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Gaine TV > Fashion

Bobby Kolade is the designer behind Ugandan fashion label Buzigahill - which puts the politics of upcycling and waste colonialism at its core with the brilliant, provocative concept: Return to Sender.

Buzigahill's collections are made from items of secondhand clothing donated in the global north, and increasingly being dumped on the global south in unsustainable numbers. Why “return to sender”? Because much of Buzigahill’s clientele is in Europe and North America.

Much like Kantamanto in Accra, Ghana; Owino Market in Kampala receives huge numbers of bales of second-hand clothing from countries in Europe, from the US and Canada every week. As a result, second-hand accounts for 80 % of all domestic clothing sales in Uganda.

But how much is too much? Who is monitoring for quality and consistency? Are we right to keep thinking about "donations" in the context of this undeniably big business? As Bobby says, it's not charity - it's a trade, and too often an unequal one.

So surely it's good, right, when a receiving country finally says: "No more! We don't want your cast-offs." Or is it? As usual, there’s no simple answer.

This enthralling conversation was recorded before Uganda’s government announced a ban on second-hand clothing towards the end of last year. A situation that continues to evolve.

Read more at The Wardrobe Crisis

Next on Gaine TV: Synchronicity is a Science We Can All Do (FLFE)

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