Aparna Sharma

SLOW FASHION IS A RADICAL ACT:
REVIV SHOP, an online clothes repair provider.

I was looking for someone who could help me upcycle a few old jeans which I am not using.I sent a message to a few people who are involved in the slow fashion movement in Bangkok and someone recommended REVIVSHOP to me. I checked their website and I found their business model very interesting. I am always on the lookout for people and brands who are committed to creating a sustainable future. As a writer, I have had the opportunity to meet many such people in Thailand and what really drives me to these stories is that it takes immense goodwill and courage to create such a business model when there is no political will or support towards creating a circular economy.

I met the co-founders of REVIVSHOP in a cafe in Ari which is one of Bangkok’s most hipster and artistic neighbourhoods. The vibe and energy there was very relaxed,it is an area which is still relatively undiscovered by expats and travellers. As we introduced ourselves, the first question I asked them was about the mission behind their business. They mentioned that their mission is to be an online provider for clothes repair and alteration. They are committed to creating a fashion industry that is local, inclusive and mindful of nature. They do this by educating people about the importance of reusing clothes , supporting the informal labor community and empowering the existing fast fast fashion labor market towards the slow fashion business. They want to focus on all the areas which are important to transition towards a slow fashion system. There is currently excess production by fast fashion brands which is polluting the planet and exploiting labor, REVIVSHOP is a business model which aims to change that by valuing people and planet over profit.

A question I get asked often is “Why is slow fashion products and services so expensive?”. The answer lies in why fast fashion is so cheap. They exploit labor to keep prices low so a product which is cheap in price did come at a heavy cost for someone else and the environment. There were so many reports about fast fashion brands exploiting Uyghur camps in China last year, when a business model is driven only by profit and has no accountability or morality, it is doomed to be messy. There are also shocking reports of wealth inequality, these companies who are exploiting labor are showing high profits . The top management salaries get higher and higher while the people at the bottom of the supply chain do not receive a basic living wage.

The fast fashion business model is fundamentally flawed, it is based on over production and over consumption of clothes we don’t need. It is one of the most polluting industries on the planet which exploits land and labor exponentially. This is extremely dangerous as threats of climate change become more and more serious.

A lot of fast fashion brands claim to be using sustainable fabrics and recycling but that has been reported as greenwashing by many reputable news channels and publications. Recently, Germany’s leading channel DW did a story on what actually happens to all the clothes H&M and other fast fashion brands claim to be recycling. Most of the clothes consumers give back for recycling cannot be recycled because of the low quality poly-blends used to make them. Fast fashion is so heavily dependent on fossil fuel based fibres which are disastrous from production to disposal. The reality of recycling claims by these brands is that it is another way to make customers shop more because everytime someone takes their old clothes to donate to the recycling bin, they are given a discount coupon to shop more. Most people are completely unaware that their old clothes don’t get recycled and end up in a poorer country where it is mostly cut into scraps and burnt. This is an environmental disaster, the burning emits greenhouse gases which are dangerous and it lowers the air quality. The consumer assumes that their clothes can be recycled because that is what they are told by these fast fashion brands. It is easy for these brands to greenwash consumers because there are no strict regulations for fast fashion labels.

A lot of critics argue that fast fashion can never be sustainable unless they change their fundamental business model of over producing. The biggest issue with the fast fashion business model is that it absolutely lacks accountability and transparency and there is a desperate need for newer business models like REVIVSHOP which provide more sustainable fashion alternatives. 

Are you ready to REVIVE, SWAP, THRIFT, REUSE and REPAIR old clothes instead of constantly buying fast fashion? 

For more details on the services provided by REVIVSHOP, log onto www.revivshop.com.

Let me begin my article by clarifying that I did not mean getting high on hemp in a literal way, I meant that it is about time we get high on all the amazing properties hemp has to mitigate climate change and become a big player in creating a greener and more sustainable economy.

Unfortunately, every time someone says, ”hemp”, most people relate to it as a drug and there have been endless debates on whether it should be fully legalised. Hemp is not a crop we discovered recently, its origins can be traced back many years. The obvious question is if hemp was widely grown and had amazing properties which benefit the planet, why did it become illegal to grow hemp? There are many different reasons, hemp was about to hit mainstream in the 1930s but America banned it around that time and the rest of the world followed. According to a February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics, hemp was about to become a billion dollar crop before the Marihuana Tax Act. There is one theory which basically blames Dupont for getting hemp banned because they were launching their synthetic fibres and the rest as we know it today is history. If hemp did not get banned, could we have rewritten some of the history? That is an interesting thought especially now that we know that synthetic fibres are bad for the planet.

Synthetic fibres like nylon gave rise to an industry we now call, ’fast fashion’. This is one of the most polluting industries, two thirds of the world’s textiles are made with synthetic materials mostly, petroleum based polymers such as polyester, polyamide and acrylic. Most people who are aware that plastic is bad for the environment are not aware that the clothes we wear essentially have the same qualities as plastic. It is not only bad for the environment, it is not the best fabric for human health either. The issue with fast fashion goes way beyond fibres and environmental pollution, the idea that a product is meant to be used only a few times and discarded is extremely wasteful. There are multiple stories on how fast fashion companies exploit labour and the business model is fundamentally flawed. Activists and slow fashion advocates have been trying to ensure that there are better regulations to ensure that fast fashion companies move towards a more circular business model. A lot of consumers are demanding sustainability and activists are carrying slogans saying, ’No fashion on a dead planet’.

There are a lot of circular solutions currently: reduce, reuse, recycle, thrift, rewear, repair, regenerative fibres etc. A lot of fashion brands are incorporating this in their business model. Most solutions are driven by consumer activism where consumers are taking a stand on supporting only brands which are committing to a circular economy.

One solution to make fashion more circular is to use regenerative fibres which are circular in design and not wasteful in production. Hemp is definitely something a lot of slow fashion brands across the world are already embracing, it is currently expensive but a lot of designers feel that it has properties which justify its cost. I normally use the term regenerative with lots of caution but I think hemp has some amazing qualities and it is a crop which is definitely regenerative, every part of the crop can be used to create something useful which also makes it a zero waste crop.

I met with the owner of Hempthai to understand exactly how hemp is grown and its benefits for human health and the planet. Unfortunately, I could not visit the farm because Thai law does not allow that, what if I go into the farm and become literally high on hemp? It is frustrating that this amazing crop constantly suffers because it is misunderstood and merely considered a drug. We had a long conversation about hemp and I saw so many different products they have innovated with hemp. I asked him if the claim that hemp can sequester carbon from the soil is true, is it safe to say that growing hemp is better than leaving the land empty. He laughed and said, ”It depends on the exact context, leaving a biodiverse forest as it is would probably be better but there is a lot of agricultural land which is currently being used to grow unsustainable crops which require high pesticides and requires burning, it would definitely benefit the economy and the planet to convert them to crops which mitigate climate change”. 

Growing hemp paves the way for sustainable agriculture because it can be grown without fertiliser, it also replenishes the soil with nitrogen and other nutrients, it increases topsoil and restores the health and fertility of the soil. Hemp trees have long roots that firmly hold the soil which help control erosion, due to its fast growth, it is extremely useful in carbon sequestration absorbing carbon from the air and storing it back into the earth.

At Hempthai, they have empowered an entire village and the whole process is completely organic and made by hand which makes their products sustainable. They have received many reputable awards for their innovation. I was particularly impressed with the bricks they have made, the owner told me that he is going to build his house with hemp bricks. This could potentially change the construction industry, who would not want to live in a house made with hemp bricks which has the tall claim of generating oxygen?

Thailand has legalised hemp cultivation, paving the way to create a green cash crop. This move by the government represents an important attempt by the authorities to establish hemp as a futuristic cash crop which can have economic benefits. Hemp can generate income for growers in five different areas: drinks, food, medicines and supplements, apparel and personal care products. It is a plant which has a multitude of uses and the potential of generating high income for rural communities. As I mentioned earlier, it has zero waste properties and the entire plant can be used for commercial benefits from its flowers, through the leaves, seeds and branches to the exterior and interior of the stalks and even the roots. All these can be processed into high quality everyday use products. Currently, this industry is still in its infancy stage so research and development costs are high and profits remain difficult and slim at present but it has huge potential.

The hemp fibre looks and feels similar to organic cotton or linen and it is perfect to make garments. I am looking forward to seeing a Thai slow fashion brand make a stylish collection using hemp, this fibre needs to be promoted and marketed well. It has thermo regulating properties too. 

Hemp fibre is:

Breathable and insulating

Highly durable

Soft on the skin

Odour resistant

Non-synthetic i.e. no micro-plastics

Naturally antibacterial and anti fungal

Resistant to mould and mildew

Resistant to UV light

Has soil release properties

Easy wash and care

Biodegradable

Retains its shape and will not shrink

Grown without pesticides and or chemical fertilisers

Replenishes the soil

Highly renewable

Low water use 

Absorbs carbon dioxide

Common! It is high time hemp goes mainstream. Do you agree?

“Demand quality not only in the products you buy but also in the life of the person who made it”:Orsola de Castro

I met Patsy Tapasanan around eighteen months ago, I did not know much about her at that time. I came across her profile while I was doing some research on the work Fashion Revolution does in Thailand. 

For those of you who have not heard of this organisation, it was founded on 24th April 2013 when the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed. More than 1,100 people died and another 2,500 were injured, making it the fourth largest industrial disaster in history. Fashion Revolution works towards transparency and accountability in the fashion industry, particularly in what we now call fast and disposable fashion.This tragedy was preventable. In the aftermath, survivors told stories of how they noticed cracks in the building and knew the building was hazardous just days before the collapse. Multiple workers told their supervisors that they were afraid to enter the building and continue working. The retails shops and banks on the ground floor shut down their operations, but the demand of an insatiable fashion industry forced garment workers to keep working. The ugly truth is that some of us may have bought and wore the clothes they made. People had to dig through the rubble looking for clothing labels in order to figure out which brands were sourcing from Rana Plaza. In some cases, it took weeks for brands to determine why their labels were found in the ruins and what sort of purchasing agreements they had with those suppliers. 

The culpable brands weren’t limited to fast fashion retailers but included mid-priced brands too.This is because the vast majority of today’s fashion brands and retailers do not own their manufacturing facilities. Fashion supply chains are highly globalised, complex and opaque. Business relationships are often very murky and subcontracting is common. This lack of transparency costs lives.

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Many people still remain in the dark, unaware that their clothes may be contributing to the climate crisis and human exploitation. I strongly believe that most people don’t want to support or encourage modern day slavery and wanted to write more on the ugly side of the fashion industry to create awareness.The Rana Plaza incident definitely changed my relationship with fashion because fashion should be empowering. When fashion comes at the cost of social and climate injustice, it is deeply disturbing. I wanted to understand the work Fashion Revolution ,Thailand is doing towards creating awareness and that is why I went to meet Patsy who is a part of the core team of Fashion Revolution, Thailand. At that time , I had read briefly about her but did not know the full extent of the work she has been doing towards empowering elderly women in Loei province through her social enterprise, Folkcharm.

Passawee T. Kodaka, aka Patsy is the Founder and Creative Director at Folkcharm, a ‘farm-to-fashion’ brand that uses locally sourced handloom chemical -free homegrown cotton, aimed to empower rural artisans and to increase the appreciation in rural crafts (wo) manship and slow fashion. She is active in the social enterprise scene in Thailand, co-founding a movement of craft social entrepreneurs, VolksKraft Ethical Crafts Hub. 

Before founding Folkcharm, she worked in international and national -level social development organisations for over 6 years. With the Royal Thai Government, ARC-MDG and UNIFEM Scholarship, she holds an MSc in Rural and Regional Development Planning and has received a scholarship and completed the ‘Trainee Programme for Asian Craft Works’ in Textiles ([Weaving and Dyeing)] from Kanazawa College of Art, Japan.

During my meeting with her, I told her that I would love to visit the sustainable cotton farm and the weavers who make the clothes for Folkcharm and I was fortunate to go with her to Loei to learn more about her social enterprise and see the work she has done at the grass roots level. I went there in November, I met with a group of people there. We were supposed to meet Patsy at the Loei airport at noon on 26th November, my flight landed early so I was at the exit gate by 11.50pm, I was 10 mins early so I casually walked towards Patsy and said,”I guess I am the first one to arrive”. She said,”No,Yyou are the last one”and we both laughed. We put our luggage in a minivan and went to visit a weaving community. We had lunch there and they showed us the process of making cotton into yarn, weaving handlooms is a beautiful and artistic process. From there we went to another community in the evening and stayed at the home stay option there.

I spent two days in Loei visiting different weaving communities , having lunch near a beautiful waterfall and going on an early morning trek to view the sunrise over a beautiful mountain.There was never a dull moment because Patsy had ensured that the entire day was filled with activities. It was heartwarming to listen to so many different stories from each person I met there. A lady who believes in his excellency King Rama 9’s vision for Thailand has started her own social enterprise and she believes in the sufficiency economy model proposed by King Rama 9 which essentially focuses on developing the economy by ensuring fair paying jobs and coexisting in harmony with the environment. I met a ladyboy who told us folklores and tales about how the villagers have learnt to coexist with the wild elephants and she uses elephant poopdung for dying the cotton that she weaves. Another lady we met had led the fight against a gold mine which had made the village toxic and cancerous and they won the fight after many long years. Another story was that of a local politician who is trying many projects to ensure that the future generation can find jobs in the village community. The underlying connections between all the stories I heard from people was their passion to develop a sufficiency economy which places the planet and people over profit.

Each of their stories came from a pure and honest space , it is hard for me to pick a favoritefavourite but something about Khun Jayor, the ladyboy really struck me. I was not able to fully understand her, her eyes were a mix of joy and pain. The joy of having achieved so much in a small village and the pain of all the hurdles she had to overcome. I bought a fabric woven by her and requested to take a picture with her and she was happy to pose with me. When you buy a fabric directly from a weaver , it is not just a piece of cloth, you are supporting the artistic process of farm to fashion. 100% sustainable organic cotton costs anywhere between 350 to 700Bthb per metre , that is definitely expensive compared to fast fashion but you pay to ensure that the planet and the people working for the brand did not suffer in the process of making the fabric. Fast fashion is cheap because someone somewhere is paying the price for it so it’s better to buy less and choose well.

My favoritefavourite part of my two day itinerary was picking cotton, I loved the open vehicles we travelled in to go to the cotton farm. The cotton in the farm is grown in a sustainable way and it is  free of pesticides, it is also known as rain fed cotton. Most people are unaware that GMO cotton is extremely unsustainable because it uses pesticides and lot of water. There were also stories on how cotton farmers commitingcommitting suicide in India a few years ago might have a connection with the process of GMO cotton. It was around that time many stories about the unsustainable nature of cotton started coming out , fortunately there are a lot of slow fashion brands which are growing sustainable cotton now. If you are a conciousconscious consumer who wants to build a sustainable wardrobe , I reccomendrecommend that you download the application GOOD ON YOUGood on you. The most important thing to remember is to support brands which give you complete transparency of their supply chain and to read the label properly , this is easier with small local brands because their supply chain is not highly fragmented.

• 

• 

Many people still remain in the dark, unaware that their clothes may be contributing to the climate crisis and human exploitation. I strongly believe that most people don’t want to support or encourage modern day slavery and wanted to write more on the ugly side of the fashion industry to create awareness.The Rana Plaza incident definetlydefinitely changed my relationship with fashion because fashion should be empowering. When fashion comes at the cost of social and climate injustice, it is deeply disturbing. I wanted to understand the work FASHION REVOLUTIONFashion Revolution ,Thailand is doing towards creating awareness and that is why I went to meet Patsy who is a part of the core team of FASHION REVOLUTIONFashion Revolution,Thailand. At that time , I had read briefly about her but did not know the full extent of the work she has been doing towards empowering elderly women in Loei province through her social enterprise, Folkcharm.

Passawee T. Kodaka, aka Patsy is the Founder and Creative Director at Folkcharm, a ‘farm-to-fashion’ brand that uses locally sourced handloom chemical -free homegrown cotton, aimed to empower rural artisans and to increase the appreciation in rural crafts (wo) manship and slow fashion. She is active in the social enterprise scene in Thailand, co-founding a movement of craft social entrepreneurs, VolksKraft Ethical Crafts Hub. 

Before founding Folkcharm, she worked in international and national -level social development organizationsorganisations for over 6 years. With the Royal Thai Government, ARC-MDG and UNIFEM Scholarship, she holds an MSc in Rural and Regional Development Planning and has received a scholarship and completed the ‘Trainee Programme for Asian Craft Works’ in Textiles ([Weaving and Dyeing)] from Kanazawa College of Art, Japan.

Each of their stories came from a pure and honest space , it is hard for me to pick a favoritefavourite but something about Khun Jayor, the ladyboy really struck me. I was not able to fully understand her, her eyes were a mix of joy and pain. The joy of having achieved so much in a small village and the pain of all the hurdles she had to overcome. I bought a fabric woven by her and requested to take a picture with her and she was happy to pose with me. When you buy a fabric directly from a weaver , it is not just a piece of cloth, you are supporting the artistic process of farm to fashion. 100% sustainable organic cotton costs anywhere between 350 to 700Bthb per metre , that is definitely expensive compared to fast fashion but you pay to ensure that the planet and the people working for the brand did not suffer in the process of making the fabric. Fast fashion is cheap because someone somewhere is paying the price for it so it’s better to buy less and choose well.

My favourite part of my two day itinerary was picking cotton, I loved the open vehicles we travelled in to go to the cotton farm. The cotton in the farm is grown in a sustainable way and it is  free of pesticides, it is also known as rain fed cotton. Most people are unaware that GMO cotton is extremely unsustainable because it uses pesticides and lot of water. There were also stories on how cotton farmers committing suicide in India a few years ago might have a connection with the process of GMO cotton. It was around that time many stories about the unsustainable nature of cotton started coming out , fortunately there are a lot of slow fashion brands which are growing sustainable cotton now. If you are a conscious consumer who wants to build a sustainable wardrobe , I recommend that you download the application Good on you. The most important thing to remember is to support brands which give you complete transparency of their supply chain and to read the label properly , this is easier with small local brands because their supply chain is not highly fragmented.

• 

• 

During my meeting with her, I told her that I would love to visit the sustainable cotton farm and the weavers who make the clothes for Folkcharm and I was fortunate to go with her to Loei to learn more about her social enterprise and see the work she has done at the grass roots level. I went there in November, I met with a group of people there. We were supposed to meet Patsy at the Loei airport at noon on 26th November, my flight landed early so I was at the exit gate by 11.50pm, I was 10 mins early so I casually walked towards Patsy and said,”I guess I am the first one to arrive”. She said,”No,Yyou are the last one”and we both laughed. We put our luggage in a minivan and went to visit a weaving community. We had lunch there and they showed us the process of making cotton into yarn, weaving handlooms is a beautiful and artistic process. From there we went to another community in the evening and stayed at the home stay option there.

I spent two days in Loei visiting different weaving communities , having lunch near a beautiful waterfall and going on an early morning trek to view the sunrise over a beautiful mountain.There was never a dull moment because Patsy had ensured that the entire day was filled with activities. It was heartwarming to listen to so many different stories from each person I met there. A lady who believes in his excellency King Rama 9’s vision for Thailand has started her own social enterprise and she believes in the sufficiency economy model proposed by King Rama 9 which essentially focuses on developing the economy by ensuring fair paying jobs and coexisting in harmony with the environment. I met a ladyboy who told us folklores and tales about how the villagers have learnt to coexist with the wild elephants and she uses elephant poopdung for dying the cotton that she weaves. Another lady we met had led the fight against a gold mine which had made the village toxic and cancerous and they won the fight after many long years. Another story was that of a local politician who is trying many projects to ensure that the future generation can find jobs in the village community. The underlying connections between all the stories I heard from people was their passion to develop a sufficiency economy which places the planet and people over profit.

• 

•