Carry Somers | |
|---|---|
 Somers in 2017 | |
| Born | 1966 (age 57–58) Seaton, Devon, England |
| Education | Colyton Grammar School, Westminster College Oxford, University of Southampton, University of Essex |
| Occupation(s) | Fashion designer, campaigner |
| Known for | Fashion Revolution, Pachacuti |
Carry Somers (born 1966) is a British fashion designer, social entrepreneur and campaigner. She is founder of Fashion Revolution and was previously founder and director of Pachacuti.
Somers was born in Seaton, Devon in 1966 and attended Colyton Grammar School. She has a degree in Languages and European Studies from Southampton University, and a Masters in Native American Studies Studies from the University of Essex [1] which presented her with the alumnus of the year award in 2009. [2] [3] Somers set up fair trade fashion brand Pachacuti in 1992 and founded Fashion Revolution in 2013. [4] [5] [6] In July 2022, Somers was awarded an honorary doctorate by Keele University. [7]
Somers is founder of Fashion Revolution, a global movement which arose from the Rana Plaza garment factory disaster in Bangladesh on 24 April 2013. [8] [9] Fashion Revolution is the world's largest fashion activism movement campaigning for systemic reform of the fashion industry with a focus on supply chain transparency. [10]
Somers organised roundtable debates at the House of Commons and the House of Lords on ethics, sustainability and transparency in the fashion supply chain including Ethical Fashion 2020:a New Vision for Transparency [11] in June 2015 and Fashion Question Time annually from 2015 to 2018 in UK Parliament and in 2019 at the V&A. [12] Somers speaks nationally [13] [14] and internationally [15] [16] [17] [18] about transparency, human rights and environmental issues in the fashion supply chain.
In 2020, Somers sailed 2000 miles from the Galapagos Islands to Easter Island and the South Pacific Gyre with eXXpedition, [19] an all-female round-the-world sailing voyage carrying out scientific research into the impact of plastic and toxic pollution in the ocean. [18]
In February 2022, Somers was nominated for a billboard campaign during New York Fashion Week highlighting women-led social enterprises in the fashion industry which are driving social and environmental impact, appearing on the Nasdaq billboard in Times Square and outside the United Nations. [20]
Somers worked with garden designer Lottie Delamain on a Textile Garden for Fashion Revolution which won a silver gilt medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May 2022. [21]
Somers founded fair trade hat brand Pachacuti in 1992. [22] Pachacuti was the first company to be verified under the World Fair Trade Organization Sustainable Fair Trade Management System, [23] [24] the first International certification of a fair trade, sustainable production process. [25] The WFTO Verification system guarantees practices, procedures and processes that demonstrate social, economic and environmental responsibility throughout the supply chain". [26] Pachacuti's products were labelled Verified Fair Trade by WFTO UK0001-2009 to 2012. [27] [28]
Pachacuti piloted the European Union Geo Fair Trade project from 2009–12 [29] which traced products from the straw to the Panama hat weavers. 60 social, economic, geolocalisation and environmental indicators tracked annual changes. The pilot project mapped the GPS co-ordinates of Pachacuti's 154 weavers' houses in Ecuador, the parcels of land where the Carludovica Palmata grows, and the co-ordinates of the associations who harvest and process the straw. [30] [31]
At London Fashion Week in September 2013, People Tree Ltd. and Pachacuti were the first companies in the world to launch the WFTO Fair Trade Guarantee System label. [32]
Somers appears regularly on television and radio in the UK and overseas. [33] [34] She has been a regular guest on BBC World Business News, [35] BBC Breakfast [36] and national and international radio. [37] [38] [39] Press articles and interviews include: Forbes How Two Entrepreneurs Became Unexpected Activists And Started A Fashion Revolution [40] Telegraph She Wears It well [41] El País [42] Vogue , [43] Newsweek How the Rana Plaza Disaster Changed Fashion Forever [44] and the Financial Times How to Spend It. [45]
Somers is a regular speaker at universities, events and conferences, both nationally [46] [31] [47] and internationally [48] [49] on Fashion Revolution, fair trade, entrepreneurship, sustainability and fashion. She has lectured on cruise ships in Latin America and the Caribbean on textiles, traditional dress, artisan handicrafts, indigenous peoples and fair trade.
2024: A Dictionary of Plant Fibre and Colour, with research from Somers' Churchill Fellowship. [50]
2015: Somers wrote the introduction to "Fixing Fashion" which looks at the impacts of consumer culture's addiction to disposable fashion, published by New Society.
2014: Co-authored "Working Ethically", which aims to help business owners find an ethical strategy which will benefit their suppliers, community and environment. [51] She contributed to the book, published in 2014, "Sustainable Luxury and Social Entrepreneurship". [52]
Fair trade is a term for an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement combines the payment of higher prices to exporters with improved social and environmental standards. The movement focuses in particular on commodities, or products that are typically exported from developing countries to developed countries but are also used in domestic markets, most notably for handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, wine, sugar, fruit, flowers and gold.
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperatures. The work may be difficult, tiresome, dangerous, climatically challenging, or underpaid. Employees in sweatshops may work long hours with unfair wages, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. Women make up 85 to 90% of sweatshop workers and may be forced by employers to take birth control and routine pregnancy tests to avoid supporting maternity leave or providing health benefits.
The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass universities. The university comprises three campuses in the county, in Southend-on-Sea and Loughton with its primary campus in Wivenhoe Park, Colchester.
Ethical consumerism is a type of consumer activism based on the concept of dollar voting. People practice it by buying ethically made products that support small-scale manufacturers or local artisans and protect animals and the environment, while boycotting products that exploit children as workers, are tested on animals, or damage the environment.
Cafédirect is a UK-based alternative trading organisation.
Traidcraft was a UK-based Fairtrade organisation, established in 1979. Its trading arm, Traidcraft plc, which sold fairly traded products, went into administration in January 2023.
A sustainable business, or a green business, is an enterprise which has a minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that attempts to meet the triple bottom line. They cluster under different groupings and the whole is sometimes referred to as "green capitalism". Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, a business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:
Triodos Bank N.V. is an ethical bank based in the Netherlands with many branches in Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom, and Spain. It was founded in 1980.
Veja is a French footwear and accessories brand founded in 2004. Veja's products are made with organic cotton, natural rubber, leather and recycled plastic bottles.
Dame Anya Susannah Hindmarch, is an English fashion accessories designer who founded an eponymous company, of which she is CEO. Hindmarch published her first book, If In Doubt Wash Your Hair in May 2021, a Sunday Times bestseller.
Sustainable fashion is a term describing efforts within the fashion industry to reduce its environmental impacts, protect workers producing garments and uphold animal welfare. Sustainability in fashion encompasses a wide range of factors, including cutting CO2 emissions, addressing overproduction, reducing pollution and waste, supporting biodiversity and ensuring that garment workers are paid a fair wage and have safe working conditions.
Safia Minney MBE FRSA is a British social entrepreneur and author. She was the founder of Global Village which she set up in 1991, and the founder and former Global CEO of 24 years of People Tree, a pioneering sustainable and Fair Trade fashion label. She is also a spokesperson and campaigner on Fair Trade and ethical fashion. She initiated World Fair Trade Day in 1999, which is endorsed by the World Fair Trade Organization and their members and celebrated on the second Saturday of May each year. Additionally, she wrote the books Naked Fashion:the New Sustainable Fashion Revolution, Slow Fashion, Aesthetics Meets Ethics and Slave to Fashion.
Fair trade coffee is coffee that is certified as having been produced to fair trade standards by fair trade organizations, which create trading partnerships that are based on dialogue, transparency and respect, with the goal of achieving greater equity in international trade. These partnerships contribute to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to coffee bean farmers. Fair trade organizations support producers and sustainable environmental farming practices and prohibit child labor or forced labor.
People Tree is a Fair Trade apparel company founded in 1991. The Company no longer has a London base after laying off most UK staff in 2023 amid financial trouble but maintains an office in Tokyo. People Tree Ltd, the UK business, went into liquidation in September 2023 with debts of £8.5m. People Tree was one of the early proponents of Fair Trade and Ethical Fashion and was the first fashion company to be awarded the World Fair Trade Organisation Fair Trade product label.
An alternative purchase network (APN) is a contemporary commerce channel established as an alternative to perceived consumerism, and the cultural and economic hegemony of the global market. Alternative purchase networks aim to promote ethical shopping behaviour, which has an environmentally friendly approach and considers local realities.
Fashion Revolution is a not-for-profit global movement represented by Fashion Revolution CIC with teams in over 75 countries around the world. Fashion Revolution campaigns for reform of the fashion industry with a focus on the need for greater transparency in the fashion supply chain. Starting in 2014, Fashion Revolution marks the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh with Fashion Revolution Week and holds events each year. Between 2014 and 2020, millions of people around the world called on brands to answer the question Who Made My Clothes? The hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes became the no.1 global trend on Twitter. They have faced criticisms specifically about the Global Fashion Transparency Index.
Marci Zaroff coined and trademarked the term "ECOfashion" in 1995 and is an ECOlifestyle entrepreneur, educator, and innovator. She believes that Millennials are "“driving the rapidly growing movement for sustainable and ethical fashion.”
Fair trade is where a farmer or craftsperson is paid a fair price for their product, one that represents its true worth, not just the lowest price that it is possible to pay. This is a price that covers the cost of production and enables the producer to live with dignity. Fair Trade New Zealand is an organisation that was launched in 2005 which supports fair trade by ensuring that farmers and workers' rights are not exploited. According to Oxfam New Zealand, there are several companies to support fairly traded goods from, which are exported to New Zealand. From 2013-2014 there were 42 Fair Trade Licensees and Traders in New Zealand. From 2015-2016 this number rose to 54 Fair Trade Licensees and Traders in New Zealand. Gwen Green, Oxfam's Engagement Director, says: "when farmers are paid fairly for their products, we see people able to make real improvements to their lives and their communities. Producers who used to struggle to feed their families are able to give their children an education, and communities can build schools and develop businesses. It is one of the smart solutions to poverty". In 2009, Wellington became the first fair trade capital city in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2017, Whangarei was recognised by the Fair Trade Association of Australia New Zealand as being one of four fair trade councils in New Zealand, and the first fair trade district in New Zealand.
Orsola de Castro is an upcyclist, fashion designer and author. She is the co-founder of Fashion Revolution, an activism movement which works towards a sustainable fashion industry, and was creative director until 2022. De Castro has been in the sustainable fashion space for more than 20 years, since founding upcycling brand, From Somewhere, in 1997.
Madeleine Darya Alizadeh is an Austrian author, podcaster, influencer, activist and entrepreneur. Her activities center around environmentalism, sustainability and mindfulness. She initially became known through her blog, which she ran for seven years, and, today, she runs the fashion label dariadéh and the podcast A Mindful Mess. Her book Starkes Weiches Herz was on the Spiegel bestseller list in fall 2019.
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