Fashion Revolution Week 2026
Fashion Revolution Week is a worldwide awareness campaign that takes place every year in April to promote transparency, sustainability, and ethics in the fashion industry. It was created in response to the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, where over 1,100 garment workers died and 2,500 were injured due to unsafe working conditions. The majority of these were young women. The tragedy exposed serious issues in fast fashion supply chains. Fashion Revolution Week 2026 takes place between 22nd and 28th April. The theme for 2026 is "Conscious Fashion is a Collective Mission" with the aim of re-igniting hope.
The hope is that this year’s Fashion Revolution Week will "reclaim the collective: standing united as one voice ......asking fashion revolutionaries to do the same. Seek connection, ask questions, and take to the streets – for both a better fashion industry and for future generations that follow in our footsteps".
During Fashion Revolution Week, people, brands, and organisations ask brands “Who made my clothes?” to encourage transparency, share stories of garment workers and makers, promote sustainable fashion choices (buy less, buy better, recycle, repair) and host events like talks, workshops, clothing swaps, and campaigns.
The real cost of clothing
There is a disconnect between the price of the clothes we buy and the true social and environmental cost of production. The volume of clothes produced and bought is growing at an unsustainable rate and relies on a “culture of disposability”. In 2015, around 150 billion items of clothing were produced and this number continues to grow. We buy 60 per cent more clothing now than we did 15 years ago and we only keep these clothes for half as long as we used to with Irish citizens purchasing approximately 56 kilograms of textiles each year, more than double the European average of 26 kilograms. By keeping and wearing clothes for longer, by swapping and donating, we can help to lower the impact. Research from WRAP has found that extending the life of a garment by 9 months would reduce its carbon, water and waste footprints by 20-30 per cent each.
Unsustainable materials
Added to the sheer volume of clothing produced are the unsustainable materials used. “Our clothes are made from materials and processes that require the extraction of natural, non-renewable resources and produce considerable negative environmental impacts. Each of the common materials we wear carries its own set of environmental issues, from the oil extraction required to create polyester, acrylic and nylon to the deforestation for viscose or heavy pesticide use in farming cotton”.
About 60 per cent of global fibre production is polyester, a man made plastic fibre which is made using crude oil. Every time we wash these items, individual microplastic fibres are shed and enter into the waterways. Every year, Irish people dump 225,000 tonnes of clothing – a huge waste of water and energy considering that it would take 13 years to drink the amount of water needed to make one t-shirt and one pair of jeans.
Environmental Protection Agency Report - Textiles: Second National Attitudes and Behaviours Survey 2024
The EPA Textiles Second National Survey Report highlights how Irish consumers purchase, use, and dispose of clothing, providing important insights for developing a more sustainable, circular economy. Based on a nationally representative survey of over 1,000 adults conducted in 2024, the report examines behaviours such as buying habits, rewearing, repairing, and discarding textiles. It shows that consumer behaviour plays a key role in textile waste, with many items being discarded rather than reused or repaired, reflecting a largely linear “take-make-waste” pattern. The findings are used by the Environmental Protection Agency to inform policies and awareness campaigns aimed at encouraging more sustainable practices, such as extending the life of clothing, improving recycling, and reducing overall consumption. The report notes that almost half of Irish people buy clothes frequently with 26 per cent of people buying clothes at least a few times a month and 20 per cent buying clothes monthly. 46 per cent buy ‘a lot’ or ‘fair amount’ of clothes from supermarkets or low-cost shops/brands. When it comes then to clearing out or recycling clothes, 64 per cent of people aged 16-24 check their wardrobe more than twice a year to see if there are clothes they want to discard. This was found to be much higher than the national average of 49 per cent. Women are more likely to prepare clothes
for reuse before discarding them.
Decent Pay for workers
Fashion Revolution Week calls attention to the pay disparities between the fashion brands, who "have made billions, while the majority of workers in their supply chains remain trapped in poverty". They are calling for new laws that require businesses to conduct due diligence on living wages. This will transform the lives and livelihoods of the people that make our clothes, and help redistribute money and power in the global fashion industry.
Fashion Revolution Week is a "global movement of people who make the fashion industry work, the people who wear clothes and the people who make them, the designers, academics, writers, business leaders, policymakers, brands, retailers, marketers, producers, makers, workers and fashion lovers".
LEARN MORE AT www.fashionrevolution.org/
Check out our podcast episode with Carrie-Ann Moran, Director of Fashion Revolution Ireland as she chats about the global fashion and textile industry, the impact it has on emissions and how we all, individual and industry can move from the linear model to a circular model available HERE. Carrie-Ann Moran also spoke at our 2023 Annual Social Policy Conference on the theme of A Just Transition. You can watch her at 22.30 minutes in on the Session One video HERE.