søndag 5. september 2021

'When I Found Out What Happened in Xinjiang, It Really Broke my Heart’: Interview

Louise Xin is a Chinese-Swedish fashion designer who launched her eponymous Stockholm-based brand in November 2020 as Scandinavia’s first rental-only couture label. Xin turns upcycled materials into elaborate and colorful handmade dresses for customers to rent instead of purchase, hoping to change consumption patterns in the name of sustainability. She dedicated her digital fashion show on Aug. 31 to the Uyghurs to raise awareness about the genocidal policies targeting the predominantly Muslim minority group in northwestern China's Xinjiang region. 

The five-minute video presentation ended with a model wearing a newspaper print coat and unraveling a banner that said “Free Uyghur: End All Genocide.” The China-born Xin spoke to reporter Nuriman Abdurashid of RFA’s Uyghur Service on Thursday about her why she decided to use couture to call attention to the plight of the Uyghurs, what inspired her to do a fashion show-cum-protest, and how she has enlisted the help of Jewher Tohti, daughter of detained Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti, to draw attention to the use of Uyghur forced labor in the apparel industry. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.