Skip to 0 minutes and 13 seconds Hi. My name’s Ian Cook. I’m an associate professor of geography at the University of Exeter. I’m CEO of the spoof shopping website, followthethings.com and I’m also a member of the global coordination team at Fashion Revolution. I research the ways in which filmmakers, artists, activists, and journalists encourage people to think about the people who make the things that they buy and the impact that this work has. I’ve taught hundreds of students to think of international trade as the social relationships between people who make and buy everyday things. I tell them it’s easy to criticise other people’s choices.
Skip to 0 minutes and 44 seconds But when you learn to find out who’s made your things, you can bring to life relationships you didn’t know you had with people that you’ve never met. So what effects would these revelations have on you and the people with whom you share them? That’s where this course will take you– through your clothes, maybe the ones you’re wearing right now. This course has been created with Fashion Revolution. It’s call to arms since the deadly Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh in April 2013 is, who made my clothes? So far, Fashion Revolution has been encouraging people to ask this question of brands and retailers. It’s been their responsibility to come up with the answers.
Skip to 1 minute and 18 seconds But by learning to become fashion detectives, we can find the answers for ourselves. From brands’ customer helplines, NGO reports, to journalists’ exposes, to the social media feeds of global unions, there’s plenty of information out there. But we’ll pass on some top tips to help you find your needle in this haystack. Taking a single item of your clothing, we’ll guide your research into where it was made, who made it, and what their lives and work are like. We’ll encourage you to think about sources and voices and how to balance educated guesswork and information in your research.
Skip to 1 minute and 50 seconds We’ll help you to make sense of and write creative and empathetic stories about the relationships that you find with the people who make your clothes. And we’ll finish by discussing how what you find and write can contribute to the fashion revolution movement and make a positive difference to workers working worldwide in the fashion industry. Our fantastic team will support and guide you through the course’s activities and discussions. Top student commodity detectives from the University of Exeter will act as the course’s mentors. They’ll be taking the course alongside you and answering questions on the course’s discussion boards. Inspirational members of Fashion Revolution’s global coordination team will be joining us to answer your questions in our weekly film feedback sessions.
Skip to 2 minutes and 31 seconds We’re really looking forward to finding out what you can find out about the people who make your clothes. It’s time for a fashion revolution. We hope you can join us.
