00:00that you see that passion as an agent for social change and I think with that
00:08there's this awesome responsibility that I think women of color no matter what
00:12space we enter whether it's the fashion world or somewhere in corporate or so we
00:16go in I stay all the time jokingly as either the head of the diversity
00:21committee or you are the DNI professional where there is not one but I think
00:25there's still so much more with fashion I just started doing red carpets a few
00:32years ago and for me I was raised by an activist we were bonding on activism
00:36before we opened the panel and it was like what label what do they stand for
00:40and now that there's like all this extra pressure when you think about your
00:45journey with this particular brand and what you all are aspiring to do and have
00:49been already for a few years what would you tell aspiring designers in this room
00:54is their responsibility as agents for social change when they launch or when
00:59they have people wearing their clothes or when they're going in to make certain
01:03decisions about what types of suppliers they'll work with what is their
01:08responsibility for me a lot of people don't realize that fashion is the second
01:18polluter in the world so it pollutes more than most industries it's not just a
01:22dress and it's not just a pair of shoes and it's not just you know like if
01:26you're buying non like a non natural fibers like polyester which most clothes
01:31especially inexpensive clothes are made with polyester those using plastics which
01:36is using oil and gas which is a huge polluter and so you know what I would say is
01:42there's a few things you know one from a consumer and also a producer point of view
01:48but as a consumer some of the fastest growing countries are in Africa right when we started
01:53seven out of ten fastest growing countries were in Africa and that means that there's an
01:57incredible purchasing power that's there but it's oftentimes overlooked okay and then
02:03also the average age is 18 and in the next few years by 2050 where the earth is getting to this point
02:10where we're getting so hot from co2 emissions that we're reaching this point of no return where we're
02:15supposed to have these crazy natural disasters that are happening all of the time crazy weather patterns
02:20huge earthquakes like really kind of doom and gloom situations but by that time the people that
02:26you're going to see mostly on the planet are going to be of African descent and Asian because those are the
02:31two populations rising the fastest so who is going to bear the consequence of all of the decisions we're making
02:37today it's going to be there and so if I was you know giving advice to somebody who's an aspiring designer
02:44I think it's really important to think about the circularity of the goods that you're producing not
02:50because it's a buzzword but because it's really important because it's going to impact you know whether or
02:56or not you can breathe one day you know a t-shirt uses 2700 liters of drinking water that's two years of drinking water
03:03two years of water so you know if you make a lot of excess t-shirts that you don't need
03:09one day you won't have access to clean water or water at all so you know it's not to sound dramatic it's actually an opportunity
03:17it means because most of those raw materials and resources are coming from Africa instead of like pillaging it
03:24and wasting it we have this opportunity to work with it and collaborate with it and like build a brighter future
03:30where we have more control of our supply chain and where we can create a better future for ourselves so that's what I would say
03:36I would say focus on sustainability and circularity because it's one it's obviously a growing market
03:43but two it's where you probably can excel and it's better for the planet you as an agent for change in
03:51so many spaces when you hear or when you all say fashion is an agent for social change what does that
03:57mean to you and how should this will carry that responsibility I think it's you know the the idea of
04:04recognizing the intersectionality of all the different things that we care about we love like
04:08we can't be here celebrating the essence of who we are and celebrating ourselves um without seeing that
04:15behind the hashtag of black world magic or black excellence means actually supporting those businesses
04:19and actually you know uplifting those spaces um it has to be hi um it has to be um something that we
04:28recognize you know when you know she's talking about the congo and women being raped there
04:34because of conflict minerals that go into the cell phones the con the tungsten the tin the coal tin that goes into our cell phones
04:41um you know it's about you know she was talking about working with an organization in uganda
04:46it was a really great organization called afripads that was creating sanitary napkins that could be reusable
04:51and it was creating industry right there it was accessible and localized right there
04:56so it's going you know when you start talking about colonialism and decolonizing ourselves it's about
05:03recognizing that if you're constantly supporting businesses that are extracting resources like cotton
05:09outside of africa and then the value is being put in other places like italy then you're not actually
05:14really supporting the idea behind some of the posts that you're constantly putting up so this is an actual
05:19opportunity for us to start actually going back not to just like a new way of doing things but actually
05:24the old way of doing things it's this really um you know this sort of like zero end game um you know
05:32rise to the top for the for the very small few that has created this you know non-circular economy that
05:39is detrimental to all of us and actually going back to our roots is actually recognizing how we've
05:44always done things which is to actually live in relationship to our to our planet and recognize
05:50ourselves in that um and that means going back to practices like that you know so you know fatiguing
05:56and you know growing things in a way that's sustainable and you know not just having a throwaway
06:01culture it's an actual circular economy um and so supporting you know when you're going into that idea it's
06:06not just like a trend thing of like oh it's sustainable well it's not even just we can't
06:11just be aiming for sustainable we keep sustaining at the rate that we're at we're doomed we actually
06:16need to start regenerating and that means really investing our time energy our vote our money in
06:21things that are going to be beneficial to all of us and actually showing people as we're celebrating our
06:25black excellence going back to going our ancestors did it right and we need to uplift that and and promote
06:31it and give us more access to it because all of the stuff that institutionalized racism misogyny all of these
06:36different things feed into this culture of buying things that's throwaway and it's only throwaway
06:41to you because you don't see where it lands but it lands still on this planet and it's hurting people
06:45that you otherwise want to celebrate and if you start recognizing that then you have to realize that
06:50all of the institutions that we're talking about fashion falls into that as well and the reason why
06:54certain companies and certain products are easily accessible to you is built into a certain system
06:59that benefits a very particular few so yes you do have to do more work to recognize what the
07:05sustainable organizations and companies are you do have to figure out who are the black owned and
07:11the um uh the women owned companies are you have to do that research because it's not going to be
07:16handed to you because we want you know the powers that be in the structures that exist want you to buy
07:23the shade product that came from someplace else the shade came from africa the you know the the the
07:31all the raw materials have come from africa the cacao all of that stuff but it's all going to be placed
07:36someplace else and that value is inherent in the idea of going once you see if something is made in italy
07:41even if it's not a brand that you recognize you still think that it you have it embedded in you somehow
07:46some way you think it's valuable you see something made in africa you want to you want
07:52to you want to price it down and why has that been built into our our um our psyche um and why
08:02has that been acceptable and we have to that's all that's all of that stuff needs to be broken down
08:07and and then we can really start those hashtags start to really mean something
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