Assorted clothes – followthethings.com

“Fashion Transparency Trump Card Game“
A card game developed by Ian Cook et al for originally for the Fashion Revolution (2014) and Fashion Revolution Brazil (2020)
Fashion Revolution Brazil’s instagram game video & YouTube Programa Educacional Jovens Revolucionários video embedded above. Resources available below. This page is an edited and updated version of posts originally published on the followthethings.com blog here.

When trade justice organisations produce numerical data about corporations’ ethical, sustainability or transparency there’s an opportunity to make this data accessible to students in the form of a Trump Card game that they can make and play with their own possessions. The initial idea for this game came from students taking the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module that’s behind the followthethings.com website (see our demo cards here and some cards made and played by students at Bath Spa University here). What’s presented below are a set of blank cards and an ongoing, updated set of data that your students could work with now. This game is an excellent ice-breaking activity to engage students in discussions of the pay and conditions of the people who make their clothes. It’s also a good way to encourage discussion of the terms that are being played with (what’s good ‘governance’ for example?) and to appreciate how corporations can and do make different amounts of effort to create a more ethical and sustainable economy (with limits). This game can be made and played by any group of people trying to learn the basics and/or intricacies of Ethical Trade and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2025) Fashion Transparency Trump Card Game. followthethings.com/fashion-transparency-trump-card-game.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes.

Posted on December 16, 2024January 30, 2025 by Ian Cook

Who made my clothes?

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Follow it yourself | Follow it yourself

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

ENCOURAGE DETECTIVE WORK

FIND & GIVE INSPIRATION

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

“Who made my clothes?“
A ‘follow it yourself’ detective work task originally written for learners taking Fashion Revolution’s / University of Exeter’s ‘Who made my clothes?’ free online course starting in 2017 .
Introductory video embedded above. Course outline available on the Futurelearn website here (course no longer available). Course instagram feed here and twitter feed here. Search for learners’ blog posts here.

In the summers of 2017 and 2018, we ran a free online course called ‘Who made my clothes?’ with and for the Fashion Revolution movement. 16,000 people from all over the world, many with experience working in the industry, joined us for three weeks to Be Curious (week 1), Find Out (week 2), and Do Something (week 3). We’re hoping the course will run again but, in the meantime, wanted to share some of its content: the parts where we showed how fashion’s supply chains work and the places and lives they connect (via an excellent webdoc series from NPR which is featured on our site here) and then how you can do this research yourselves, with your own clothes, to create your own personal answers to the question ‘Who made my clothes?’ You can try this for yourself, set it for your class to do, whatever you like. It starts with each person choosing an item of clothing that’s special to them, one they wear every day, one they know nothing about. The mystery helps. Follow our advice… and see what you can find, and how you can creatively express and share these findings. This task will in volve a lot of educated guesswork, but you can always get in touch with the brands to see if you’ve got it right! We’ll add some of our learners’ posts along the way so you can see what’s possible.

Page reference: Ian Cook, Verity Jones & Kellie Cox (2025) Who made my clothes? followthethings.com/who-made-my-clothes.shtml (last accessed <add date here>)

Estimated reading time: 19 minutes

Posted on August 28, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

The Messenger Band

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Fashion

“The Messenger Band“
A protest girl band / labour rights NGO including Em [aka Saem] Vun, Leng Leakhana, Chrek Sopha, Nam Sophors, Kao Sochevika, Sothary Kun, Van Huon & others based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Band profile and selected music videos on YouTube embedded in playlist above. The Messenger Band YouTube channel here & facebook page here.

One of the most fascinating, inspiring examples of creative trade justice activism we have found. Made by garment workers, for garment (and other) workers. In 2005, a labour rights NGO based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia hold a talent concert for women working in the city’s garment factories. They want to form a girl band. Inspired by Bob Marley, it’s called ‘The Messenger Band’ because its songs and performances will carry a message to garment and other workers about their rights. They will write and perform in the style of contemporary Cambodian pop music. Sweet and beautiful songs with choreographed dance routines. But the lyrics will come from their community research with garment and other workers about their lives and struggles, and their knowledge of global trade and labour rights. They will record CDs and music videos to post online, and will perform at local concerts and during labour rights protests. Their audiences will learn the lyrics and sing along. The ‘MB’ wants to empower its audiences to claim their rights and to hold their employers to account. They sing in Khmer for Khmer-speaking audiences. They are not talking to overseas consumers, asking them to do anything to help their situation. They take advantage of the fact that women and performance are not taken seriously by the Cambodian authorities. But they are taken seriously by the working class audiences who love and learn from their music. What they do has a huge impact. Much more impact than a labour rights workshop! Labour rights organisations and NGOs outside Cambodia admire their work. They are an inspiration.

Page reference: Lily Bissell, Grace Hodges, Fran Ravel, Julia Sammut & Ellie Reynolds (2020) The Messenger Band. followthethings.com/the-messenger-band.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 62 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 10, 2025 by Ian Cook

No Pride In Primark

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Fashion | Gifts & Seasonal

REDUCE DISCRIMINATION

WASH IT WITH WOKENESS

“No Pride In Primark“
Popular activist campaign against Primark’s ‘Pride’ clothing & accessories made in anti-LGBTQ+ countries.
To see what sparked this, watch Primark’s promotional video above.

UK LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall collaborates with high street fashion retailer Primark on its 2018 ‘Pride’ range of clothing and accessories. They will be sold throughout Europe and North America and 20% of their profits will go to Stonewall. But none of the proceeds will go to the organisers of Pride celebrations, some of whom are struggling for money. And many of the countries in which this ‘Pride’ merch is being made – like Turkey, Myanmar & China – ban LGBTQ+ events and NGOs and imprison people for homosexuality. So what should Primark & Stonewall do? Where should people shopping for Pride merch go? And what’s it like to be an LGBTQ+ worker in Turkey, Myanmar or China making t-shirts and other merch that ‘celebrates what you are not allowed to be’? These are the questions asked by social media critics and the journalists who pick up their criticisms. It’s not a huge orchestrated campaign. No NGO or other organisation orchestrates it. Nevertheless, it becomes a notorious case of a high street brand ‘pink-washing’ (a form of ‘woke-washing’) their supply chain operations. In the wake of these criticisms, Primark continues to support LGBTQ+ organisations in many countries, but has it addressed the crackdowns on LGBTQ people in those countries where its rainbow merch is made? Should it withdraw its orders from these countries? Or keep working there, supporting – via Stonewall and other organisations – the LGBTQ+ organisations and workers who need it? Does it do so? And how can it convince the media, activists and consumers that it’s doing so? LGBTQ+ people represent a big market for clothing sales.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) No Pride In Primark (taster). followthethings.com/no-pride-in-primark.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes.

Posted on August 21, 2024January 26, 2025 by Mark

The True Cost

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Fashion

“The True Cost“
A documentary film (with website) directed Andrew Morgan & executive produced by Livia Firth for Life Is My Movie Entertainment.
Available in full on YouTube (embedded above). Website here.

American filmmaker Andrew Morgan weeps in a New York Starbucks after seeing a front page newspaper story about the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh where over 1,100 garment workers were crushed to death making clothes for Western high street retailers and brands. It’s illustrated with a photos two young boys looking at photos the of missing, assumed dead, workers pinned up near the site. They are the same age as his sons and are looking for their missing mum. He is shocked to his core. How could something this atrocious be allowed to happen? He imagines making a film that will answer this question and sets up a kickstarter campaign to raise the money to finance it. He doesn’t believe that there’s an individual or organisation who, alone, could have saved those people’s lives by acting differently (like consumers, for example). So he travels to lots of places in fashion’s supply chains. He talks to workers, farmers, managers, retired executives, ethical fashion pioneers, NGO execs, journalists, doctors and academics. Viewers get to know some – like Shima Akhter the garment factory worker in Bangladesh and LaRhea Pepper the cotton farmer in the USA – better than others. He makes the argument that Rana Plaza was a systematic failure. This film’s networky trade justice activism shows how everyone in the industry could and should act differently to make things better. Some, as his film shows, are already doing so. But can it encourage more people to get involved in the systemic change that’s needed? Who needs to see it? Where? There’s a lot of detail to digest here! Maybe too much. This film generated more discussion than any example researched on our website so far.

Page reference: Olivia Dubec, Sophie Rees, Amelia Daniel, Becca Craig, Ellie Glynn, Frankie Ward & Katy Jackson (2020) The True Cost. followthethings.com/the-true-cost.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 146 minutes

Posted on August 21, 2024January 28, 2025 by Mark

The Eternal Embrace

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Fashion

“The Eternal Embrace“
A photograph by Taslima Akhter.
Photo blurred due to sensitive content. Available online.

Bangladeshi photographer and activist Taslima Akhter visits the ruins of the collapsed Rana Plaza factory. On April 24th 2013, over 1,100 garment workers were crushed to death there as they made clothes for high street brands including GAP, Primark and H&M. In the rubble, she spots two dead factory workers – a woman and a man – who appear to have died in each other’s arms. Her head is tipped back and a bloody tear has fallen from his eye. She takes a photo and posts it online. There are thousands of press photos of the disaster, but this one is said by many to be the most heart-wrenching and haunting. Commentators are repelled and drawn to its horror and beauty in equal measure. What were the final moments of these garment workers’ lives like? What was their relationship? What caused them to be killed like this? What impacts can a photo like this have on people who buy clothes made in factories like this? It’s profound.

Page reference: Nancy Scotford (2013) The Eternal Embrace. followthethings.com/the-eternal-embrace.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 47 minutes.

Posted on August 21, 2024January 5, 2025 by Mark

UDITA (ARISE)

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Fashion

“UDITA (ARISE)“
A documentary film directed by Hannan Majid & Richard York of the Rainbow Collective.
Available in full on YouTube (embedded above).

The women who work in garment factories in the Global South are often seen by factory bosses as docile and nimble fingered and by Global North journalists and activists as victims in need of saving from capitalist exploitation. But what if there was a film about their work, lives and struggles that was told from their perspectives? Watch UDITA (ASRISE)! Filmed in Dhaka, Bangladesh over five years – starting before and ending after the Rana Plaza factory collapse which killed so many women like them (including their friends and relatives) – Hannah Majid & Richard York show garment workers as an organised body of people teaching, learning and fighting for their labour rights through the campaigning and strike action of Bangladesh’s National Garment Workers’ Federation. There’s no Western filmmaker narrating their quest to find out who made their clothes. There’s no voiceover at all. The only voices are those of the women themselves. They are less interested in what ‘guilty’ consumers in the Global North can do to help them, and more interested in what they can do to help each other. So, who would want to see a film like this? Who was it made for? What are audiences supposed to take away from it? One answer is to appreciate how garment workers in the Global South have powerful collective agency. This is a fundamental, but often neglected, principle in trade justice activism. An important move for audiences to make, as the philosopher Iris Marion Young has put it, ‘from guilt to solidarity’.

Page reference: Theo Barker, Joe Collier, Annabel Baker, Lizzie Coppen & Henry Eve (2020) UDITA (ARISE). followthethings.com/udita.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 48 minutes.