Who are the Vanguards Reimagining the Future of Fashion?
Dominique Drakeford talks regeneration and liberation in the fashion industry.
“SUSTAINABILITY IS SYNONYMOUS WITH BLACKNESS.”
Sustainability is not a new concept and, despite what their seemingly ubiquitous presence in sustainability might imply, it was not created by white people. It has existed for centuries as a foundation of life for the global majority: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Therefore, we must center the invaluable experiences of BIPOC in creating solutions to the biggest challenges facing the fashion industry at large. On this episode of Unspun Dominique Drakeford, the co-founder of Sustainable Brooklyn and founder of MelaninASS, joins Lauren, Danielle, and Catherine in a conversation about the regenerative and liberative frameworks needed to evolve how the industry approaches sustainability.
The Fashion Industry is a White Supremacist System
There is a general understanding that the way the fashion industry has been operating is unsustainable. However, many people both within and outside of the industry are missing a fundamental component of the story: the fashion industry was deliberately set up in this unsustainable way. In his book, Empire of Cotton, Sven Beckert writes, “Too often, we prefer to erase the realities of slavery, expropriation, and colonialism from the history of capitalism, craving a nobler, cleaner capitalism.” All industries, including the fashion industry, are based in the white supremacist system of exploitation and extractivism. We might crave a “cleaner capitalism” because the alternative forces us to acknowledge a daunting reality: we need to abolish the whole system.
Drakeford views this white supremacist system as operating through three main pillars: public policy, marketing, and education. As she explains on The Root, a podcast series co-produced by Drakeford and Kestrel Jenkins of Conscious Chatter, these pillars control access, perception and information, respectively.
Finding the Future in the Past
The concept of sustainability has existed for centuries in Black, Brown and Indigenous communities. And it has carried into the present day, not in the fragmented approach of sustainability that separates people and land, but amongst Black communities across the diaspora who draw on their ancestry to inform relationships with themselves, their communities, and land. These are the folks who are implementing alternative systems that might hold some of the answers the industry has been searching for. These are also the communities that have been left out of and most harmed by the mainstream sustainability discourse.
Drakeford’s work is centered on being a bridge for solutions building, specifically putting Black liberation at the forefront of the industry’s focus. She reminds us that the true vanguard of sustainability lies within these communities, and they have been working for change all along.
“I’M ALWAYS GOING TO FIGHT FOR SOLUTIONISTS WHO ARE GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN OF SYSTEM.”
It is only through collaboration and support that we can move forward. With so many conferences and panels happening in the industry and not enough solutions being activated, it is essential to cultivate these alternative systems that function at a local level and outside of the mainstream industry. It is from these smaller-scale alternative systems that we can build off of and create a liberative future.
If you want to learn more about Dominique Drakeford’s journey (hint: it involves a couture gown made up of used condoms), regenerative and liberative approaches to sustainability, and what she imagines for the future of sustainability in the fashion industry, tune in to the first episode of Unspun.