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‘Stay angry as hell with our politicians’: Katharine Hamnett on politics, the planet and slogan T-shirts


The pioneering designer and activist has been making waves for decades. Now she’s back with an urgent message – and this time she won’t take no for an answer…

In 1984, she wore a self-designed, anti-Tory T-shirt (58% DON’T WANT PERSHING, a reference to widespread opposition to US missiles being based in Britain) to meet Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street, grabbing national attention. 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. “I’d 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.”

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