Zady and Fashion Revolution
During the final spring semester, I completed an internship with the e-commerce site, Zady, focused on ethical and sustainable fashion, telling the stories of production from farm to garment. During this internship I worked on a range of projects.
Research: I completed multiple research projects for Zady including work on stakeholders within the UN's network of potential partners for concerning the measurable impact of clothing production. I also completed research projects on the viability and true metrics of a major brand's clothing recycling program.
Strategy: My main project at Zady was strategizing for Fashion Revolution Day, the global initiative to raise awareness about the social and environmental issues of the fashion industry and creating demand for transparent supply chains. I completed an ideation session where I presented 100 ideas, a technique I adopted from my Thesis class in Design for Social Innovation. The ideas ranged from events, to activist rallies and sit ins, social media and blogger campaigns. After a few rounds of narrowing, we chose to move forward with an event honoring leaders in the industry creating change, a social campaign for influencers, and coordinating with student groups, an initiative encouraged by the Fashion Revolution headquarters in the UK.
Execution: As the US chair's of Fashion Revolution, Zady was responsible for coordinating events across the US. I worked with organizations, brands, communities, and student groups to support them in their efforts to create events and social campaigns. For the social campaign, we chose to expand the traditional Fashion Revolution campaign of taking a photo with your clothing tags, tagging the brand, and asking #whomademyclothes to create demand for supply chain transparency. I also believed that we should be celebrating brands who are transparent with their supply chains so under the same hashtag, #whomademyclothes, we worked with influencers to tell the story of a brand or item where they do know who made their clothes. We created a limited edition Zady t-shirt as a starter kit for people to beginning their more conscious closet.
The main element that I organized for Fashion Revolution was the event to celebrate leaders in the industry working to create a more sustainable future. I worked to get a venue, food, and drinks donated for the event. The panel discussion between Zady CEO, Maxine Bedat, Patagonia VP of Environmental Affairs, Rick Ridgeway, celebrity stylist, Sarah Slutsky, and Quartz fashion reporter, Marc Bain, was held at Parsons the New School for Design. We had food provided by Farm to People and wine from One Hope. Attendees ranged from designers such as Steven Alan, to media like Vogue and Refinery29, to representatives from the UN and World Economic Forum.
The event opened with remarks from Burak Cakmak, Dean of Fashion at Parsons, followed by an intro by Maxine Bedat. Each speaker was then given an opportunity to speak before coming together for a panel discussion. Graphic designer, Emily Herrick completed graphic facilitation of the evenings conversation and the attendees were given post-it notes to jot down thoughts and leave "one thing they learned" and "one thing they are going to do about it" on a board as the exited the event. Overall the event was a great success and got significant coverage from the press.
