Bobby Kolade is the designer behind Ugandan fashion label Buzigahill - which puts the politics of upcycling and waste colonialism at its core with the brilliant, provocative concept: Return to Sender.
Buzigahill's collections are made from items of secondhand clothing donated in the global north, and increasingly being dumped on the global south in unsustainable numbers. Why “return to sender”? Because much of Buzigahill’s clientele is in Europe and North America.
Like Kantamanto in Accra, Ghana; Owino Market in Kampala receives huge numbers of bales of second-hand clothing every week, from countries in Europe, from the US and Canada. As a result, in 2023 second-hand accounted for 80% of all domestic clothing sales in Uganda.
But how much is too much? Who is monitoring for quality and consistency? Are we right to keep talking about "donations" in the context of this undeniably big business? As Bobby says, it's not charity - it's a trade, and too often an unequal one with many impacts on local economies as well as the environment when it becomes textile waste. So surely it's good, right, when a receiving country finally says: "No more! We don't want your cast-offs." Or is it? As usual, there’s no simple answer...
This enthralling conversation was recorded before Uganda’s government announced a ban on second-hand clothing towards the end of last year. A situation that continues to evolve.
Can you help us spread the word ?
Wardrobe Crisis is an independent production.
We don't believe in barriers to entry and are determined to keep this content free.
If you value it, please help by sharing your favourite Episodes, and rating and reviewing us in Apple or
Spotify.
Thank you!
Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A Provocation: You Need to Support Small Sustainable Enterprises if you Don't Want to Sink into a Boring Big Brand World - Meet High Tea with Mrs Woo
This is the Real Circular Fashion Economy - Meet Roger, My Local Cobbler
Lou Croff Blake Talks Pronouns, Fashion For Every Body and the Language of Belonging Beyond the Gender Binary
Access Some Areas? Model Junior Bishop on Fashion's Disability To-Do List
Are You Posh & White Enough for a Career in the Creative Arts? Rahemur Rahman on Strategies for System Change
Caryn Franklin, Beyond The Clothes Show - Fashion, Identity, Representation and Belonging
Irish Artist Richard Malone, Who Gets To Make It in Fashion?
Magnificent Michaela Stark - From Insta Bans to Victoria's Secret, Meet the Body-Morphing Couture Lingerie Maker
From Natural Dyes to Reading Nature's Signals, Re-Finding Knowledge Disrupted by Colonialism
Meet Fiji's Fashion Dynamo Ellen Whippy-Knight
Could You Buy No Clothes This Year? Jenna Flood's Wardrobe Freeze
Desperate Measures: Gregory Andrews' Climate Hunger Strike
Spotlight on COP28: Flora Vano - Now is the Time to Stand with Pacific Climate Activists
Meriel Chamberlin - Factory Made & Fabulous? Fashion's Sustainable Re-shoring Opportunity
SPECIAL EDITION (Part 2) Ep 197, Juno Gemes on Photographing the Australian Civil Rights Movement
SPECIAL EDITION (Part 1) What You Need to Know About The Voice Referendum in Australia
London Fashion Renegade: Dr NOKI is the O.G. Upcycler - Just Don't Call Him That
Taylor Zakhar Perez on the Power of Influence
Parley for the Oceans' Cyrill Gutsch - Welcome to the Materials Revolution!
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Glad We Had This Chat with Caroline Hirons
Fashion People
Lipstick on the Rim
Anne of Green Gables
The Story of Mankind
Life with Marianna
The Everyday Style School