Katharine Hamnett has been plotting. On the cracked, peeling screen of her battered iPhone, sheâs scrolling through what she hopes to be the blueprint for, come polling day, a ballot box-based revolution. Itâs a PDF with an array of mocked-up billboards, each emblazoned with a policy or slogan. A designer and campaigner renowned for her political punchiness, she has made the text snappy and succinct, all in trademark capital letters. âIn here is everything thatâs missing,â she laments, âfrom this so-far awful election. Both main parties want us to feel like progressive ideas are in the bin. Forgotten. We mustnât let them.â
She reels off a selection: âVote freedom to protest; vote free education; vote save the NHS; vote let aid into Gaza now.â There are plenty more. âVote legalise, nationalise and tax marijuana; vote help refugees; vote ceasefire; vote good, free public regional transport; vote roller-discos.â Yes, roller-discos. âI did some research while working with Podemos in Spain. They foster community and solidarity. Isnât that fun?â Another, her overarching mantra: âOur vote is the most powerful tool to get the world we want. I want that one all over.â
Her plan is simple â in cahoots with organisations such as Led By Donkeys: get these messages plastered nationwide across public spaces. âPoliticians arenât talking about this stuff, but itâs hugely popular. If I put them out and get people talking, maybe the parties will have to pinch them. It could swing the dial. And if not, itâs a reminder to all of us that we deserve to vote for the future we actually want. That these ideas are still possible, even if the likes of Starmer and Sunak want to pretend theyâre not. That we can. We should. We must. That itâs our money theyâre spending.â
One design, DONâT LET THEM STOP YOU VOTING, has already been popping up across the capital; a statement on new voter ID laws and fears students would be kept off the electoral register. Thereâs a website, too. Her next stop is Glastonbury: these posters will be erected at Block9, the festivalâs late-night, anything-goes, politically charged party corner. âIâm not hugely keen on mud and late nights, but for this? Iâll do it.â Sheâll have a booth to answer puntersâ questions. âBecause this election,â she is sure, âand then those in Europe, the United States and beyond this year are the most important of our lives. The whole future of life on Earth will be decided in them. Weâve got to do something. This is my part. If I wasnât doing it, Iâd go mad.â The phone is returned to her handbag, from where she pulls a cigarette, then lights it.
With the promise of sun, weâd planned to meet for coffee at a London community garden café. But the weather is grey, wet and blustery, so we find shelter on a sofa under a canopy. Hamnett is dressed in black, head to toe; her dog, Arthur, lies loyally beside her. Now 76, Hamnett suggests I sit closer. One of her ears, she explains, is on the blink. I offer to grab us hot drinks. âOr a glass of wine to loosen the lipsâ¦â she suggests. I oblige. Itâs immediately apparent, however, that to this end no Pinot Grigio is required.
âIâve been so focused on the election,â she begins, âand whatâs on offer from Labour and the Conservatives is pathetic.â Sheâs not holding back. âStarmer? Heâs a shitbag. I want to be expelled from Labour, but I havenât been yet. Iâve got a feeling they just scrubbed my membership out.â She voted for Starmer in the 2020 Labour leadership race, but feels let down. âHe claimed he was going to carry on with the progressive principles that were in place. Watching him reneging on the reasons I voted for him? I was furious. I still am. Itâs betrayal and shameless.â
Hamnett has rarely shied from being frank and outspoken. In 1984, she wore a self-designed, anti-Tory T-shirt (58% DONâT WANT PERSHING, a reference to widespread opposition to US missiles being based in Britain) to meet Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street, grabbing national attention. At London Fashion Week 2003, her models wore âSTOP WAR, BLAIR OUTâ shirts with the invasion of Iraq looming. In February this year, she once again made headlines. To Instagram, she uploaded a short video: emerging from her front door, donning a âDISGUSTED TO BE BRITISHâ T-shirt, she dumped her CBE in a dustbin. She kept things brief: âIâm disgusted to be British for our role in genocide in Gaza,â she said to camera. âThis is my CBE. It belongs in the dustbin, with Sunak and Starmer.â
âIâm just so devastated by whatâs happening there,â she says today of the decision. âI had to do something. Anything: I refuse to be part of it. I felt so helpless, but needed to dissociate and distance myself from this disgusting government defending and supporting the atrocities in Gaza.â The Labour leadership, she feels, has been equally complicit. Sheâd read about a former Scottish police chief whoâd handed back his gong for similar reasons. âAnd what did I want that stupid thing for anyway? My son is a filmmaker. I said to him: will you capture me putting this in the trash? I put the footage online, and it travelled quickly.â Typically, she was shrewd in her messaging. âAll the news channels and papers wanted interviews, but I said no. Everything I wanted to say was in the clip, so thatâs all they could show: it spread my message precisely as intended.â
While her latest campaign is, strictly speaking, not party political, it is candidates from beyond the major parties that sheâll be backing. âFor me itâs about independents. Jeremy [Corbyn] is standing, heâs good. This guy Andrew Feinstein is standing in Kierâs seat. Heâs fabulous and worked with Nelson Mandela.â Thereâs progressive candidate Faiza Shaheen, now running as an independent having been blocked by Labour HQ from running in Chingford.
âThey could be the leaders of the independents,â Hamnett hopes. âA loose collation. If Labour gets in, I fear itâll be indistinguishable from the Tories. It might even get worse. If we had everybody voting for decent independents, weâd have weaker Conservatives, weaker Labour. Who knows? They might be the kingmakers. And I think thereâs a real chance. So many people are disgusted with Labour, revolted by the Conservatives. Our political system isnât fit for purpose.â
Hamnett today is one of the British art sceneâs last true, obdurate radicals. Life didnât start that way. Her father, an RAF man, became a defence attaché in MI6, posted to early Nato. âAnd really,â she says, âyou donât get more establishment than that. My parents were the sort of people who wouldnât allow me to do yoga at school. They feared it had communist affiliations.â When she was six, the family moved to Paris, then Bucharest and Stockholm. British boarding schools felt just as oppressive. âCheltenham Ladiesâ College wasnât a particularly progressive place,â she regrets, âand neither was the ghastly prep school Iâd been to before in the boondocks of Herefordshire.â
While studying fashion in London, all this changed. âI arrived at Central Saint Martins in the mid-1960s, its golden days. We were all waking up to the injustices and criminality of colonialism. The Vietnam war. Everything happening was completely wrong and we needed to stand up and do something about it. My family all voted Tory. Suddenly I was a socialist. Going home was difficult.â
She entered her industry wide-eyed and optimistic. âNaive, actually,â she self-corrects, âtotally fucking oblivious.â She briefly went into business with a friend, then freelanced before setting up her label in 1979. It proved hugely successful. âIt was ridiculous. Companies would buy our whole collection. I was my own boss, no backers, entirely self-funded. It meant I was free to say whatever I wanted.â And she did, starting with the T-shirts. âThe styles from our collections were all being copied â the highest form of flattery. If that was going to happen, why not, I thought, make large-print shirts that could be spotted from 300m away, with ethical and environmental issues that needed attention? Iâd be thrilled if they were replicated.â
Soon, Hamnett turned her focus on to her own industry and business. âItâs easy to be successful if youâre a cunt,â she believes. âThe challenge is to try to be successful and not be one; to be a decent human being.â The ideas, she assures me, are borrowed from Buddhism, even if the Tipitaka is lighter on profanities. âSo I wanted to check the environmental and social impact of the clothing and textile industry,â she says, âthinking it would be fine. I just assumed itâs fashion: we couldnât be doing anything that wrong making clothes. Around 1989, we did this research.â A report was commissioned. âAnd, oh my God, that was a wakeup call: thousands of farmers dying every year from accidental pesticide poisoning. We were destroying the environment and killing workers. The industry was making people sick, keeping them in slavery, devastating ecosystems. Every single material had a huge footprint: leather, PVC, viscose, Teflon â even bamboo is a total greenwash. Dying and tanning processes? A nightmare. I realised quickly I was in the wrong job. Our impact was disgusting.â
Today, fashionâs ramifications for people and planet are widely known. Hamnett was a pioneer; the first to blow the whistle. âI had licences all over the world,â she says. âI decided to say to all these clients and buyers: see whatâs happening! Weâve got to fix it! I thought theyâd all be shocked and agree. That I would persuade them to change.â This proved unsuccessful. âThatâs when I realised what business I was really in. A rotten, stinking cesspit, responsible for countless people living in the worst conditions and the destruction of the planet.â
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When one of her denim manufacturers refused to offer a profit share to a Senegalese project supporting cotton farmers going organic, she smuggled a Channel 4 News film crew on to his estate to demand his contribution. One leather supplier was secretly using cheap, toxic substances instead of agreed sustainable methods. Hamnett cut all ties. One by one, relationships crumbled.
The label agreed to work on a sustainable collection with an Italian fashion house. âThe day before we went out to agents with the pieces, I noticed an issue with the denim. Theyâd used chlorine bleach. No, I said. Itâs toxic. Their man turned to me and said: âCarry on with this ethical and environmental shit, you can take your collection and fuck off.â That pretty well summed up the industry.â
Still, Hamnett persevered in her efforts to start a sustainable fashion revolution. âI was patronised, ignored and dismissed. This was the 90s and 00s. People just wanted to have fun, that was the zeitgeist. They hoped it would all go away. They were having a nice time. And it was going to hit the bottom lines.â
It felt like her own company was against her at times. âThey werenât rigorous enough and there was big money at stake. We were turning over millions. The revenue started to shrink as materials and processes exposed themselves to be harmful. Even some of the processes I invented, like stone washing, were totally toxic. Iâm by no means guilt-free. I did all sorts of terrible things. I was the first person to put Lycra in denim, for instance.â The business shrunk. âThings just sort of petered out. Itâs a shame. I like clothes. I like fashion. I love to make clothes that make people happy and help them function. But thatâs what happened. I was left with the T-shirts.â
She turned her focus to activism and charity collaborations, her âCHOOSE LOVEâ T-shirt design, the most famous, raising millions to support refugees. âItâs a simple, clear message,â she says, âan antidote to so much hate. Itâs the best one I ever came up with. Itâs the lens through which we should all look at the world; the antithesis to everything thatâs happening in politics.â Does it sting that so much of her other creative output is often left out or forgotten? She shrugs. âIâd much rather be doing this than be stuck in some old fashion house trying to keep itself alive with a 76-year-old boss competing against companies producing beautiful things from Uyghur slave labour in Chinese prison camps.â
For decades, Hamnettâs family was London-based. Married, now separated, she has two adult sons, and a grandchild. Post-Brexit, the clan sold up, upped sticks and headed to Mallorca. âHonestly,â she says, âI just thought fuck this.â Right now, though, sheâs back in London, renting, crashing in a rental flat. The future feels uncertain. âSpain is lovely,â she says. âDevastatingly beautiful. I have gorgeous friends. But this is an emergency. I canât just sit around there, soaking it up. Iâve come back and feel like I can actually achieve something here. Be part of something. Whereas in Spain Iâm a nobody. Iâd feel terrible after all the work Iâve done before not trying now. I have a voice I can use for something positive.â
And Hamnett has so much to say. Reform to childcare funding; legalisation of cannabis; the cancellation of student debt. Do I know about direct democracy in Switzerland? Sheâs curious, obsessed with solutions and potential. Her radically progressive views might have been forced out of the political mainstream, but her optimism is unrelenting. âHello,â she exclaims, âwhat choice do we have?â She pretends to slap me round the face, as if to wake me. âWe canât feel sorry for ourselves. Channel it into creative energy. Stay angry as hell and do something. Our votes are an incredibly powerful tool. I believe in people. And I think Iâm right, even if we all need to just wake up a bit. We can truly get our green and pleasant land in this country. A different Jerusalem if we take this chance.â Another cigarette. âI really do hope this works. I do believe humans are 99% good. Thereâs just a few rogues who go out there and seize power. Letâs stop them.â
Katharine Hamnett will be collaborating with Block9 at Glastonbury Festival, 26-30 June (votavotovotezvote.com)