Event details:

Date: Sunday 4 December 2022
Time: 3-5.30pm
Where: Micro-labs Melbourne, 227-229 Bourke Street, Melbourne 3000
Price: Free!

She Wears the Cost – Genderless Clothes Swap and Crafternoon

Join our end of year clothes swap and crafternoon to learn how you can demand better rights for the women who make our clothes.

“We poured our everything into making their clothes, but I am fearful in the factory. We get urgent orders, but I don’t get enough to live like a human being.”

These are the words of female garment workers experiencing injustice in low-income countries. Even though the fashion industry provides new employment opportunities for women in developing countries, it is plagued by exploitation, poverty wages, and poor working conditions. While Australian and international fashion brands continue to cash in huge profits, women garment workers are left to bear the cost.

It’s time to demand transparency, living wages, safe workplaces and labour rights for women garment workers.

This event falls within the 16 Days of Activism - an annual international campaign promoting the prevention and elimination of the verbal, physical, and sexual violence that women and girls endure every day. This year’s theme is ‘Respect’. Please join us in sharing what respect means

Clothes Swap – give your garments a second chance!

Keep your clothes in circulation and build a sustainable wardrobe. This clothes swap will give you the opportunity to build a ‘new’ wardrobe without contributing to disposable fashion.

Come along and bring up to 5 items of preloved clothing, shoes and accessories. Please make sure these items are in good condition and have been cleaned prior. You will be free to take home as many items as you desire. This is a gender inclusive clothes swap, and we welcome people of all gender identities to participate.

Craft activities

Do you have an item of clothing that you love, but can't wear because your dog chewed a hole in it, or the moths attacked it? Breathe life into your clothing and extend its lifespan at our mending workshop! Just bring along 1-2 articles of clothing that need repair, and learn how to make them good as new with just a needle and thread.

More sustainable craft activities and yummy food to be announced!

Plus, we'll hear from Dr Harriette Richards, Lecturer in Fashion Enterprise at the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT, about the impacts of the fashion industry.