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Do you know who made your outfit today? Sophie Slater believes in the power of the clothes we choose to wear and encourages us to recognise the impact and importance of where they come from.

Two years ago, I was folding trousers and selling dog hoodies for a living. I’d just graduated, and didn’t really know what to do, so I went back to the shop I’d worked at since I was a teenager. The shop often displayed giant, 10 feet tall pictures of women’s buttocks on the walls, and the CEO was a known sex offender. This didn’t exactly fit in with my throwing-down-the-patriarchy feminist beliefs.

Now I co-own an online shop, and I have the luxury of not compromising on my values. The clothes we wear are critical in reflecting our unspoken identities. For women who are told to be quiet and not take up too much space, they can express themselves freely through their clothes. They can say, “I’m loud”, “I’m fun”, “I’m not your expectation of me”.

When people accuse fashion of being frivolous, I get annoyed. There’s a joy and freedom to clothing that wouldn’t quite be the same if we all dressed in government issue burlap sacks.

Although fashion is fun, we must also acknowledge that it is largely destructive to the earth. In some cases it is also harmful to the women’s bodies that make the clothes and those that wear them. We set up Birdsong to subvert this. Women who work with us are paying off 79% of the deficit and we allow independent women’s groups to become businesses, not charities. We help them stand on their own two feet.

There is someone who made the clothes you wear today. There’s a 90% chance she was a woman, and the same again that she was poor. The women who make our clothes at Birdsong receive fair pay, and have their stories expressed as part of the deal. Like the older women at Age UK who knit our jumpers.

When people wear our clothes, we want them to be saying “expect more”.

Subvert your expectation of fashion as a toxic industry. Invest in clothes that are created ethically and still look great at the same time. But above all, expect more for yourself and all women in the world.

Explore the stories of the wonderful makers behind Birdsong’s carefully crafted clothes here: http://birdsong.london/stories/