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Katharine Hamnett has long been a political and environmental campaigner and has used her collections to endorse her activism through production and design techniques, with the aim of increasing public awareness of ethical and ecological issues.
Establishing her own business in 1979 she has subsequently used her fashion shows as a platform, creating the slogan T-shirts with “Choose Life” emblazoned across the front, which gained iconic status when they were worn by the band Wham! in their music video of 1984. These slogan T-shirts became a symbol of resistance in the 1980s, featuring many different messages including “Cancel Third World Debt”.
Hamnett wore a white t-shirt that she had designed with thick black sans serif text declaring “58% Don’t Want Pershing”, only revealing it underneath her jacket at the moment she met the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in protest against the stationing of nuclear missiles in the UK.
Thus marked the beginning of a movement in fashion orientated toward instigating political change and which reflected the feeling of risk-taking in London during the 1980s. In 1984 Hamnett was given the Designer of the Year award by the British Fashion Council.
“Sustainability is also about how you earn a living. Just as if you’re a feminist you should be boycotting brands and standing shoulder to shoulder with our sisters who are making clothes in other parts of the world in appalling conditions without health and safety. Every day should be International Women’s Day.” – Katharine Hamnett
Her interest and research into eco fashion in the 1990s saw her get more deeply involved with the business of fashion production from its earliest stages, such as fiber sourcing and helping to develop organic wool, cottons, and other necessary materials.
In 2011, Hamnett was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the fashion industry, and in 2013 she designed two additional slogan T-shirts for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: “Education Not Trident” and “NHS Not Trident.” In her article, From Passivity to Agency, author YeSeung Lee poses the question of whether Hamnett’s “method of printing bold linguistic messages” means the “wearer possesses their agency or whether they merely convey the designer’s message”.
We hope the links here will help you discover more about Katharine Hamnett and her work; they will remain free for a month after the post date. Find out more about Bloomsbury Fashion Photography Archive and Bloomsbury Fashion Video Archive, including free trials and purchasing options.
