Designing a more inclusive fashion industry with H&M Foundation
Friday March 1.
This time last week I was sitting in the departure lounge at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport. It was the end of KNIT, a 5-day DE&I pilot project initiated and funded by H&M Foundation. The vision for KNIT was to bring together people with diverse lived experiences to participate in co-creating solutions that will make the fashion industry more equitable.
After 5 days hothousing ideas, my head was empty. But my heart was full. And my soul was soaring. On Monday morning, our 11 participants had met for the first time. By Friday lunch they were a tight-knit group of collaborators, pitching their prototyped ideas to a room full of fashion industry experts. It was a moment. A mood. And beautiful to witness 🧶🧡
Behind the scenes, the organising team exhaled…
Signing up for KNIT was a leap into the unknown, not just in terms of the ambition for the work, but in the way the work was to be done. Inclusion sat at the heart of this project so it made sense to shape our working practices around the principles of open-hearted collaboration and skill-sharing. H&M Foundation set the vision. The DO (global platform for accelerating a new sustainable, equitable and innovative economy) and Creative Equals (award-winning global inclusion experts) collaborated on the design and delivery of the programme, while fashion brand COS brought the industry perspective.
My part in it all was primarily as an inclusion consultant for Creative Equals, but roles shift and evolve in a pilot, and for our five days in Stockholm, I got to co-facilitate the participants as they workshopped their way to creating not one, but two culture-shifting tools, Step Into My Shoes and Humanitree. Each tool was designed to be used by leaders in the industry and encourage the kind of mindset change that moves inclusion from an afterthought to a core behaviour, and supports diversity and equity.
That intoxicating feeling I had sitting at the airport made for a whopping workshop hangover. I’ve still got a lot of reflecting to do on the week and all that I learned, but a few things are clear…
✨ KNIT is proof that magical people really can make magical things happen. And KNIT’s magic is woven around the 11 phenomenal participants: Suwayda Abdi, Samia Tirike, Bushra Ahmed, Golda Kesse, Sabine Matsheka, Paulo Saka, Stephanie Daley, Judah Maffia, Tolu Elusadé, William Rook and John Akanmu ✨
A diverse and brilliant group of individuals whose talent risks being overlooked by fashion's typically elitist and exclusionary systems.
Thank you Creative Equals for trusting me to be part of your team. Love and gratitude to Hinda Jama and Stephanie Matthews for being my ride or dies throughout the project. Plus huge thanks and appreciation to Jodit Tesfai, Carola Tembe and Indira Furniss Söderström at H&M Foundation, Anna Rojan, Liliana Marie Thimm and Hannah Grover at The DO, and Sasha Brady at COS.
A final thought (for now) shared by the amazing Thando Hopa (She/Her) who gave a TED Talk-worthy keynote on day 2: PROTECT YOUR OPTIMISM ✨
Read H&M’s write up
Photo: H&M Foundation / Anders Lindén
