Organisation

UCRF is led by a board who bring varied expertise in the field of fashion and sustainability and coordinate the Union’s activities. Their work, like that of the Union as a whole, is guided by a Code of Conduct based on principles of change, collaboration, care and courage.

The Board

The current UCRF board has 10 members (listed alphabetically):

Otto von Busch (PhD) is associate professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design. In his artistic practice and research he explores participatory forms of fashion reform, where fashion acts as a collective experience of empowerment, liberation and shared aliveness.

Kate Fletcher (PhD) is Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, UK and Royal Danish Academy, DK. Over the last 25 years, her work on fashion, textiles and sustainability has defined and challenged the field. Her ten books, available in eight languages, include Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys (2008, 2014), widely used in commercial and academic settings around the world. Her projects include Craft of Use, Fashion Ecologies, Decentring Durability. She is co-creator of Earth Logic (2019) with Mathilda Tham, a project that offers a radical reformulation of fashion within earth’s limits.

Gitika Goyal is a designer, entrepreneur & educator based in Bangalore, India.
She has created three small and sustainable brands over 25 years and continues to strive to maintain circularity within her small business framework. She has worked deeply with crafts and the handmade through two premium brands sold overseas, but is now focussed through the third brand, on everyday clothes in a very affordable space within India. She has also taught at regular intervals at the National Institute of Design, National Institute of Fashion Technology & Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology.

Lynda Grose is professor of fashion design at California College of the Arts. She has worked on sustainability in fashion design for almost three decades with corporations, artisans, farmers, NGOs, governmental and educational institutions. Lynda co-founded ESPRIT’s ecollection (1992), which framed the supply chain impacts approach to fashion and sustainability now prevalent industry-wide. She was a major force in popularizing organic and Cleaner CottonTM through her work with The Sustainable Cotton Project. She is currently working on post-growth design concepts aiming to satisfy the desire for newness in ‘ways other’ than shopping.

Dr. Hakan Karaosman is an assistant professor at Cardiff University. His research focuses on social justice and environmental transition within fashion supply chains. In addition to his published academic work, Hakan has been featured by multiple media articles and events. He has several multi-stakeholder collaborations and is currently serving on the board of IPSERA (International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association).

Hadeel Osman is an award-winning creative director, mentor and designer. She is the founder of multidisciplinary creative studio DAVU Studio, country coordinator of Fashion Revolution Sudan, a co-founder of the Slow Fashion Movement Arabic team, and is behind #AfricaIsNotALandfill to tackle the possibilities of a circular, sustainable fashion ecosystem across Africa and the world. Hadeel is also on the brink of launching collaborative fashion projects that look at innovative approaches to fashion design, keeping people, planet and artistry at the core of each function.

Karishma is an educator, researcher, designer and entrepreneur hybrid. Her social enterprise Karishma Design disrupts the fashion industry through a systems thinking lens, rooted in interconnection through indigenous wisdoms. Karishma also works with secondary and tertiary students as a teacher of entrepreneurship and sustainable design innovation in Aotearoa. Her current action research projects focus on implementing indigenous wisdoms frameworks into education to foster innate ethically focused future leaders. Karishma’s style activism movement, Miraculous Me, focuses on post growth through conscious connection to self.

Tone Skårdal Tobiasson is a journalist, author and editor, based in Oslo, Norway, and was for many years editor of a fashion magazine, gaining insights into the thought-mode of the industry. Over a decade ago she developed a platform for sharing knowledge on environmental and ethical issues in fashion and textiles, Nordic Initiative Clean and Ethical Fashion. She has co-authored several books; Local, Slow and Sustainable Fashion Fibres is the latest. She leads dissemination for research projects for Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) and also writes for EcoTextile News.

Mathilda Tham’s (PhD) work sits in a positive, feminist, creative and activist space between design, futures studies and sustainability. Her work is informed by metadesign and focuses on creating new legend for socio-material relations. Originally a fashion designer, today she draws on symbolic and performative qualities of fashion in broader remits, such as of building and home making for permaculture and active ageing. She is Professor in Design at Linnaeus University, Sweden, and co-founder of Småland Living Lab, a regional living lab for futures of sustainability.

Dr Amy Twigger Holroyd, Associate Professor of Fashion and Sustainability at Nottingham School of Art & Design in the UK, has been active in the field of fashion and sustainability for two decades. Her PhD formed the basis of her first book, Folk Fashion: Understanding Homemade Clothes (2017) and developed into the Reknit Revolution initiative. Her current project, Fashion Fictions, brings people together to generate, experience and reflect on engaging fictional visions of sustainable fashion cultures and systems.

The first principle of UCRF is to effect systemic change in the fashion sector, for fashion that respects Earth’s limits and the health and survival of all species. This means that we, its board and members, always have to ask – is this action likely to lead to the most possible change, with priorities outlined in the UCRF manifesto. Is this the best way to spend our energy, time and resources?
UCRF is a platform for collective action and not for self-promotion. This also means that individuals or collectives, whether founders, board members or members, cannot use the UCRF as a platform for financial gain.
UCRF seeks to be a leader in its culture of change as well as through its actions. To this end, we take time to reflect on our culture at each meeting and the AGM.
UCRF keeps seeking to expand diversity in fashion and give space for voices that otherwise often remain unheard.
UCRF acknowledges that with privilege often comes a sense of entitlement to take up discussion space and therefore actively seeks to calibrate contributions.
UCRF strives for accessibility. For example, English is our working language, but as most members have English as a second language UCRF English seeks to celebrate mistakes and see diversity of articulation as a value.
In a situation when individuals are acting on behalf of URCF, such as in a presentation or an interview with the media, they speak as UCRF and not as an individual and should seek to make this explicit.
Speaking on behalf of UCRF means only discussing what UCRF has agreed.
UCRF signatories and board members commit to being on time for meetings and deadlines and communicating when this is not possible. They keep relevant working groups informed on progress.
UCRF practices nonviolent communication – communication constantly striving for collaboration, respect and learning.
UCRF meets resistance with respect. It sees a difference between anger and aggression.
UCRF seeks to ‘tell it straight’ – UCRF members address issues immediately and directly with the person/s involved.
UCRF practices a culture of sharing and support.
UCRF does not attack individuals, targeting instead issues and striving for dialogue.
UCRF accepts that all people make mistakes. When this happens, UCRF acknowledges it, discusses it, learns from it and moves on.
UCRF seeks to resource ourselves and each other and offer support.
UCRF acknowledges that activism is a challenging relationship that probes at vulnerabilities, but does not exploit them.
Further it sees activism as not about producing harm, but leveraging towards a more just peace.
UCRF sees activism as fostering communication that dares to challenge aggression and violence.
In addition UCRF acknowledges that activism is exhausting and often overwhelming and as a result there is a need to cultivate a culture of encouragement and support that helps feed endurance.