With different articles each week, our Nu. book club in East London is sparking conversation and getting us up to speed on the issues surrounding the fast fashion industry…

We held our first ‘Save the World’ Book club on November 23rd - because what better day to get busy saving the world than Black Friday? We talked about how to change the Black Friday bargain mentality, how to support labour organisations at home and abroad and this investigative long-read piece on ‘Dark Factories’ in Leicester, published in the Financial Times.

And, as with most of our conversations when we get the Nu. Crew going, it got pretty passionate. We are a strong group of individuals wanting to make a real active change in the world - and we know what we’re talking about.

The idea behind the book club is to help our newer members understand the issues surrounding the fast fashion industry and to continue our conversations around how we can help to stop it. Because those conversations are exactly what Nu. was born from - Ali and Ash, talking about how they were going to change the world. And here we are, four years later - many hundreds of members bigger and our impact spreading throughout the UK.

If you like the sound of the book club but aren’t based in London, don’t worry - we’re going to share our conversation topics and reading lists here, so you can keep up with what’s on the Nu. agenda. There’s likely to be prosecco and pizza at our meetings, so stock up on snacks, pour yourself a glass of wine and get stuck into our suggestions.

The Circular Economy

For our next session, we’ll be discussing what the circular economy is and how it happened.

Watch: Kate Raworth on Creating a Circular Economy

Read: ‘What is a Circular Economy?’ published by Ellen Macarthur Foundation

And if you’re really keen, try: ‘Make Fashion Circular’ report published by Ellen Macarthur Foundation

We’re going to focus on three questions.

• Is the circular economy the solution?

• What has to change to make the economy circular?

• How can our purchasing habits support the circular economy?

After that, we’re turning to Fashion and Gender. I’ve got a feel it’s going to get heated…

We’ll be reading Lucy Bowen’s brilliant piece on the Nu. Blog, ‘When fashion becomes a feminist issue.’ The other resources are still being finalised so if you have any suggestions for videos or articles we need to know about, let us know!
In the future, we’ll be discussing topics like Fashion and Advertising and Fashion and Colonialism - and we’re always open to suggestions. We’ll keep you updated as and when with resources and questions to get you started on these topics. Until then, get in touch and tell us what you’ve been reading - we love a recommendation that we can share with our community.

Is there a topic you’d love to discuss?

Is there an area of the sustainable fashion world that you can’t crack? Let’s get chatting about it and put it on the agenda. And if you’re not in London but fancy starting your own ‘Save the World’ book club we can help. We’ll give you advice about running the event, recommend reading lists and help you publicise it. Every article read is one step closer to our mission - but we can only get there together!