This article is a contribution from Next Gen Assembly 2024 Member Maisie Porter.

Empathy holds transformative power within the fashion industry – a radical yet profoundly human tool, capable of reshaping not just individual brands, but the entire fashion ecosystem.  This deeply human trait, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, offers an antidote to an industry too often driven by relentless profit, speed, and disposability. By embracing empathy, faction practitioners can nurture wellbeing across value chains, from workers on the factory floor, to the communities surrounding production sites, to the ecosystems burdened by the waste of production. Embedding empathy into decision-making processes and cultivating it as an essential skill can help fashion practitioners to design systems that are equitable and aligned with planetary boundaries. Empathy enables brands to move beyond transactional relationships, and into relationships driven by purposeful action.

Reimagining Fashion Through Empathy 

Empathy demands that we see the world through another’s eyes – an act that is both radical and necessary in a system that often disregards the lived experience of its most impacted stakeholders. For fashion brands, this perspective can be transformative, bridging the gap between corporate objectives and the realities of rights holders: garment workers, local communities, ecosystems, and even future generations who inherit the planet’s scars.

The fashion industry’s prevailing focus on cost-cutting, speed, and profitability has, in many cases, led to a glaring absence of empathy. This absence allows value chains to function at the expense of human and environmental wellbeing. Empathy challenges these exploitative purchasing practices that prop up the industry.

By endeavouring to understand the needs, aspirations, and challenges of all those and who  power the industry, brands can begin to reframe their purchasing practices to centre wellbeing as a shared purpose.

Brands that embrace empathetic sourcing prioritise long-term partnerships over short-term gains. They see suppliers as collaborators rather than subordinates and adopt purchasing practices that consider the full impact of every decision made, from critical path adjustments to cutting order sizes. Through this lens, even seemingly minor choices become opportunities for transformation. By unlearning entrenched

habits of extraction and relearning practices grounded in collaboration and respect, brands foster trust and create supply chains that are both resilient and equitable.

Cultivating Empathy Within Teams

Empathy is a skill, one that must be intentionally cultivated within teams. It is neither soft nor secondary; it is a fundamental. This begins by embedding empathy into the culture of decision-making within brands.

Storytelling becomes an essential tool, enabling those who might never step foot into a factory to connect with the humanity behind the products. Accounts of sourcing trips, and personal reflections from suppliers can help humanise value chains for teams removed from them. For example, the simple act of understanding how a decision made in a London office translates to action on the factory floor in Tirupur, India, can shift mindsets from profit-centric to people- and planet-centric. This is only possible when space is created for reflection.

Early-career schemes that facilitate direct interaction with suppliers – through factory visits, immersive workshops, and cultural exchanges – are invaluable in fostering empathy. Where budgets may be stretched, experiencing the real-world impacts of purchasing decisions makes the value chain tangible and imbues these interactions with purpose, fostering lasting relationships built on mutual understanding.

Empathy as a Force for Good

At its heart, empathy is a revolutionary act in an industry designed to prioritise output over human connection. It challenges the prevailing systems that see people, environments, and resources as expendable in the pursuit of profit. By placing empathy at the heart of supplier relationships and product development, brands can move from a transactional model to one driven by shared purpose.

This is not simply about adding value; it is about reimagining the very foundation of fashion. It is about crafting a system that honours the dignity of every person, community, and environment it touches. Empathy becomes the thread that weaves purpose, respect, and wellbeing into every garment, proving that profitability and humanity are not opposites but partners.

Through the radical simplicity of understanding and valuing others, fashion brands can create a legacy of connection, care, and transformation and truly affirm that how and why we create is just as important as what we create.