World AIDS Day & Spring/Summer ’04 ‘USE A CONDOM’

World AIDS Day, designated on 1 December every year since 1988, is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection, and mourning those who have died of the disease. To mark World AIDS Day we will be donating 50% of all profits to aidsorphan.net, a charity founded to protect and educate the forgotten AIDS orphans in Kenya and India.

Katharine has been a long standing advocate of AIDS awareness and safe sex practices. For Spring/Summer ’04 Katharine put AIDS awareness front and centre with the USE A CONDOM slogan emblazoned across t-shirts and notably in diamanté on a sheer vest and matching knickers worn by legendary model Naomi Campbell. Campbell was the ideal choice for Katharine to publicise the campaign because the model is an icon for young South Africans.

“I’ve been making slogan T-shirts for a million years,” Katharine told Jessica Cartner-Morley after the show, “And in all that time, what’s changed? So I’m changing tactics.”

Katharine started putting ‘condom pockets’ into boxer shorts and jersey bottoms in the mid 80’s, and it’s a feature that still stands within our collections, with our Redford onesies, Ivan T-shirts, Tom and Jerry track pants all featuring the discreet, but essential pocket. As Katharine put it so well herself “the condom pocket. Use it”.

To find out more about AidsOrphan visit www.aidsorphan.net.

‘CHOOSE LOVE’ – HELP REFUGEES – THE STORY

Help Refugees is the largest grassroots humanitarian organisation working with refugees in Europe and the Middle East, acting as a facilitator for over 80 of the most effective locally-led groups working on the front lines. As larger INGOs have pulled out and public interest wanes, Help Refugees regularly becomes the only source of support for the efforts that keep people alive.

Their focus is always on the most vulnerable, and their aim is that those they assist are able to say that their lives (and prospects) have been improved by permitting Help Refugees to assist them, by bringing them dignity, hope, respect and humanity.

Help Refugees is a relatively new grassroots organisation formed in 2015; in the current refugee crisis their unique role has proven to be efficient beyond expectations. Funding emergency medical care, food, shelter, women and children’s services, search and rescue, informal education, aid and community services working with the most effective partners. They work to facilitate long term sustainable solutions alongside emergency response.

Governments and NGO’s have failed in their response to this crisis in Europe and the Middle East (a crisis of politics as much as anything else) with refugees often left without even food or shelter. Often the most vulnerable, women and children, are left to suffer.

• In just two years Help Refugees have raised and spent close to 8 million pounds, double in in-kind donations, and mobilised over 25,000 volunteers.

• Their core costs for the first 18 months were just 4%. This is something they are incredibly proud of, and is unheard of in this sector.

• The organisation acted as camp management for the Calais ‘Jungle’ in the absence of NGOs where there were up to 12,000 residents. While they cared for the 1000 unaccompanied minors residing there, some as young as 8, they became a major voice advocating for their right to safety.

• They have housed over 800 people across Greece, taking people out of camps and off the streets, into warm, safe, long- term accommodation.

• They have successfully changed and influenced UK law, helping to bring close to 2000 children to sanctuary in the UK over the past 2 years.

• 75% of the grassroots response in Europe has been funded by Help Refugees.

• The team have collectively helped over 600,000 people across Europe and the Middle East, often in a life-saving capacity.

• Help Refugees were The Guardian charity partner last Christmas, and have won a Foreign Policy award in the US, as well as the Jo Cox ‘More in Common’ award in the UK. More recently, Josie Naughton, co-founder and CEO of Help Refugees was named a Global Goalkeeper by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

We are immensely proud to be supporting Help Refugees with the ‘Choose Love’ t-shirts and sweatshirts, a partnership where all profits are donated to Help Refugees to help fund the incredible work they are doing.

To date we have sold close to 50,000 ‘Choose Love’ t-shirts and sweatshirts all over the globe, and are thrilled to announce that ASOS have joined the partnership to bring ‘Choose Love’ to an even wider audience, where they are also donating all profits to Help Refugees.

If you would like to purchase a ‘Choose Love’ t-shirt and make a difference today, please click here.

Katharine Hamnett Autumn/Winter ’90 ‘Cancel The Third World Debt’ Runway Show

Sunday 18th March 20:00, Cirque D’Hiver, 110 Rue Amelot, Paris 75011

“Nutty show at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris for Autumn/Winter 1990. Sexy sporty-girls with added glamour and note, folks, we always had boys in our shows even back then.

Cancel Third World Debt is still a good idea, and what about Cancel Student Debt at the same time?” – Katharine Hamnett

How It Began

I am a really selfish person. All I want to do is be happy.

Aristotle says in order to be happy, you need to live a good life.

The Buddhists say to lead a good life, amongst other things, you need to address the need for a ‘right livelihood’ which means earning your living without hurting anything and for the good of all living things.

From 1981 when evidence started emerging in the media about the threats we were posing to the environment I ran t-shirt campaigns: CHOOSE LIFE, SAVE THE WORLD, SAVE THE SEA, BAN POLLUTION, SAVE THE WHALES, WORLD PEACE NOW and NO WAR.

And in the late 1980’s I thought I’d double check that by making clothes we were in line with ‘Right Livelihood’. I instigated research into the social and environmental impact of the clothing and textile industry, thinking everything would be ok. To my horror and amazement I found myself up to my neck in an industry riddled with horrendous social exploitation, and environmental destruction of a scale that is killing the planet-where the true cost of clothing is being paid in environmental destruction and human suffering. – Katharine Hamnett

Why Sustainability?

Katharine Hamnett - Why Sustainability
Katharine Hamnett - Why Sustainability

Because life on earth is threatened by human activity. The clothing industry – the fourth or fifth largest industry in the world, employing 1Billion people, has to be playing a big part in this.

This gigantic business has a huge impact on the environment and on people’s lives, the glamorous side is a tiny tip of the iceberg. Most people working in the garmenting side of the industry are working in conditions often worse than slavery.

Meanwhile, whether contaminating the air, soil, water supply, ultimately rivers and seas with carcinogenic toxins, heavy metals, chemical pesticides and fertilisers – nearly every fibre and process has a catastrophic effect on human and animal health and ultimately the prospects of survival of life on earth. – Katharine Hamnett

10 Magazine – 48% DON’T WANT BREXIT: THE REVOLUTIONARY KATHARINE HAMNETT TALKS TO ALEXANDER FURY

“The archive is the first thing I see when I go to see Katharine Hamnett. Actually, the first thing I see is her dog, Arthur, but the archive overwhelms. It takes over an entire floor of her east London studio. There are roughly 1,600 garments, charting Hamnett’s influence over the 1980s and early 1990s.”

Read Alexander Fury’s interview with Katharine in 10 Magazine issue 59 online and in print here