In an era of disco and punk fashions, Diana Vreeland, famous fashion columnist and former Vogue editor stated: "Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes." This observation was astute in the 1970s, and still rings true now.
During the last decade the fashion industry is undergoing an ethical revolution, with consumers demanding transparency on where their clothes came from, who made them, how those people live, and the environmental impacts of the fashion industry on the planet. Supply chain management in the apparel industry needs to keep up with the times, and promote ethical standards for every step of the fashion garment industry. Our customers are the epitome of that change.
2014 saw the first ever Fashion Revolution Day, an event which aimed to ask the public, “who made your clothes?” This awareness day has now become an awareness week, held in April every year around the anniversary of the day the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed. Eight years on and consumer awareness is growing around the need for a sustainable and ethical clothing industry. Elle Magazine dedicated its Sept 2018 issue to fashion sustainability and found that "62% [of readers surveyed] are more likely to buy an item of clothing from a brand that values sustainability". And yet it is so difficult for shoppers to find credible information about the working conditions and environmental impacts behind what we buy.