Represent(n)ation

Representnation is a brand new clothes label ticking all the boxes for a 21st century ethical label. We chat with the founder Shashi Kala, about the label, what it means to her and how she went about creating this striking, dynamic and exciting new collection.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF, AND HOW YOU CAME TO BE VEGAN

I’ve been vegetarian my whole life, but vegan for about 6 years. I was raised as a very strict vegetarian, and where I grew up in Trinidad, cheese and milk were luxuries, so I fall squarely into the category of ‘Why didn’t I do this sooner?’. I actually credit my lifestyle change to my son who was on a special diet, so I had everything in my fridge already. It got to 2014, five years after I started my first vegan business, and cheese was the only thing left to ditch, so I did and started 2015 completely differently. One particular night I went to bed after spending the day watching loads of documentaries, and I literally woke up vegan. I couldn’t stomach anything that wasn’t vegan. Once I made the change in my heart and mind, that was it.

WHAT HAD YOU BEEN DOING UP UNTIL THE NEW PROJECT?

I left my business, and was actually unemployed for a bit, just finding my bearings. Universal Credit is no joke! I actually started working in the charity sector again, through an intro from Farrah at Life After Hummus. To be honest, without her I would have stayed unemployed longer, so she was a blessing.

Basically, I have spent the last two years just deep in community work and have been using that time to learn about social enterprises and develop a bit of a freelance portfolio career working with different organisations and causes in immigration, race & equality and the environment. I feel very blessed to be working with the people I’m working with at the moment, people like Patrick Vernon who I am learning so much from.

HOW HAS YOUR NEW PROJECT COME ABOUT? FAB NAME BY THE WAY

Thank you! I’ve had a pin in it for about 4 years. Whilst I was running my first business, I felt very strongly that I should be redistributing profits to support causes I believed in. I donated to sanctuaries, many crowdfunders including What The Health, funded free screenings of that film and also signed on as an Executive Producer of The Invisible Vegan. These are all causes I strongly believe in and I knew I wasn’t the only one. After seeing Christopher Sebastian McJetters speak at Vegfest and seeing like-minded people in the audience and on the panels, I felt inspired to find a way to continue to support these important voices. Represent(n) ation came from the sentiment, that what we all want is to be seen, that we all want to be represented. We want our stories to be 'normal', what even is normal anyway? Our stories or narratives have been minoritized and marginalised, and this is my contribution to changing that.

I am looking at the over-arching systems of oppression and saying it is all connected, my struggle is your struggle and your struggle is mine.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN A CHALLENGE TO LAUNCH DURING LOCKDOWN?

I actually had finished one job and didn’t know how I was going to support myself, so I decided to soft-launch the brand. The whole plan was to do a proper launch at Vegfest later that year and then Covid-19 and George Floyd happened. I actually put it on hold for a few months, I started another job (well three actually) and just wanted to adjust to that. At the beginning of this year, I decided that I was done procrastinating, and felt that I needed to just get it out there. Financially it’s hard because I decided to fund this social enterprise myself, but I have a good support network around me and I am committed to making it work.

WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT THE LABEL?

This brand is female and poc-owned, so my experience of being a vegan, an immigrant, a woman comes through in these designs. I want people to understand why all of it is relevant. To be honest, I looked around the vegan community and I saw something was missing. There were loads of apparel brands out there, but none were saying what I wanted them to say. They were vegan but they weren’t connecting the dots…they weren’t making the links between oppression of animals AND humans. Don’t get me wrong I am not centring humans in the fight for animal liberation, I am looking at the over-arching systems of oppression and saying it is all connected, my struggle is your struggle and your struggle is mine. For example, animal agriculture pollutes land, holds animals in slavery until they are killed for consumption, it then exploits migrant workers to farm and kill the animals. Those farms are usually placed in poorer communities, where the environment becomes polluted because of run-off. Sim- ply translated - oppression of animals, people and planet.

WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF THE LABEL? BEYOND EARNING A LIVING OBVIOUSLY!

I chose to start a clothing brand because of it’s accessibility, because it’s such a simple way to spread awareness and start conversations, and because it is such a great way to collaborate. Our goal is to help people connect the dots and hopefully steer them to make more conscious decisions and have more thoughtful conversations with themselves and others. Our goal is also to platform these causes and help redistribute the resources by supporting marginalised communities financially. Between 50-100% of our profits on selected tees go to specific causes. From the other tees we put 50% of the profit into the charity pot so we can make one-off so we can make one-off donations to other charities or causes that fight the oppression of people, animals and planet..

HOW HARD HAS IT BEEN TO ENSURE A TRULY VEGAN PRODUCT?

To be honest, that was the easy part. I had been doing research for ages, and I knew that any brand that I created would not contribute to any form of oppression. I found a manufacturer that was committed to the same principles I held, using renewable energy, finding ways to use waste, using environmentally-friendly printing techniques, using local labour and paying fair-wages. I think it is so important that we don’t recreate systems of oppression whilst we are trying to help.

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF AND THE LABEL A YEAR FROM NOW?

It is so hard to say right now. The world has changed and is not going back. The only thing I can say for sure is that veganism is on the rise, more people are recognising systemic oppression on communities across the world, the links are being made globally. So, I hope that this brand will resonate. I hope that I will be able to raise awareness of many more causes that are linked to the oppression of animals, and I hope the people that this resonates with will help spread these messages. You never know what could happen… next year I might be on the Vegfest stage hosting a panel having these very discussions.

ON A BIGGER PICTURE, HOW DO YOU SEE THE GROWTH OF VEGANISM GLOBALLY, AND WHAT WOULD HELP THE PROCESS?

I honestly feel that making the connections of how all these systems of oppression are connected will help the movement. I think collaborative movements is how we help that process. The Invisible Vegan looks at how race intersects with veganism, and that bought veganism to communities that may not have considered it before. I know that when Cowspiracy and What The Health made links between environmental racism and food justice, the environmentalists took a bit more notice. Celebrating the different stories in the vegan community, celebrating the different communities, honestly we need more of this, and guess what, the vegan community can take it.

THANKYOU SHASHI! THIS IS DEFINITELY A FANTASTIC PROJECT. ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?

We love collaborating, so if you are interested in being a recipient or partnering with us please get in touch!

ONLINE SHOP:

representnation.teemill.com