Fashion has become remarkably skilled at presenting small improvements as systemic change. A garment made with recycled fibres, a lower-impact collection or a resale scheme may suggest progress, yet the industry continues to manufacture clothes in quantities the planet cannot sustain.
For Safia Minney, the pioneering ethical fashion entrepreneur who founded People Tree and went on to establish Fashion Declares, and Indilisi incremental improvements are no longer enough. A genuine response to the climate crisis requires the industry to confront a far more difficult question: how can fashion produce dramatically fewer clothes without abandoning the millions of workers whose livelihoods depend upon making them?
