A Letter to Senegal

Dear Senegal,

​I am writing to thank you. I know it has been a long time since I visited you in 2016 but you changed my life. You inspired me to stand up and take action; something that I have since done. I will forever be grateful for the lessons you taught me and so I wanted to share with you my journey. The journey starts and ends with you.

​I remember the moment that we first met. You welcomed me with a warmth that pervaded every corner of the plane's cabin. The heat intensified as I left the plane and revealed to me your first secret. You were a victim of climate change.

​You have always had an exotic climate but there is no doubt that it has risen in the past few years. It was clear that you were struggling with the unrelenting rays of the sun. Your soil crumbled under foot. Water had not graced your surface for months and so it would remain until the rain season. I knew you were counting down the days until the first drop of water would touch your surface. But no matter how much it rained over those three rainy months, it would not sufficiently quench your insatiable thirst.

Despite needing respite from your dehydration, rain would bring its own disasters: floods and disease. Blocked drains would carry contaminated water through your streets. Cholera and malaria would threaten anybody in search of some water to drink. As each of your secrets were revealed to me, I could not ignore the harm that humanity was inflicting upon you. How could we let this happen?

​A few days later you shared another secret. Dumpsites were leaving blemishes along your beautiful landscape. For miles clothes piled precariously atop one another blocking out the pounding heat of the sun. The protruding columns of waste made me consider my own job within the fashion industry. As you know, I had been making clothes for years but I had never thought about where clothes go once they reached the end of their life. The answer now loomed above me. Discarded clothes were brought to this wasteland where they were left to die.

​The trip to the dumpsite aroused an inner turmoil that raged for days. I was suddenly conscious of the antagonistic role of the fashion industry upon you and the planet. No matter where I turned I could find scars left by the fashion industry. Even your beaches had turned from a place of peace into a sacrificial site for the burning of discarded garments. Where the sand had once been gold, it lay there black and charred from the fires.

​It was difficult to return to my job when I got home. The image of the dumpsite was tattooed within my mind. Although my love of fashion did not subside, I knew that I could not continue to work within the dominating eco-destructive industry. Hence, I established Redress Laboratory.

​Redress Laboratory would not have been established without the trip I made 5 years ago. My company is all about helping to establish a sustainable fashion industry. We breathe new life into unwanted clothes and minimise the wastage caused by fashion production. I hope that through the Redress Laboratory collection, we can share some of your stories and enlighten my customers to the destruction caused by the fashion industry.

​Redress Laboratory is still developing but its establishment is one step towards getting you the help you need. I do not want you to suffer anymore. Please find comfort in the knowledge that there are people acting to alter the future of fashion to save you and the rest of the planet. A revolution has started. Changes are being made. So thank you again and remember: help is coming.

All my love,

Auda