Research on Katharine E. Hamnett

English fashion designer

Political T-shirts

Ethical business philosophy

"USE A CONDOM"

"PEACE"

Interview Katharine Hamnett

By Hermione Eyre

Sunday, 12 October 2008

The Independent

Katharine Hamnett achieved stardom as a fashion designer in the early-1970s. She dressed Liz Taylor and won bundles of awards. She invented the block-print sloganeering T-shirt, then gave Mrs Thatcher a shock with one in 1984 (see overleaf). She pioneered organic cotton production in the 1990s and lost interest in high fashion as she pushed causes from the cancellation of Third World debt to electoral reform. She sent Naomi Campbell down the catwalk wearing a top saying "Use a condom" in 2004. Then Henry Holland revived her trademark huge-print T-shirts and her stock soared again.

She's desperately passionate – "Fair Trade? It's not good enough. It has to be organic Fair Trade

"I don't believe my T-shirts changed anything, though they probably helped get the word out there," she says. "Hard to believe it but they used to be considered offensive. In the early-1980s American Vogue finally deigned to visit my showroom, which was at the time a very chic faux cave, and when they saw T-shirts saying 'Love' and 'Peace' they spun, literally spun on their kitten heels, and walked straight out."

In 1984 she was named Designer of the Year by the British Fashion Council, her clothes were stocked in 700 stores in 40 countries.

"I am sure," she says, breathing in the sweet, mouldy air of the Kew hothouse, "that plenty of people in the fashion industry wish I would just crawl away and die."

Katharine Hamnett, great English eccentric, is indefatigable. Long may she reign.

Book- Eco Chic the savvy shopper guide to ethical fashion, Matilda Lee
Foreword by Katharine Hamnett:
We have to feed ourselves, shelter ourselves and clothe ourselves.
Clothing is the third or fourth largest industry in the world. It employs a sixth of the world’s population. Consumer research shows that there is an enormous unprecedented surge in consumer concern about who makes clothes, how they are treated and how the manufacturing process affects the environment. This concern has grown to such an extent that demand for fairly traded good will soon exceed supply in some areas.
A recent consumer poll showed that 90 per cent of respondents do not want goods made with child labour, 85 per cent do not want goods with sweated labour and 50 per cent do not want goods that damage the environment. Retailing takes very seriously any research that shows consumer opinions above 90 per cent.
Given that marketing has been defined as giving people what they want, a moral imperative to produce goods cleanly, treat workers well and pay above living wages has now become an economic imperative. Yet there is a widespread lack of understanding of these issues.
Clothing is a very significant part of what we consume and people are realising ‘how we consume decides the future of the planet.’