Fashion Passion
Oral Communication Practice
Watch the video about fashion designer Victor Baguilat and his social enterprise Kandama Collective, which works to empower locals from the Tuwali tribe in Northern Philippines by bringing their traditional weaving expertise to the global market. Then, think about your responses to the questions below.
Link to social enterprise Kandama Collective video: https://tinyurl.com/KandamaCollective
1. Would you like to start an initiative like Victor Baguilat's?
2. Do you agree that fashion is important?
RESPONSES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Karin Hitselberger, 33, Writer and Disability Advocate
“We may think of fashion as a very surface-level thing, but it gets to the core of how you present yourself to the world. Just because I’m physically disabled doesn’t mean I don’t have my own style, and fashion can’t be something that I care about.”
Richard Thompson Ford, 57, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
“I grew up interested in fashion based on the influence of my father who actually trained as a tailor… He also deeply internalized the importance of self-presentation, which was especially important for a black man growing up in the era just after our civil rights laws were passed, where overt racial prejudice was still common and racial stereotypes everywhere. I saw for him how important it was to present himself in a manner that was dignified, refined and reflected his own sense of self. [It was] also what he needed in order to negotiate a still fairly hostile society.”
Bobby Kolade, 34, Founder of BUZIGAHILL
“As things stand, clothes are produced at a very low cost in Southeast Asia, consumed in Europe, and dumped in Africa. In other words, what we’re fighting against is a system, a culture. And it’s so difficult to eradicate a culture, especially when that culture has the power and the money—to put it bluntly. How can an institution like the European Union put a pause on fast fashion production? I don’t know how that’s possible, but it’s what needs to happen.”
