About Shaping Fashion
Launched in 2018, Shaping Fashion is a global initiative to scale sustainable transformations in the fashion industry through the Global Shapers network. Over the years the cross-hub collaboration included over >55 different hubs! Every year during Fashion Revolution Week in April hubs collaborate with local teams of industry experts to organize events, workshops, clothes swaps and film screenings to push for change in their communities. Beyond that, hubs co-create longer term projects with lasting positive impact on the sustainability of the fashion industry.
In 2020 >40 hubs participated in Shaping Fashion activities that are linked to COVID-19: Accra, Almaty, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Bangkok, Beijing, Berlin, Bucaramanga, Bucharest, Buenos Aires, Cebu, Copenhagen, Cordoba, Cuernavaca, Dallas, Detroit, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Edmonton, Gabarone, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Iloilo, Johannesburg, Lusaka, Luxembourg City, Medellin, Mexico City, Milan, Minneapolis, Minsk, Mumbai, Muscat, Ottowa, Santa Cruz, Shanghai, Taipei, Toronto, Vancouver, Vientiene.
How to get involved
Shaping Fashion is open for all Global Shapers hubs to join by organizing a project that activates their local community around the topic of more sustainable and fair fashion.
By being part of the Shaping Fashion Community, Shapers can:
Each year the Global Shapers Community organizes an annual kick-off call with Fashion Revolution. Keep an eye out on the calendar to join this meeting to learn more about the challenges of the fashion industry and how your hub can shape fashion!
Shaping Fashion x FRW2021
Shaping Fashion has been adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current pandemic has amplified the fashion industry’s broken model of extreme waste and overproduction. In a time of pause and renewed desire to support one another amid uncertain times, we must instill a culture of clothes keeping and caring. Plus, this is a great time to call for a sustainable fashion industry after COVID-19. Now that the Coronavirus pandemic requires us to stay home and stay safe, Shaping Fashion and Fashion Revolution have joined forces for digital activation and empowerment of citizens. What are the Shapers doing?
Cross-hub Shaping Fashion projects
The Shaping Fashion Community organizes a Davos Lab Dialogue to help shape a youth-driven recovery plan on conscious consumption and to activate citizens on actions they can take to shape a more sustainable fashion industry.
Although more and more people are becoming aware that the fashion industry has detrimental social and environmental effects. Our consumption patterns have not changed much. With a growing population the pressure on society is unlikely to change. The corona pandemic has shown the vulnerability of the fashion system and the need for a revolution in our relationships, with each other, within fashion supply chains and with the natural world.
That is why we want to build a new future. It is time for us to shape a sustainable fashion industry. It is time for us to move beyond conscious consumption to become conscious citizens. It is time for us to move from intention to action. Will you help us shape a youth-driven recovery plan and millennial manifesto?
Join us on 20 April at 16.00-17.00 CET for the Shaping Fashion Davos Lab hosted by @GlobalShapersCommunity and have your voice heard as a part of the @WorldEconomicForum agenda!
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shaping-fashion-davos-lab-conscious-consumption-to-consumer-activism-tickets-148914179319
Global Shaping Fashion Social media campaign
We invite all Global Shapers hubs to join us in a coordinated social media campaign to draw attention to Shaping Fashion and Fashion Revolution Week. The aim is to raise awareness and (re)activate young people to rethink the sustainability of fashion and consumption patterns. Plus, we would like people to have their voice heard in dialogues and create a community-wide plan for sustainable fashion.
Human rights and the rights of nature are interconnected and interdependent; we need a revolution in our relationships with each other, within supply chains and with the natural world, for our own prosperity and wellbeing, and the health of our earth and our oceans.
Shaper hubs' Shaping Fashion projects
In 2020, around 40 hubs participated in Shaping Fashion projects, either during Fashion Revolution Week or beyond. Projects include supporting vulnerable women by providing them work through making masks, writing a handbook on how to make medical masks and take care of them, online webinars on mask making and sustainable fashion, open studios digital tour videos where local sustainable entrepreneurs share their impact stories, virtual sustainable shopping events, social media campaigns to highlight the impact of COVID-19 on the local fashion industry and stimulating re-using and up-cycling clothes, online hackathons to help fashion brands on COVID-19 challenges they face and much more!
Under the leadership of Amsterdam Hub, hubs around the world organised meaningful events, workshops, clothes swaps and film screenings to call for revolutionary and ethical change in their communities.
For example, Vancouver Hub gathered industry experts and next generation fashion designers to provide insights on the challenges, opportunities and innovations facing sustainable fashion.
The hub also hosted an upcycling workshop to mainstream circular economy models to make ethical, sustainable fashion the norm – and Dusseldorf Hub hosted similar events too.
Check out more highlights from: Corrientes Hub, Lahore Hub, and Davao Hub.
Other participating hubs include: Iloilo Hub, Lusaka Hub, Lyon Hub, Milan Hub, Quito Hub, Raleigh Hub and Taipei Hub.
Recently, Amsterdam Hub presented the project to Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, and asked if there were any areas where their expertise might be helpful.
After the meeting, the hub reflected:
"So much has to happen in the world, but on days like this I do honestly feel empowered that we can be and make the change. Especially when being able to share ideas and collaborate with like-minded individuals across the world through the Global Shapers Community!"
