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Fashion brands are failing to consult with Indigenous and local communities when developing their sustainability strategies. Non-profit Conservation International is hoping to change this with a new guide to best practice, launching today.
The idea for the guide — ‘Indigenous Partnership Principles for the Fashion, Apparel, and Textile Industries’ — was sparked after 2022 research by fellow non-profit Textile Exchange found that of 252 fashion brands surveyed, only 5 per cent consider Indigenous and local communities in their decision making. Yet the land these communities inhabit boasts 80 per cent of the world’s intact biodiversity.
Conservation International partnered with Textile Exchange and Gucci parent company Kering to produce the guide, following consultations with Indigenous and local communities around the world. It was an opportunity to engage with and learn from the communities the industry has largely gotten used to writing off, says Virginia Borcherdt, senior director of sustainable fashion at Conservation International. “What we’re trying to do is really build the bridge between Indigenous peoples and local communities, who are impacted by the fashion industry, and global corporate fashion companies,” she explains.
She stresses the bridge-building role — the guide is not an attempt to speak for or pretend to present new opportunities to Indigenous communities. “There is already an incredibly robust and incredible Indigenous fashion industry — designers, creatives, manufacturers, producers. In no way do we want to suggest we are unveiling a new opportunity for an Indigenous fashion industry. I want to be really clear about that,” Borcherdt says.
The principles are: adopt a partnership mindset; respect individual peoples and communities; understand and reduce the environmental and social impact of your practices; obtain consent; be honest and transparent; collaborate directly, ideally in person, or through channels approved by Indigenous peoples and local communities; respect Indigenous and local design; pay fair compensation; contribute your knowledge and resources; build long-term partnerships; invest in the future of the craft, the industry of Indigenous peoples and local communities; and strengthen fashion, apparel and textile industry practices.
While potentially game-changing, they’re still just a starting point, says Dayana Molina, activist, Indigenous designer at fashion brand Nalimo and consultant for the development of the Indigenous Partnership Principles in Brazil. “This helps us recognise and visualise the diversity of different Indigenous peoples,” she says. “They are not all-inclusive. They reflect principles that are quite diverse from all the 33 peoples that were consulted.”
They also allow room to be applied in whatever capacity is most appropriate in any given community. Take fair compensation, for example. “Compensation doesn’t always mean money. Sometimes it might be more appropriate to work alongside us on the land,” the report states, while “collaborate directly” is a guideline to respect the locally appropriate way to coordinate with a community. “It is crucial that fashion, apparel and textile companies align to collaboration customs and go through the correct channels when working with Indigenous peoples and local communities. Failure to do so can damage the partnership and even halt further collaboration entirely.”
Nature in designs
Fashion’s relationship to Indigenous communities can be roughly split into two broad categories: design and intellectual property on one hand, and sustainability strategies on the other. The guide, which was developed through “bilateral meetings, surveys and consultations with Indigenous peoples and local communities spanning 15 countries, covering all seven socio-cultural regions”, aims to address both.
Fashion’s challenged relationship with local communities extends beyond cultural appropriation, an issue for which fashion has been criticised many times over many years. There are also concerns about intellectual property — something that Boston-based Roots Studio is trying to help communities preserve.
“My work has always been about working with artisans to preserve our traditional craft skills, many of which are often appropriated by the Global North with little or nothing going back to the true custodians of the crafts,” says Nkwo Onwuka, Nigerian designer and consultant in the development of the principles. She believes it’s been made increasingly difficult for people to sustain a decent living based on these skills, and the craft — and culture it comes from — is being lost as a result. The principles in the guide offer potential to change course, she says. “The local communities will see the value of their craft skills increase and will then attract the next generation to see those as a means of creating wealth and preserving the traditions and culture.”
The lack of engagement with Indigenous communities is also notable given fashion’s increased focus on biodiversity. How can fashion hope to develop effective conservation strategies, experts wonder, if they aren’t consulting the people who are doing it best?
There can also be links between the two. “Indigenous peoples are critical for successful biodiversity, climate strategies — and many designs are influenced or come from nature’s nexus point,” says Quinn Buchwald, citizen of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana and director of Conservation International’s Indigenous and Traditional Peoples Programme. “Big companies have their own departments, but these principles are to advise all the departments. I can’t say one — biodiversity or the intellectual property side — is more important than the other. They should be engaging in all of these areas. I see these as connected, and they really are.”
The guidance is not one directional. Indigenous communities have much to learn from fashion as well — in marketing, consumer education and supply chain logistics, for example.
The guide is less about specific changes, and more about changing fashion’s relationship to Indigenous communities entirely. There’s room to fix past wrongs and create hopeful opportunities, but the underlying goal is far simpler: to open lines of communication, and to get past the point where fashion and Indigenous and local communities are mutually exclusive entities.
“I hope this will foster more innovation, collaboration and communication between the Global North and the Global South. There is so much we can learn from each other,” says Onwuka. “Working together is the only way to find a more permanent and relevant solution to the environmental crisis that we find ourselves in.”
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