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Let's be friendsHanging out their dirty laundry
Codes of conduct and Fairtrade ranges do not by themselves mean a company is behaving responsibly.
We want to tell Topshop that token efforts are not enough with a ‘dirty laundry’ petition — thousands of messages hung on a ‘washing line’. This will form a visual statement they won’t be able to ignore — and which you can also use to raise lots of awareness — and further support for the campaign.
Autumn/Winter: Build your washing line — collecting support and raise awareness. Use on local actions.
Spring: Collect all the washing lines together to form a (really long!) network-wide washing line to hand-in to Topshop.
Hang out their dirty laundry!
istockphoto.com/Marc Dietrich
Building your washing line
For this, you will need strong twine; pieces of fabric for people to write their messages on, marker pens or something that will write on your fabric; and pegs with which to hang your messages up.
Reuse and recycle! Charity shops can be a great resource for old fabric; you should be able to pick up a second-hand sheet for a couple of pounds which you can then cut into lots of pieces. A5 is probably a good size for people to write a message on. Alternatively, charity shops may let you have clothing donations that are not in good enough condition for re-sale, but which would be fine for your washing line! Or perhaps you could collect up all those odd socks that mysteriously appear and use those. Or try a local ‘scrapstore’; check out this UK directory to see if there’s one near you.
Filling your washing line
Erect your washing line in a prominent place
Set up a stall to tell people about what you’re doing and why. Make it attractive and eye-catching with posters and banners, or have a brainstorm at your group meeting to come up with something really creative. This doesn’t have to be anything too complicated: take a couple of large square of cardboards with a circular ‘door’ cut in them, draw on a few buttons to make them resemble washing machines, and you have a laundry!
Peg up a few of your own messages up to get things started. You could hang up a few facts, images or striking statements to grab people’s attention.
One of you can dress up as a washer-person and peg the messages on your line — an apron, a scarf to tie round your hair, rubber gloves and a bag of pegs should make an effective outfit.
Put on an event:
Sussex Students Union’s Fairtrade Fashion Show
A night at the movies
Films are a great way to raise awareness about conditions in the cotton and clothing industries. Some ideas for films can be found on the resources page. You could follow your film with a talk about the campaign, and don’t forget to provide opportunities for people to take action on the issues they’ve just seen.
A clean fashion show
Sussex Uni recently put on a fantastic fashion show ‘Free your fashion’ which showcased stylish and affordable Fairtrade, organic and recycled clothing and highlighted social injustice within the clothing trade. Read about Sussex’s event and a fashion show ‘how-to’ guide “pdf, 261.9 kb”), from the Environmental Justice Foundation.
Arrange a clothing swap
Ask people to dig out all the clothes they no longer use so that everyone can renew their wardrobe ethically. You could offer food or drink, and combine it with a talk or film.
