Lily Cole: Changing Wardrobes to Change the World

Available for over a year

The model, actor and environmentalist Lily Cole shares the story of the item of clothing that was a game-changer for fashion and sustainability. You are what you wear? We discuss whether we can tackle environmental and humanitarian crises through the clothes on our backs, in our wardrobes and in our stores. Tina meets two advocates of sustainable fashion whose locations are linked by the invisible threads of the globalised supply chain- designer Silvia Giovanardi, who lives and works in the Italian fashion capital Milan and Iftekhar Rahman, fashion designer turned fashion professor in Dhaka, Bangladesh, home to many of the garment factories supplying western retailers. Out with the old, in with the new? We explore whether an eventual ban on second hand clothing imports will mean a boom in home-grown fashion in Rwanda. Reporter Cynthia Umurungi meets Joselyne Umutoniwase, designer and founder of Rwanda Clothing in Kigali, and those who rely on the second hand clothing industry. Finally, what does fashion activism look like? The BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil speaks to Céline Semaan, a former child refugee and founder of New York label Slow Factory about how she responded to President Trump’s travel ban- not through demonstration but through design. Presenter: Tina Daheley Producer: Kirsty McQuire, Mugabi Turya, Shoku Amirani (Photo: Model Lily Cole in London Credit: Danny Martindale/Getty Images)