The Value of Fashion
What can data tell us about the fashion industry's economic value, employment levels, patterns of growth and consumption habits?
Fashion plays a key role in the UK economy. Textiles manufacturing and craft are interwoven in the heritage of our four nations. Fashion can bring valuable work, shows, and exhibitions to a city or area, attracting wide ranging numbers from local, and further afield. Mention the likes of Paris, Milan or New York to anyone (no fashion interest experience or knowledge needed) and they can recognise the importance that fashion has had in solidifying their economic footholds. Digging deeper than the superficial surface of these cities and their relationship with fashion, then, is the key, and holds all the answers needed to understand how fashion can support economic development.
Our Value of Fashion Maps highlight how the industry is faring across the country, how it is developing as consumption habits change and how with the right support fashion can thrive. We can see key business statistics for the fashion industry across the UK, based on ONS figures.
The latest data reveals interesting insights into the resilience of the fashion industry within the UK. In 2022, amidst economic instability, the sector experienced a temporary setback as the number of businesses, employees, and turnover dipped compared to 2021 figures. However, things got better in 2023, with numbers increasing again. When we compare this to how the UK economy is doing overall, it gives an intriguing narrative. The fashion industry’s recovery in 2023 suggests a potential resilience and adaptability not shared uniformly across all sectors. This resilience might be attributed to the sector's capacity for innovation, consumer demand dynamics, and the agility of its workforce. Understanding these patterns helps us see how important the fashion industry is for the UK economy.
Small g governance
Maria Benjamin, Co-Founder of Dodgson Wood, attended Earth Logic’s workshop about local governance & fibre initiatives in the UK.
It’s not often I’m asked to bring a pebble with me to a workshop, so I knew it wouldn’t be a typical meeting. You become used to bringing your professional self, especially when you don’t know the majority of the people sat around you, even if they do bring cake and are smiling. But by bringing a piece of home in our pockets, brought more of our personal selves, our complex roles from within our contexts and within ourselves. So the simple act of choosing a pebble from home and carrying it into a meeting, encouraged a day of real openness, of enriched and enriching conversations. Â
The Wool Library (Zoe Fletcher and I) were invited to take part in a conversation about local governance and fibre initiatives in the UK. The Wool Library was created to look at ways to add value to British wool within a fashion and textiles supply chain. The event was organised by Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham as part of their Earth Logic work. They invited fibre stakeholders working around the UK to think through ‘small g governance’ within the context of our textile work. Within the group, small g governance is what we all do because that’s where we have agency and that’s where we dedicate our time. It’s less frustrating that trying (though I’ve never tried) to square up to big G Governance. Individually, our results can seem small, but coming together, feeling less isolated and unseen, was quite powerful. Â
The name Earth Logic is a push against Growth Logic, the dominant system of over production based on uninterrupted growth. It’s a logic that’s permeated almost all aspects of our lives as part of our normalised, and therefore often unquestioned culture. But I think more cluster events, of bringing small groups of regional stakeholders who are working in ways different to ‘business as usual’ can activate change beneath our feet. Sharing our unlearning and our relearning of new approaches and how those resonated within the group, for me was a useful tool to think about how to share our knowledge to activate more grassroots changes.
Zoe and I often give talks, and although it’s flattering when people tell you that your presentation was ‘inspiring’, it always leaves me thinking, have we inspired any kind of change or shift in mindset in our audience? And I realised that the structure of standing in front of a PowerPoint and talking at an audience, is probably quite reductive. So now we’re thinking, how could the Earth logic concept be used to empower and activate change in an audience we’d pre-determined as a passive audience and not as stakeholders with with real agency? How could we better use the time we have with an audience to influence impactful change? It’s exciting to think what the ripples from a pebble in your pocket can achieve.Â
Webinar: Modern Slavery and the UK Apparel and General Merchandise SectorsÂ
Join Stronger Together’s upcoming webinar ‘Modern Slavery and the UK Apparel and General Merchandise Sectors – What you need to know’
The apparel and general merchandise sectors are amongst the high-risk sectors for labour exploitation in the UK. Join the webinar to hear insights from industry experts on the risks in the sectors, the actions taken, and the support available to help develop capacity and give you the tools to mitigate the risks in your operations and supply chains. Relevant to UK apparel, general merchandise and manufacturing businesses, labour providers into these businesses, HR, Operations and Human Rights leads and more – all are welcome.
Speakers include:
Mashuda Begum, Senior Responsible Sourcing Manager at Tesco
Tarek Islam, Senior Community Engagement & Outreach Worker Fashion-workers Advice Bureau Leicester at FAB-L
Bethan Hunt, UK Programme Manager, Stronger Together
Natasha Bridget, Programme Development Manager, Fast Forward
10 Corso Como partners with Central Saint Martins
10 Corso Como have recently partnered with Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
The project aims to engage a class of young fashion designers of the prestigious MA Fashion course to create a genderless capsule collection bearing the 10 Corso Como logo.
In March, forty students met with 10 Corso Como CEO, Gianluca Borghi, who briefed them on the project . During the next phase, five finalists will be selected and then a winner chosen by international industry experts, whose design will be exhibited and sold in 10 Corso Como.
The partnership is part of the recent strategy by 10 Corso Como, one of the most iconic players in the fashion industry, to focus on its own Signature collection. By building a bridge between the heritage and the future, 10 Corso Como is off to a start for its upcoming international development plan of the brand.