Wearable advocacy shows it’s cool to have a cause
Fashion brands tap into trend, hook up with charities to bring social responsibility to streets
It’s time to take those charity T-shirts out of the sleepwear drawer and into rotation. With citizens everywhere taking their beefs to the streets, wearable advocacy is also back in fashion.
At the haute end, the fall-winter campaign for Gucci was just released, a stylized take on the French student protests of 1968. Closer to home, fashion brands at all price points are hooking up with causes and tapping into the power of advocacy messaging on graphic T-shirts.
Indeed, a gorgeous Dutch supermodel who loves elephants is a perfect bill- board for a socially conscious message. Doutzen Kroes was in Toronto for a Holt Renfrew personal appearance recently to support #KnotOnMyPlanet, for which she is a global ambassador.
“Millennials and Generation Z,” Kroes says, “are not only hungry to support fashion brands that are committed to social responsibility, but they are not interested in brands who aren’t willing to be involved in the conversation.”
We are having a moment where it is cool again to wear your heart on your sleeve, your wrist, across your chest, even on your feet. “Whether it’s supporting #KOMP or the recent #MarchForOurLives and #MeToo,” Kroes says, “young people are making us all get ‘woke’ and it’s amazing.”
Mixing awareness into your wardrobe isn’t new, of course, after decades of breast cancer T-shirts and other fundraising wearables. But the new, cooler messaging in this protest revival era is riding a larger fashion wave.
After the better part of a decade where monochromatic minimalism was the predominant look in fashion, splashy retro graphic T-shirts have made a huge return in recent seasons. Flashy big ’80s designer logos, often bedazzled, have returned, as has wearing advocacy slogans and clever riffs across your chest.
The trend is driven by a new generation of irony-friendly designers, many who discovered “American” culture on the internet as it penetrated the former Soviet bloc: to wit, Moscow’s Gosha Rubchinskiy, who inserts messages such as “Russian Renaissance” in Cyrillic lettering onto retro Americana cues.
And the Georgian ex-pat, Vetements designer Demna Gvasalia (who does double-duty at the helm of Balenciaga), lifted the DHL courier logo and look and made it haute fashion.
There is also Alessandro Michele at Gucci, who made street-wise “fake” Gucci logos real (see: Guccy).
And longtime logo maniac Jeremy Scott, who put stylized McDonald’s uniforms on the runway (circa 2014), is enjoying a revival of his own witty ’90s ideas; he was just announced as the next H&M collaborator.
But this is a generation of consumers that wants a little earnest with its irony, as well. A year ago, the Dior T-shirt “We Should All Be Feminists,” inspired by the writings of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sold out instantly despite its $700 (U.S.) price tag; proceeds went to Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation, named for her grandparents. Talk about the perfect storm of advocacy, commerce and celebrity.
The feel-good factor rubs off on a brand, says David Bensadoun, the CEO of Aldo Group, which has two charity collaborations on the go right now.
There is a collection of jewellery at Call It Spring benefiting MetoWe’s global water, education and empowerment initiatives; as well as the Mx sneaker release Aldo Shoes x Global Citizen in support of education projects.
“Being able to purchase with purpose is important,” to a new generation of consumers, Bensadoun says.
“They question the status quo, they see past the smoke and mirrors and they demand transparency. With Gen Z in particular, they are the first generation to grow up knowing only a world with internet; having full visibility on issues that are important to them and hav-
“Being able to purchase with purpose is important.” DAVID BENSADOUN CEO OF ALDO GROUP
ing the answers to all of their questions at the touch of their fingertips is innate to them.”
Mackenzie Yeates is one of the co-founders of Kotn, the Canadian-designed brand of “perfect” basic T-shirts (also used for the Kroes #KOMP campaign).
That business was begun with a social enterprise element at its heart. When the founders decided to use Egyptian cotton, considered the world’s finest long-staple cotton, they found that the industry in the Nile Delta had been decimated as big brands shifted to lower cost sources.
Yeates says though the styles are designed in Toronto, they work with Egyptian farm families directly, and manufacture nearby. They pay it back further by funneling profits to build Egyptian schools; the first is up and a second has been fully funded.
She says that for too many years too much ethical fashion looked “the same.” Sure, there was chic stuff from sustainable and ethically sourced brand Edun (by U2’s Bono and wife Ali Hewson) made by Africa artisans; and bright Ethiopian prints from Lemlem by model Liya Kebede. Yeates, who previously worked with Alexandra Weston around the launch of H Project, Holt Renfrew’s curated boutique of international designers with a social consciousness focus, says, “So many ethical products have a similar look and feel. And my personal style is not bohemian, I’m not going to wear a linen dress or caftan.” Thus the #KOMP T-shirts featured a small, tasteful elephant line drawing by Toronto artist Melody Hansen.
“We all have too many fundraiser T-shirts we only wear to bed,” Yeates says of the dogooder drawer we all have where “overly busy” graphic shirts go to die.
She suggests L.A.-based thegoodtrade.com as a place for consumers to start looking for brands — fashion, beauty, food, wellness, travel and lifestyle — that reflect both their style and their conscience. “The site has a good taste level,” Yeates says.
“Customers care about authenticity,” she says.
“And relevance: Just slapping a social justice or eco-friendly slant on a spin-off line is obviously a marketing ploy.”
Kotn, for instance, is a B Corps company, whose website says the designation “is akin to Fair Trade certification is to coffee or USDA Organic certification is to milk.” Meaning its designees meet “rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency.” Because consumers these days are not just reading the label, they are wearing it proudly across their chests — if they like what they have read.