UCRF is running a ‘Member of the Month’ feature on this blog, where a member, selected at random from the membership database, is sent five questions to give us all an overview of our members. Our second participant is Jackie May.
- How would you sum up your research / practice?
I launched Twyg in 2018 – a not-for-profit media organisation working at the intersection of fashion and sustainable development. The platform idea developed in reaction to my last corporate job, working on a publication whose business model promoted fast fashion and excessive consumption. I realised I was more passionate about doing the opposite: persuading consumers to slow down and make better choices. Twyg publishes stories and promotes experiences that aim to inform and inspire positive consumer changes. Twyg is principally aligned with the Sustainable Development goal 12, responsible consumerism and production, however, it is committed to all the other SDGs.
Two years ago, when Twyg was launched, South African mainstream middle-class media was not addressing the serious fast-fashion challenges of climate change or fair labour practice, and concepts like slow fashion, sustainability and eco-consciousness did not feature. Although we’ve seen amazing growth in media and consumer interest in sustainable fashion, there is still much work to be done. One area that has started to emerge in the work on the platform, is the idea of regeneration. In Twyg’s stories and in our projects, we ask how does this repair what we’ve ruined?
