash your clothing more responsibly
or less. Or thinking about the fibres in the clothing your buying. So I think
there is a huge amount of education that needs to be done. But that needs to be
done in a really engaging way. We need that mixture of education and awareness
raising but we also need legislation because some of those some of the brands
are never going to change. Some consumers are never going to change. To get
those brands who aren’t going to move we need legislation. The Modern Slavery
Act and The California Transparency Supply Chains Act, have been really
instrumental in getting brands to publish more information about what they are
doing. To actually, find out about their supply chains, because a lot of them
didn’t have that information, so that’s a really good first step. We need to
see, The Modern Slavery act certainly strengthened, we need to see
accountability we need to know which brands should be publishing and which
brands haven’t published their statement and we need links and we need a
database with links to all of their recent statements, so that is something we
are campaigning for.
D: Tell us all about your next big exciting project – sailing.
C: I have been following eXXpedition for a good few years. I
always thought I would love Sienna to learn to sail and maybe she could do one
of the trips and then when the round the world opportunity came up and I saw it
and thought, ‘this one’s for me’. Especially when I saw that there was the Galapagos
Islands, Easter Island, and I thought I am definitely applying, you know this
is a once in a lifetime opportunity . I mean I love sailing, I love being at
sea. I have been to Ecuador probably about 30 – 35 times and I have never been
to the Galapagos islands because it has always been too expensive to make that
little hop over to them and just never had the money. So it’s sort of felt like
it’s an amazing opportunity to see The Galapagos and Easter Islands but it’s
also the scientific research that’s going to be done on board is really ground-breaking
its really necessary, its research, that academics from around the world, particularly
in the US and the UK are working on. This will be used by them to see a much
clearer picture of the state of pollution in our oceans, the toxics, the micro
plastics. We know that 34.8% of the micro plastics in the ocean come from
clothing and textiles. So it is the responsibility of the fashion industry and
us as consumers. So we need to look at the scale of the problem and then look at some solution based thinking
to do something about it. The images from the trip will be powerful, I think
the research will be powerful but we also need to come up with really
compelling recommendations at policy level to brands and to consumers to
encourage change as well.
D: Do you think you will find plastic in these remote areas when
you go?
C: Undoubtedly, undoubtedly, we are sailing through the South
Pacific Gyre which is one of the main sort of areas of accumulation of plastics
in the pacific. But those are the plastics you can see. So it’s what happens at
a deeper levels, with micro plastic on the surface but also I think they are
looking in the sediment as well. There are so many different areas to look at.
Going around the world with an all female crew is, really exciting. 10,000
people who have applied and so far they have selected about half of the 300
places and I am one of those 150 women, so I feel super privileged to be chosen
for that and feel very determined to use my part in it to really help to raise
awareness. To that social media and press presence which I can bring to
actually get the message out there. Because our clothing, textiles, micro fibres
is something we can all do something about as well as the amount of plastic we
are flying in, in our food, packaging and drinks.
D: How long have you been sailing? Did you sail as a child? You
were living in Devon.
C: Not as a child. I was looking for somewhere really cheap to live
when I was a student. I heard there was a sewage barge on which you could get
cabins for £15 per month. So I turned up to meet the guys who were currently
living on the sewage barge and they were working on Velsheda who was a J-Class yacht, tallest single mast
in the world and the new mainsail had just been delivered. They were like, “can
you come and help can you hold the torch for us”, it weighted a tonne and a
half and there were about 3 or 4 of them trying to put this sail up, so I
helped them pull a few ropes and was generally useful for the evening and it
was all quite exciting. So they said come out sailing with us tomorrow to say
thank you. I went out sailing with them, sort of helped in the crew because
they took the boat out and chartered every day. I remember the next morning
super early I had a phone call and they said “there’s been a fight and half the
crews left, they have just walked out. Can you come out sailing again please”
and that was it I had a job for the rest of the summer and carried on sailing Velsheda.
Then moved across to Astrid who was a square rigger, tall ship, sail training
ship and did the tall ships race. After my master’s I went and worked in the Caribbean
for a year. I sailed across the Atlantic I worked on an old galleon replica and
loved it. Since then I have not been sailing again until a few months ago. It’s
nice to be back on the water again. Though we have had some pretty hairy
moments on the lake (near where she lives), we have also had great fun as well.
It’s not that wide, we have had some pretty windy weather I don’t know how deep
it is, wouldn’t want to find out. It’s also not that wide so you are tacking
and trying to avoid boats. It’s nice I sailed with someone was really calm.
Carry will be sailing leg 7 of the eXXpedition from Galapogs to
Easter Island 15th of February to the 4th of March 2020. She
is still looking for sponsors and donations towards this groundbreaking voyage.
If you would like to, you can help here.
Carry is wearing -
Shot 1- Alexander McQueen dress from an INA designer resale shop in New York with Prada shoes from a second-hand pop up store in Manchester.
Shot 2 & 5 - Rocinante Oaxaca dress with second-hand Bruno Magli shoes bought from Mary Portas Living and Giving shop.
Shot 3 - Eudon Choi dress.
Shot 4 - Vintage house coat with Prada shoes from a second-hand pop up store in Manchester.
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