Event commemorates Rana Plaza disaster

STUDENTS from Hollings took part in a “fashmob” in All Saints Park to mark the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster.

The fashion flashmob was organised by Hollings’ apparel sustainability project MMU Connect as part of their partnership with Fashion Revolution.

More than 60 students took to the park with placards demanding to know “Who made my clothes?”, and also took the debate online by sharing pictures of their clothes labels on social media, using the hashtag #whomademyclothes.

The event was part of a series of national commemorations organised by Fashion Revolution, a coalition of writers, designers, academics and business leaders calling for reform of the fashion supply chain.

Deadly disaster

The Rana Plaza disaster happened in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in April 2013. More than 1,100 people died and 2,515 were injured when the eight storey commercial building collapsed. The garment factories in the building manufactured clothes for brands including Primark, Matalan and Bennetton.

The building was not originally designed for factories but only for shops and offices. Despite warnings from architects and television footage showing cracks appearing in the building, workers were threatened with having a month’s pay withheld if they refused to come in to work.

The collapse is considered to be the deadliest garment-factory accident in history.

Zoe Hitchen, Lecturer in the Department of Apparel, who organised the event, said: “Fashion Revolution Day is so important. Two years ago the Rana Plaza garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh, killing more than 1,100 people and injuring thousands more. It is our responsibility as consumers to keep those people most vulnerable in the supply chain in the public eye; we must not forget!

“We need to become change-agents and cause disruption of the current broken fashion system - we can fix it!”