Confusion over chrome continues
17/02/2014
A long-time campaigner against war, weapons, racism, pollution and other issues, Ms Hamnett says she is committed to producing her collections “as ethically and as environmentally as possible, alleviating poverty, and preserving traditional skills”.
Speaking to the BBC at the start of her new campaign, Ms Hamnett said “pretty well everything” was wrong with the fashion industry and she immediately highlighted cotton production, which she has campaigned to improve since 1989, as an example.
She claimed that there are 100 million people involved in cotton agriculture, a million of whom have to go to hospital each year because of “accidental pesticide poisoning”, and that this causes 10,000 deaths a year around the world. She also claimed child labour, forced labour and slave labour are still issues for the cotton industry in the twenty-first century, and said millions of people working in factories in the developing world were “living in conditions worse than slavery”.
She went on to say there are problems with the processing of most raw materials, and she included leather in this. Specifically, Ms Hamnett claimed the use of chrome in tanning leather is a problem, showing that efforts to convince the wider world that the correct use of chromium salts in the tanning process is safe.
“It’s endless,” Ms Hamnett said. “The brands don’t care. Brands and retailers are just interested in their profit and they don’t give a damn. It’s consumers and citizens that are driving change.” She called for legislation to “stop goods from coming into our countries” unless there are guarantees that the factories where the goods are made are safe and the workers are paid a fair wage.
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