A grant from the Naturesave Trust has funded the launch of the new OurCommon.Market (OC.M) platform. OC.M is a not-for-profit gathering space for diverse, community-focused fashion, clothing and textiles projects including seed-to-closet initiatives; craft revitalisation; clothes swaps; visible mending, upcycling workshops; campaign groups and more. OC.M seeks to make these alternatives visible and to inspire individuals to engage with clothing in a meaningful way, moving away from passive consumption towards active participation in culture. OC.M aims to be the destination to find out how to get involved in fashion, textiles and clothing practices near you or online and where knowledge on alternative systems is shared and created.
The OC.M Journal brings visibility to commons-based fashion and clothing systems through articles, interviews and photo stories. Throughout the rest of the summer and beyond, they will highlight the most vibrant and inspiring communities from around the UK. Thanks to funding from the NatureSave Trust, OC.M will include an initial focus on London, the South West and Scotland. Features include photos and video by award winning photographer, videographer and activist Immo Klink focusing on the following initiatives and more:
- YiCrafts in North London, who teach the crafts of Chinese ethnic minorities
- The YKYU knitting club, run by black owned enterprise, Colechi, a collective and research agency actioning sustainable development in the fashion industry whose events have taken place at Somerset House and the Saatchi Gallery in London
- Craft Forward, a Brixton based group that knit blankets for unhoused londoners
- Defashion Dorset, a fair that explores local clothing culture and brings together the farmers and practitioners making in happen
- Tamarisk Farm which produces organic wool, right on the Dorset Coast
- BlueBarn.Life, a collective in Dorset producing clothes in slow and meaningful ways using discarded materials and Irish Linen
Additionally, OC.M will soon be launching a social space where communities making or debating clothing and textiles cultures can interact and post events. This space hopes to facilitate networking between craft, clothing cultures and sustainable fashion enthusiasts, practitioners, suppliers, collaborators and customers and build solidarity so that alternatives to the extractive industry can thrive. Lara Fank, Communications Coordinator for OC.M says, “non-industrial fashion practices exist all around us. We need to give them the importance and visibility they deserve and need so they can overcome the dominant extractive fashion system. This grant has been invaluable in starting us on our mission. It has allowed us to meet communities in person and document and share their stories. Ultimately this funding has enabled the forming of vital human connections.”
Fashion Act Now
Our Common Market is a brainchild of Fashion Act Now, a grassroots people-powered activist group operating from a shared, deeply-felt need to stand up against the Fashion industry in effective, transformative ways. The Fashion industry is in crisis: hugely oversized while burdened with the imperative to keep growing, ever faster, and at any cost. Community-driven clothing cultures emphasise sufficiency and wellbeing while reconnecting people with placed-based cultures. Anthropologist Sandra Niessen and member of Fashion Act Now says “The OC.M website is a powerful tool to realise the unique and laudable ambition of Fashion Act Now. It is carefully crafted to facilitate a transformation in thinking and doing fashion everywhere and from the ground up.”.
Collaborators
OC.M has been designed by activist-led creative agency Not here to be liked, a team that has been responsible for design work for Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. Sara Arnold, co-founder of Fashion Act Now says, “This team knows that bringing community-based practices to a wider audience requires a design-led approach to show there’s a vibrant, teeming tapestry of alternatives where creativity is not elitist.”
Degrowth and the Commons
OC.M believes in the power of the commons where clothing cultures can exist not to serve the market, but the customs, culture and needs of ordinary people and their communities. Commons incentivise the stewarding of nature and collective wealth for future generations. By developing a network of clothing commons, we can move away from the endless overproduction, extractivism, corporate profit-making and exploitation that characterises the industrial fashion system.
Fashion Act Now is an activist group demanding and enabling a radical de-fashion future. Read more about their work here.
