Our Latest Impact Report
A Time of Impact and Influence 2023-2024
In the midst of a general election, Fashion Roundtable met with industry leaders from the fashion sector who outlined the dire need for urgent action for the British fashion sector, which was at one time the fastest growing creative industry in the United Kingdom. We engaged stakeholders in a Snap Survey aimed at including voices throughout the sector from design through to distribution, academia, retail, creative, manufacturing, business and NGOs.
This data provided a strong overview of the current landscape for UK-based manufacturers and the key challenges and proposed solutions to support the sector to lead on sustainability, social justice, increased social mobility for working-class children, and increased revenue for UK GDP. This research led us to deliver our ‘Sector Vision’ for the fashion and textiles industry in Parliament to a wide range of stakeholders within the sector.
We were called upon time and time again, to provide our unique insights across some of the best publications and networks in the UK and globally, including Vogue Business, CGTN, Business of Fashion, BBC News, The Independent, and The Telegraph. Our CEO represented Fashion Roundtable at many speaking engagements including at a Dumfries House panel with the King’s Foundation; at many SHOWstudio events and at the Fashion Reimagined policy screening. In collaboration with the UN Global Compact Network, we hosted the first Fashion Sector Exchange Event. We also supported Make it British at a Meet the Maker event, hosted at 10 Downing Street, bringing together UK manufacturers and brands and the Department of Business and Trade, as well as the then PM’s wife. We highlighted our policy aims, such as public procurement for UK made goods; tax incentives for manufacturers in the UK; and the need to reinstate the VAT Retail Export Scheme.
Image shows Sarah Mower MBE giving a tour to Sir Chris Bryant MP at the Design Museum which preceded the roundtable
Fashion Roundtable, along with Sir Chris Bryant MP, the then Shadow and now Culture Minister, hosted a roundtable with the Parliamentary Labour Party where industry leaders outlined the opportunities and challenges faced by the British fashion sector. The roundtable was preceded by a tour of the Design Museum’s ‘REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion’ exhibition by Guest Curator Sarah Mower MBE. This allowed for the context of how politics and fashion could be a power play for the UK when combined effectively. Fashion Roundtable, along with Make it British, also hosted an industry-focused roundtable discussion in the House of Lords with Baroness Jane Bonham-Carter, the Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Culture Media and Sport, as well as the Liberal Democrat Creative Network and the Liberal Democrat DCMS Parliamentary Group. The purpose of the roundtable was to discuss the main challenges that post-Brexit agreements were posing to the British fashion sector, providing an opportunity for the top-line issues of Brexit to be heard. Finally, Fashion Roundtable supported Clare Press – Fashion Roundtable’s Global Sustainability Expert, Author and Podcast Host of the Wardrobe Crisis, with her book launch at the Conduit.
Image: Panellists and Chair from left to right: Junior Bishop, Clare Press, Tamara Cincik, Chair John McNally MP, Dominique Muller, Julia Roebuck, Maria Chenoweth. Credit Steve Watson.
Team members worked tirelessly to communicate our many facets of work within the industry, guest lectured and mentored students as well as academics, and continued to advocate for a fairer and more inclusive and just fashion sector for people and planet. This commitment shone through our reports, newsletter and in our role as Secretariat for the Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion APPG.
In our role as Secretariat for the ESF APPG, we supported their AGM, boosting our parliamentary membership to become one of the largest and only fashion-focused APPGs. As well as a rota of jam-packed and highly successful events on issues poignant to the sector such as prosumption and high-street regeneration, where we heard from a number of experts on the issues facing our high street including Liz Twist MP and Maria Chenoweth, CEO of Traid and co-founder of Charity Super.Mkt.
Our event ‘Rana Plaza, 10 Years On,’ previewed a 30 minute film of the victims and survivors of Rana Plaza, directed and produced by Rainbow Collective, raising key issues with discussions from a large number of MPs as well as Labour Behind the Label, the Corporate Justice Coalition and Transform Trade.
An event focused on localism incited conversation around the question ‘Can localism support due diligence and greater transparency in the fashion sector?’ Here leading voices within the sector such as Mary Creagh CBE, (now once again a newly elected MP); Patrick Grant, of the BBC Sewing Bee and Founder of Community Clothing; Professor Dilys Williams, Fashion Roundtable Board Member and Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion; Sam Ludlow-Taylor, Head of Human Rights at John Lewis; Kate Hills, Founder of Make It British and Anna Bryher, Policy Lead Labour Behind the Label were heard from.
Finally, a meeting was held with findings on greenwashing in fashion by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), where industry leaders from fashion and beauty, as well as MPs such as the Rt Hon Philip Dunne MP and Chris Bryant MP, where the work of the CMA was found to be incredibly valuable to the sector in addressing false sustainability claims.
In collaboration with the King’s Foundation and YOOX Net-a-Porter, we directed and ran the Great British Wool Revival – an open source resource which was backed with two years of stringent research into British wool, leading to a wool mapping of the British wool sector. The project supports designers and makers who want to work with British wool, from farm to fabric – the mission is to build strong, long-term relationships developed to create a healthy wool fibre ecosystem within the shores of the British Isles.
As an organisation we hit 6.6 billion in global media reach, met 5 million through social media campaigns and fed 18 questions into Parliament, including 1 PMQ.
We launched five new reports, including our key recommendations for 2024:
Our Prosumption report looked at building community agency through the purposeful use of unused retail spaces, which highlighted the importance of experience, connection and community to rehabilitate the high street and locality, all while stimulating local business. This showed a clear opportunity to align investment to deliver town centres that reclaimed a maximum impact to a specific place with a focus on hyper-locality. Charity Super.Mkt offered a clear example of this in action, giving purpose to vacant large-scale retail spaces in a sustainable way forward for retail, while simultaneously anchoring high streets.
The Creative Wellbeing Economy framework was our first living document, which will continue to take shape over time. The Creative Wellbeing Economy showed Fashion Roundtable’s thought-leadership and placed people and planet in an interwoven symbiotic relationship: revaluing locality, creativity, and enhancing accessibility to transformative tools and opportunities as links in a newly formed chain of opportunity from soil-to-soil. Here wellbeing acts as a driver for economic, social and sustainable equity within an exciting creativity-based framework.
Delivering a Sector Vision Recommendations for 2024, provided a strong overview of the current landscape for UK-based manufacturers, as well as the key challenges and proposed solutions to support the sector to lead on sustainability, social justice, increased social mobility for working-class children, and increased revenue for UK GDP.
Our Fashion and Economic Value Report illuminated the vast contributions and future potential of the UK's fashion sector. As the largest of the creative industries, the report explored the multifaceted aspects of the fashion industry, delving into its economic influence, regional growth, and pivotal role in sustainability and innovation, concluding with targeted recommendations for economic vibrancy.
We showed expertise once again at the epicentre of issues affecting UK fashion due to Brexit, authoring the ‘Fashion’s Future: How Brexit has reshaped the Fashion Industry and how to reposition the UK as an industry leader’ report. This detailed the industry’s current state, identified key post-Brexit challenges, and presented targeted recommendations to support and revitalise UK fashion.
Over the last two years, we are particularly proud of the work we have done in pushing forward policies and agendas much needed by the fashion and textiles industry to ensure it makes real moves towards sustainable and regenerative pathways, as well as in respecting people and planet, whilst remaining a creative and expressive sector.
As we move into 2025, our focus will be to continue our work as a policy think tank and change agency. The Creative Wellbeing Economy framework, with wellbeing as a central facet, will continue to underpin our ongoing and future projects.
We hope you’ll join us for 2025!
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