Last week, when the world was still just about upside up, we marked #DEPLOY’s 30th Collection Anniversary with our #MakeThisDecadeCount event. We shared our reason for starting up 15 years ago: to make a positive difference by deploying systemic changes with a new model for sustainability and equality.
We invited all to do things right in the first place, since we cannot recycle or re-hash our way out of our current predicament.
We discussed the need to shift our mind‐sets and adapt our daily actions between the changes we must make and the continuity we want to keep: On a macro level, how we read and respond to the speed at which the world is moving. And on a micro level, how we wake up to consider what we are doing and wearing today.
Critically, we stitched together the direct correlation between what we wear and how that impacts the planet and people, emitting 10% of carbon (more than aviation & shipping combined), using 25% of the world’s chemical output, and keeping 1/6 of the global workforce in poverty, whilst making clothes for us.
This week our world turned upside down. Whilst no one can quite grapple with the breadth and rapidity to which things are spiraling at, we remain firm in our vision, ethos and efforts to care for and connect with people and our environment. Because problems do not disappear when we turn our attention elsewhere.
Our plea for you today, as it was in 2006 upon our founding, remains poignant, and more relevant now than ever before.
• NEVER STOP CARING about yourself and your surroundings, both socially and environmentally.
• ALWAYS TRY on different ideas and perspectives for CONSTRUCTIVE CHANGE.
• ENJOY DISCOVERING the journey and free will to make DECISIVE IMPROVEMENTS.
This REFORMATION, though un-fashionably late, is NOW. If it takes a global crisis to finally halt the constant propeller of waste, damage and exploitation in the name of fashion, growth or therapy, let’s actively make this a time for recalibration and collaboration to make way for a NEW ORDER that deploys a 360 Compass of Sustainability & Equality for all businesses, all governments and all individuals.
We can make this decade count.
