Erin O'Connor is one supermodel who has always had a reputation for being a good ambassador for the industry. Since being spotted at age 15, she has experienced most facets of the fashion industry - she has graced couture catwalks, enjoyed national-treasure status as one of the faces of Marks & Spencer and currently sits as the vice chair of the British Fashion Council. She also founded the Model Sanctuary, which serves as a retreat with a full-time nutritionist available to very young models, and which sees her "play mother hen."
In an interview with the Guardian, Erin shares her impetus for wanting to take on her new SEWA project, which is partly funded by Traid. She explained, "I suppose I've had one version of the fashion industry and now I'm going out having a tweak here and there." She certainly will be doing more than tweaking the rag-trade if her ethical fashion experiment is a success. This new project sees Erin raising awareness for the All India Federation of Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) an organisation which has set up embroidery centres in East Dehli, with the aim of providing skilled home workers with considerably improved wages. "The wages paid to home workers are nowhere near even close to minimum wage," explains Sanjay Kumar a representative of SEWA.
