Article
Change
Fashion
5 min read

To buy or not to buy, that is the question

Fast fashion antidote brand, Yes Friends, set out to save the world one t-shirt at a time.

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

Yes Friends campaign
Olu and Funsho model Yes Friends t-shirts.
Photo: Yes Friends.

How seriously do you take your moral conscience? How much heed do you pay to your inner monologue? 

Sam Mabley, one of the founders of Yes Friends, was wandering around a shopping centre one day when his conscience told him that he couldn’t buy any item of clothing that was made un-ethically. Any garment which had in any way contributed to the exploitation of those who had made it was simply off limits.   

To buy or not to buy: it was, and is, a question of justice.  

It may be helpful at this point to remind ourselves why, to put such a thought in context.  

The global garment industry is growing at an unprecedented rate. Having doubled in size in the past fifteen years (in terms of global revenue), it is predicted that by 2030, the industry will have grown by another 63%. What’s more, if it continues to operate at the speed and intensity we’re seeing at present, it will devour far more resources than the earth can possibly provide. This world of ours has never seen anything quite like this.  

The garment industry has therefore, unsurprisingly, become the most labour-dependent industry of our age. In particular, the ‘fast’ fashion industry (a large swathe of the industry that relies on incredibly fast, cheap, and large-scale production) is being propped up by a vast and complex supply chain. It quite literally spans continents. And somewhere, often lost in the middle of it all, are the near sixty-million garment workers, the vast majority of whom are living in poverty.  

Despite it being widely acknowledged as a Human Right, millions of garment workers are being denied a liveable wage. They are drastically over-worked and perpetually under-paid, working in notably dangerous conditions (the likes of which are often highlighted by news of factory fires that continue to take lives in Bangladesh) and denied any form of job security.  

All of this is being relentlessly driven by our insatiable demand.  

With this context in mind, back to Sam.  

Their entire business model exists to be a correction of an industry that is so harmful it can be hard to fathom, and yet, there’s no doom present in the DNA of Yes Friends. 

A few years after his conscience began to nudge him and he’d consequently set up an ethical clothing shop, Sam found himself unexpectedly stumbling upon Bible verses such as, 

‘So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages’ 

And even,  

‘Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.’ 

That can often happen. One finds themselves bumping into bible verses as one unexpectedly bumps into an old friend that they had just found themselves thinking about – just at the perfect time. You can consider it coincidence, or as Sam did, you can consider it confirmation.  

Fast-forward to April 2021, Sam and a band of merry co-founders launched a strategically simple campaign that caught a huge amount of attention: they encouraged consumers to pre-order a plain white T-shirt for £7.99, thus showcasing that ethical fashion doesn’t have to be unachievably expensive. And two-thousand people did just that (many of whom doubled up, bringing in around 4,000 initial orders), they bought into a product and, more importantly, into an idea. With large scale, small margins, and the will to do things differently, our most foundational items of clothing don’t have to cost the (literal) earth. Yes Friends have proved it.  

When chatting to Sam and Dan (another of Yes Friends’ original pioneers), I was struck by how their hopefulness had, and still does have, practical application. Their entire business model exists to be a correction of an industry that is so harmful it can be hard to fathom, and yet, there is no doom present in the DNA of Yes Friends. On the contrary, optimism and joy are baked into this brand. It reminded me of a conversation I had with Lord Micheal Hastings, a man who has spent his entire life ‘bending the power of the prosperous to the potential of the poor,’ who was a guest on the first season of the Re-Enchanting podcast. Lord Micheal met my gloomy admission that I so often feel too small to be any kind of solution to the world’s many injustices with the kindest and most profound telling off I’ve ever received. He said,  

‘We’re too big not to be the solution. What fills the space of the problem should be our optimism. We should be willing to step into the breach where things don’t work and make them work’.  

And that’s exactly what Yes Friends are doing. Sam’s words had that exact optimism in them when he simply said, ‘we can do this better, so why don’t we?’. He and his team have consequently stepped into the breach where things aren’t working and are showing that things can work in a fairer, non-exploitative, far more conscious way. They are working with a solar powered, water-positive, Fair Trade certified factory in Northern India. On top of this, Yes Friends has pioneered a bonus scheme, paying an additional premium directly to the garment workers, ensuring that they receive a good wage.  

And what’s really striking about Yes Friends’ success, aside from the fact that they’re saving the world one t-shirt at a time, is that their defiant optimism is proving to be rather infectious.  

As noted, it strikes me that when people are buying products from Yes Friends - as well as buying a beautifully crafted piece of clothing – they are purchasing a piece of this defiant hopefulness. People are buying into a better way, committing to making a better choice. It’s this way of innovating that can create a truly circular way of consuming: Yes Friends are serving their customer base, who are serving the garment workers, who are then re-serving the customer base. And on it goes.  

The brand has cultivated such a good relationship with their customers that they have managed to incorporate their voices into the creative process. Their customers are continually encouraged to communicate their wants/needs and even have a say in the design of the clothing.  

Yes Friends are making wonderful, high quality, clothes; and they’re dispelling any kind of ‘it just is the way it is’ myths along the way.  

So, back to our key question. To buy or not to buy? When it comes to Yes Friends products, I should think the answer is obvious.  

Article
Attention
Culture
Fashion
5 min read

Here’s to the Met Gala, and to those who weren’t there

We’re teaching ourselves that if we’re void of attention, we’re void of significance.

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A celebrity wears a highly stylised cuboid suit to the Met Gala.
Janelle Monáe directs her attention.
Instagram.com/janellemonae/

The Met Gala happened on Monday; a menu of celebrities was offered up to us, each one posing on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the heart of New York City, decorated from head-to-toe, like an army of art exhibitions that had come to life. 

What happens as soon as these finely clad celebrities make their way into the museum? Nobody outside of the room knows. And, Anna Wintour, the brains behind the entire operation, goes to infamous lengths to keep it that way. But everything that happens in the moments before they walk through those iconic doors is a carefully curated display, designed for our eyes to feast on. They’re counting on us to look their way, to stare, to soak it all in.  

It poses the question: if a Met Gala happens and nobody is around to see it, does it really take place? I think I can hazard a guess at what Anna Wintour’s answer would be.  

Our attention is the currency of the entire event; every celebrity is vying for it. And it’s not enough to have a little share of it, the prize is to have the most. At the very least, you need to earn enough attention to ensure that your presence at the event is memorialised. It’s interesting, it’s like an incredibly opulent version of teenagers writing that ‘so and so was here’ on all their school desks. The craving seems to be the same, we want our presence in a specific time and place to be noted and remembered. The school pupil’s tool of choice is a marker pen; the celebrities deploy their outfits.  

Can’t walk in the outfit? Doesn’t matter.  

Can’t sit? Doesn’t matter.  

Can’t breathe? Doesn’t matter.  

The clothes aren’t made to be in, they’re made to be seen in - there’s a difference. 

I sort of like the Met Gala, you know. I’m drawn in by how otherworldly it feels, how its opulence is not quite off-putting enough for us to ignore it. Publicly, we’ll roll our eyes. Privately, though, we’ll flick through who Vogue thinks looked the best (and – more importantly - the worst). The whole event knows it’s ridiculous and, in return, we seem to be pretty forgiving of it. It’s silly – they know it, we know it. The dynamic works. 

Success is being seen. It’s being documented, being observed, being celebrated. 

This year, I noticed a slight slant to the reporting of the event. My social media feeds seemed to be brimming with two lists they wanted me to pour over: those who were there and, more notably, those who were not there.  

I’ve been so struck with how odd this is. Again and again, I was being offered names of celebrities who were not in attendance. Publications and influencers were lamenting the absence of Emma Stone, sneering at the Blake Lively shaped gap in the attendee-list, and insisting that poor old Meghan Markle must have been barred from the proceedings.  

In truth, we have no idea why any given person was or was not at this year’s Gala. The speculation is a waste of time – but it does act as a doorway into understanding our perception of success. 

I think it can be boiled down to this: success is being seen. 

It’s being documented, being observed, being celebrated. 

Success is being there. And so, it’s unfathomable to us that anyone would want to be anywhere other than where the eyes of the world are directed. Our value diminishes the longer we dwell in obscurity, anonymity is nothing short of self-sabotage. That’s what we’re subliminally telling each other.  

I know that this is what we think because it’s what I think. I find the evidence of my hypothesis within myself.  

A need to be seen is written into the rock of my being. In 2021, I felt as though I had been snapped in half – my fear of obscurity exposed - by Michaela Coel’s Emmys acceptance speech. She had just won a prize for I May Destroy You, a limited series that she both wrote and starred in. Clinging shakily to her piece of paper, Michaela implores anyone listening to ‘disappear’.  

She says,  

‘In a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to in turn feel the need to be constantly visible, for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success—do not be afraid to disappear. From it. From us. For a while. And see what comes to you in the silence.’ 

This droplet of wisdom stopped me in my tracks. 

Maybe our metrics of success are a little wonky, our understanding of significance is malfunctioning. I think Michaela’s right, we know too much and see too much. Furthermore, we’re much too known and much too seen. We’re on display. Endlessly. And it’s not good for our souls. We’re teaching ourselves that if we’re void of attention, we’re void of significance.  

And that’s a problem. 

I’ve actually taken Michaela’s advice. I’ve taken to disappearing every now and again – I hate it, I fear it, I fight it with all my might - but I know that it’s a medicine I need to take. It reminds my soul that if I fell in the woods and nobody was around to hear it, I would still have made a sound.  

An unperceived existence still counts. We need to remind ourselves of that, and sharp-ish. Only then will we stop deifying attention and vilifying anonymity.  

And so, with all of that in mind, here’s to the Met Gala – the most prestigious event in fashion. And here’s to the people who weren’t at it. Wherever the appreciative eyes of the world are, may we all find the courage to be elsewhere.   

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