Mumbai has been and remains integral to the global textile and fashion industry. Its history is intertwined with the Indian cotton trade, and its position in the global financial and industrial market has led to leading textile industry stakeholders – brands, manufacturers, raw material suppliers, financiers, and more – calling it home. Beyond its links to the industry, Mumbai is also a city that is home to millions of consumers that access fashion from the mass market all the way through to the bespoke, luxury category.

As part of the global Shaping Fashion initiative, the Mumbai Hub of the Global Shapers Community’s long term goal is to work to address the issues of unsustainable production and consumption, the climate impacts, and the massive inequality that stem from the fashion industry through a range of approaches. In terms of activities that underpin the chosen approaches, the hub will aim to:

-        Reduce textile waste by driving awareness among consumers on ways they can reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle

-        Mobilise the community and consumers in the city during the 10^th Fashion Revolution Week to mark the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, and leverage Fashion Revolution’s campaigns to engage industry on critical issues of materials, workers, and more

-        Take action by organising clothing collection and recycling drives, clothes swaps, and more along with local partners in the city that also work with waste pickers, upcyclers, and enterprises working in the fashion supply chain

-        Support the youth of the city and strengthen their skills and capability to engage in policy, with the aim of ensuring the circular economy, and the potential of managing fashion waste effectively are brought into policy discussions

Beyond local dialogue, action, and change; the Mumbai Hub is also taking on the role of revitalising the global Shaping Fashion initiative, engaging hubs from across the Shaper network to develop a clear roadmap and action plan for 2024 and beyond. In 2023, the Mumbai Hub worked to bring Shaping Fashion back on the agenda by:

-        Organising meetings with interested hubs around the world to restart work on Shaping Fashion as the lull from the pandemic subsided

-        Gathered toolkits, papers, and information from activities of other hubs in the Shaping Fashion initiative to develop key resources for hubs to use and implement activities in 2024, these include a toolkit to organise clothing swaps, and a guide to organise clothing collection and recycling drives locally

-        Surveyed the Shaping Fashion network to engage hubs part of the project and scouted new participants for the initiative at a global level

The Shaper community can play a key role in ensuring the fashion industry and its consumers mitigate the negative environmental and social impacts of the industry, as young people across cities – we have the ability to hold industry account, demonstrate the potential for change and justice, and more. One of the goals for Shaping Fashion Mumbai in 2024 is thus to reactivate the Shaping Fashion community and bring in at least 5 more hubs into the fold to engage in either awareness, action, or policy efforts.

Reach out to us if you’re interested in joining this global movement and contributing to shaping the success of Shaping Fashion in 2024 and beyond!