And that means OUR COMMON MARKET can begin to grow…
Check it out here: OurCommon.Market
Our Common Market is a brainchild of Fashion Act Now, a grassroots people-powered activist group operating from a shared, deeply-felt need to stand up against the Fashion industry in effective, transformative ways. OurCommon.Market is the spearhead strategy that FAN has chosen. While many activist groups are trying to reform the industry, FAN is investing its energy in encouraging and championing the grassroots alternatives to the top-down, globally dominant Fashion system that industry has built. The Fashion industry is in deep crisis: hugely oversized while burdened with the imperative to keep growing, ever faster, and at any cost. And that cost to the well-being of the planet and all of its inhabitants, is staggering. Thus the out-of-control Fashion industry renders itself ridiculous, anachronistic and irrelevant. The alternatives that the OCM will showcase represent the fashion future that FAN believes must replace the oversized and dangerous industrial system of exploitative supply chains and sacrifice zones of extraction and pollution.
This is why, for the past year, FAN has been focussed on bringing defashion to life through Our Common Market. We believe in the power of commons where clothing cultures exist not to serve the market, but the customs, culture and needs of ordinary people and their communities. They steward nature and their collective wealth for future generations through a variety of regenerative clothing cultures. By developing a network of clothing commons, we can move away from the endless overproduction, extractivism, corporate profit-making and exploitation that characterises the industrial fashion system.
Our Common Market supports commons based fashion systems around the world. We aim to encourage and showcase a pluriverse of real clothing cultures from across the globe that nourish people and the planet rather than serve economic growth.
How does OCM work?
Community-driven clothing cultures offer an alternative to the dominant fashion system. They emphasise sufficiency and wellbeing while reconnecting people with traditions and culture. These communities practise visible mending, craft revitalisation and regenerative fibre production and many more alternatives that are often erased, eroded and ignored. With Our Common Market, FAN is building translocal digital commons to unearth, explore, connect and support diverse clothing communities demonstrating regenerative practices and align with our common values stated in Our Common Code.
With Our Common Market we want to make alternative systems visible and encourage your participation in them, through community participation, not purchase. It is a platform where diverse clothing communities from around the globe, who are making fashion on their own terms, can present themselves and build networks. Through OCM you will be able to get involved in events, workshops and meet-ups and to learn textile and clothing skills. We want diverse, community-based clothing ecosystems to become the default choice over growth-based, extractive fashion.
The Naturesave funding will be used to onboard and integrate an initial cohort of UK based communities, to share their stories, enable knowledge sharing and to discover the needs of diverse stakeholders. The Naturesave Trust is funded by the activities of Naturesave Insurance, the UK’s leading ethical insurance provider for individuals, businesses, charities and community groups. Naturesave Insurance donates 10% of its annual personal insurance premiums to environmental and conservation projects supporting grassroot organisations through a variety of funds.
Will you join the OCM Community?
All are welcome and we need you. Do your values resonate with those of OurCommon.Market? Would you like to upload information about your fashion community? Would you like to participate in community events, OCM assemblies and meet-ups? Would you care to help us develop this brave, innovative and transformative community of communities? Together we can swell into a critical mass and be the alternative. All are welcome.
If you’re a UK based clothing community or want to become an ambassador for your local area, please reach out here - hello@fashionactnow.org. Want to explore what a local clothing culture can look like and connect with other communities? Join us at Defashion Dorset on the 24th and 25th May.
For everyone else from across the globe and outside the UK: we will launch our OCM website, where you’re able to create a profile for your community and connect with others in April. Watch this space, sign up to the mailing list - OurCommon.Market and feel free to reach out in the meantime!