Venetia La Manna, In The Frame
We’ve been following you on social media for quite sometime and really admire your work, so it’s a real pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with you today! For those who may not yet know you, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I'm Venetia, I'm a fair fashion campaigner, and I use social media to talk about issues related to climate justice, greenwashing, corporate greed, and crucially, to hold big fashion to account.
As a self confessed ex fast-fashion addict, what first led you down the path of fair fashion activism — and how has your relationship with fashion and activism evolved over the years?
I was led down the path of fashion activism in around 2017. I had been passionately talking about my vegan lifestyle and the plastic pollution crisis on social media, and someone called me in on my YouTube channel, saying, ‘hey, Venetia, cool that you're looking out for the planet and the animals with your diet, but you're wearing a lot of fast fashion, have you thought about that?’ And I hadn't, so I went away and I did some research and I couldn't believe what I learned. I started sharing those learnings on social media and plot twist, I'm now a fair fashion campaigner. But I think my relationship with fashion activism has changed a lot, because back in 2017, I was approaching it from an individual consumption level and now, I really think about it in terms of systems change and the big fashion system. So you'll very rarely see me now telling people what to buy, instead you're more likely to see me calling out big fashion brands and calling for systemic change.
In 2020, you co-founded Remember Who Made Them, a campaign centring garment workers’ voices. What did you learn from this project, and what moments stood out to you most?
Remember Who Made Them was a campaign to amplify the demands of garment workers. 2020 was a really difficult time for the fashion industry in general, but whenever something big happens, be it a pandemic or tariffs, the people who are going to really face the brunt of the crisis are always workers. So we got in touch with garment workers and their unions around the world and said, how can we, as citizens in the Global North, be in solidarity with you. And the one thing that I really learned, because it was consistently the advice across the board from garment workers, was hold brands accountable. We have this incredible tool called social media, which brands use and we use, and we can use it to ask brands who made their clothes, how much did you pay them and how many products are you making annually?
You've spoken out about the intersection of fashion, climate justice, and colonialism. Beyond the individual choices we as consumers can make, what systemic shifts do you believe are crucial for a better fashion industry?
I think for a fair fashion industry, we need systemic change, and that starts with fair living wages for garment workers. Redistributing the power from big fashion the big multinational fashion corporations, and putting that power in the hands of garment workers and the communities who are on the front lines of the fashion pollution crisis. It would also be brands disclosing the number of items they produce annually. From there, we can create a globally accountable, extended producer responsibility system, which would mean that brands have to pay for the entire life cycle of their garments, therefore taking the brunt of the pressure off from the communities worst affected in the global south.
You’ve recently been working alongside the Or Foundation in Ghana. Can you tell us about your experience there and what the Or Foundation’s mission is?
I recently got back from working with The Or Foundation in Accra in Ghana, and they work to support the second hand and resale community in Kantamanto market. Kantamano is one of the largest second-hand markets in the world. They receive 15 million used garments each week, and they are a community of extraordinarily talented up-cyclers, tailors and retailers who work to add fresh life to the clothes that the global north deems not good enough for us. In terms of what I learned there, I mean, honestly, where do I even begin? But it was really that there is so much we can do to create something beautiful out of something that we might consider as waste. It was really inspiring to spend time with this community, it was one of the greatest privileges of my life so far.
Despite your work spotlighting important and often overwhelming issues, you manage to deliver information in a way that’s engaging and motivating — your ‘Recipe for disaster’ series and Polly Esther Character are both brilliant examples of this. What inspired you to take this approach and have you seen it make a difference in your campaigning efforts?
I talk about quite heavy topics on social media, so I really try and bring fun and lightness to some of my videos, just because I think that's a way of making it more engaging for the person watching the video, and also it makes it more fun and engaging for me. Polly Esther is a character who's very close to my heart. She really takes the lead when it comes to issues around greenwashing. I also have Em Mission, who is incredibly sassy. She loves talking about brand accountability. And then I have a series called ‘Recipe for Disaster’, where I ‘cook up ‘corporations. I think the reason I wanted to do this, is because it presents something that is incredibly heavy, you know, I'm really going into the weeds of a corporation, in a way that's quite light. It also means, in all honesty, that I'm less likely to get shadow banned by Instagram! We also need to give credit where credit is due. My partner, Max, is an incredible food creator and Chef, so one day I saw him making recipe reels on Instagram, and I was like, I could do that in my own way, and put a fresh spin on it. So anytime that the food looks good, it's really not because of me, it's because he's behind the camera and he's whisking away and measuring out. It's very much a team effort for the ‘Recipe for Disaster’ series.
Through your campaigning, you directly call out fast fashion brands both online and in person, with some of the top offenders being Boohoo (now Debenhams Group) and M&S. How (if ever) do they respond?
I used to get quite a lot of traction from brands. They'd get in touch with me, especially at the beginning, but then they quickly realised that they couldn't pay me to come on board with them, and a few of their CEOs ended up blocking me, which is, of course, a shame for all of us, but I can't be bought by a big fashion brand. Marks & Spencer has been a really big target on my channel for about a year and a half now, and that's because they're the number one most commonly discovered British brand found polluting across beaches. As a British citizen. I understand the fondness that we have for Marks & Spencer. They are the pride of the British High Street, and therefore, I think it's really partly my responsibility to hold them to account, as a British person. I'm yet to hear from them. So Marks and Spencer, if you're reading this, please get in touch. I'd love to hear from you, and I'd love for you to share your production numbers.
The term “sustainable fashion” gets thrown around a lot. How do you define it — and what red flags should people watch out for when it comes to greenwashing?
I try not to use the term sustainable when it comes to fashion anymore, and that's because I'm really not that interested in sustaining the status quo. I think we should be working to completely disrupt the fashion industry as we know it. Currently, it is monopolised by very few multinational corporations, all of whom are exploiting their workers and over producing so fashion that is fair, which is the term I prefer to use, would look like a redistribution of power and wealth from the biggest fashion brands to garment workers, and it would also look like prioritising and listening to the communities who are on the front lines of the textile waste crisis, and supporting them in their circularity efforts. Circular fashion is a move away from linear fashion. It means it would keep every single garment in circulation. We'd use all of our garments forever. And the community that I worked with in Ghana, the Kantamanto community are a true example of that. So it's really centring their needs, their dignity and their demands.
On the flip side, in your experience, which brands or designers do you feel are genuinely walking the talk — and what sets them apart from the rest?
One brand in particular that I would like to shout out today is Borla Upcycled Thrift. He is the designer behind the incredible skirt that I'm wearing. He is based in Accra in Ghana, and he used only second-hand materials from Kantamanto market. He adorned it with so many ties, and hand painted it — I am in love with it.
There's also a Ugandan brand, and they're called Buziga Hill, and they take clothes that were cast away by the global north and ended up in Uganda, and they upcycled them into beautiful, new garments. And their whole thing is 'Returned to sender'. So each garment is 100% upcycled, and the ethos is to return it to the person who said, Nah, this isn't for me. I absolutely love that ethos.
I'd also like to shout out the people who are creating thriving businesses around second-hand items, like One Scoop Store where we are today, there is such an incredible selection of curated pieces in this shop, and it’s one of my favourite places to look for second-hand clothes in London.
Pictured right - Holly, One Scoop Founder & Venetia La Mana
Finally, I'd like to shout out Finisterre, who make first-hand items of clothing. When we asked them to share their production numbers and for the speak volumes campaign, they signed immediately, and they said, how else can we support? And it's that kind of leadership that I really appreciate from fashion brands.
Sitting at the intersection of necessity, personal identity, and trend, eyewear is often left out of the sustainable fashion conversation, despite being a daily essential for over half the global population. When new customers walk into our store and we engage in conversation with them, we often find that it’s their first time really considering the impact of the eyewear industry. As a spectacle wearer yourself, how has your relationship with eyewear and the way you consume it evolved, parallel to your relationship with clothing?
I think eyewear is an interesting one, because it's one of those categories, a bit like accessories and handbags, where people kind of feel they have permission to over consume. In terms of my own personal consumption around eyewear, it's a bit of a complicated one. I wear spectacles or contact lenses every single day. I don't have the best vision, unfortunately, and I definitely don't want to get the thing where they do the split eye thing to give you 2020 vision. That sounds terrifying, so I will be wearing spectacles and contact lenses for the rest of my life, but I think spectacles can be treated slightly differently to fashion. It's quite specific in terms of what suits your face, and you can really hone a sense of identity when it comes to sunglasses and spectacles.
Shop Venetia's frame of choice - Raval in Black
I am so excited about this pair of specs I'm wearing from MONC I really feel like they're entering me into a new era of self-expression. And I just love MONC’s stance on looking after the pair of specs that we have. They offer a repair service, and I really think that they are leading the way in terms of supply chain transparency as well, which I haven't really seen from other specs and sunglasses brands. I think, like everything else, we need to be thinking more about the start and end, in terms of lifecycle.
You practice a weekly digital detox you refer to as #Offline48, how has this impacted your relationship with social media and your work on the platform?
I try to take weekends off social media in a practice I call offline 48. This is something that I've been practicing since 2018, and I also try and take extended breaks about 4 times a year. This can be up to about 2 weeks, which might sound a little extreme, but I spend more time online than your average person. I talk a lot about overconsumption, and I also think that we can over-consume social media, so I really try to be mindful about the amount of time I spend online and with that comes the offline 48 practice. I found it to be so beneficial to my mental health and also something that's really interesting about it is my desire for new things and new clothes drastically diminishes when I'm not on social media. So, if you're new to offline 48, maybe give it a go and see what you think.
Although still in the digital sphere, the rise in Substack has felt like a refreshing change, we’ve been really enjoying your newsletter (and would recommend everyone reading this to subscribe) What does your research process look like when you're preparing to speak out on an issue?
There are lots of facts on my substack, but hopefully not too many because I like to try and make things digestible. But since January 2025, which is when Meta changed their fact checking policy, I now work with a fact checker on all of my videos that are information dense, so anytime that you see a video on my page that feels information dense, it will have been through an external fact checker. Obviously it's not creating the systemic change that we need on social media apps, this is very much an individual action that I take, which is not ideal, but it feels really important to me because I want to make sure that I'm not spreading misinformation. There's so much misinformation on social media at the moment, so this just feels like something I can do and I should be doing. It means that anytime someone comes at me and says, hey, this isn't true, I can go, well, sir, this video was fact checked by an external fact checker and if you'd like to read the caption, you can see their methodology.
Looking forward, what gives you hope about the future of fashion?
In terms of what gives me hope about the future of fashion, I always look to garment workers and their organising and their resistance. Garment workers have been fighting for a better fashion industry for way longer than I've even been alive, and even some of the worker rights that I enjoy today like healthcare and holiday and even International Women's Day. International Women's Day was started from garment workers in New York City in 1907 protesting for better rights. So really I always honor garment workers and their organizing and what they do to fight for a better fashion industry. They give me hope and they show that you just have to keep demanding better, so big love to them and I will always honor them in everything that I do. And I'm also just completely inspired by the creativity of the Kantamanto community in Accra in Ghana what they managed to create with little resources using secondhand materials is totally awe inspiring, and I'm really, really passionate, passionate about the Speak volumes campaign which the Or Foundation started. I feel so energised by it and I really do think that it holds the key to unlocking a fashion industry that would be better for garment workers and would also be better for the community, on the front lines of the textile waste crisis, Supporting these communities who are really pushing for a fair fashion industry, and I really think that is our responsibility as citizens in the global North who are being marketed all of this product, all of the time and told that we need to consume. We really need to kind of pause and think about the people who these products are impacting the most.
So those are the communities that give me hope, they are the ones who motivate me and who drive me to fight for a fair fashion future because I think that they have the keys to unlock a fair fashion future.
Last but not least, just for fun, we always ask each ‘In The Frame’ participant which three people you'd invite to a dinner party? They can be from the past, present or even fictional.
Firstly, Nasma Ada, who is the founder of Awaj foundation, she's a former garment worker and she works in Bangladesh with garment workers to fight for a better fashion industry. I would also invite Mary, who has been working in Kantamanto Market for about 8 years. She understands the resale economy better than anyone. And then I would invite the CEO of Marks & Spencer, and I'd say, hey, let's have a chat, listen to these two women and together we can work towards a fairer fashion future. So, that would be my dinner party, and if I can be so bold as to make an extra request, I would really love it to take place at Sheikhuuka Restaurant on Baker Street in London, it's a Palestinian restaurant and it is vibes, so that's where we'd be eating. We would be talking about a fair fashion future and crucially, we would be actioning a fair fashion future. So that would be my dream dinner party.
Venetia, thank you so much for chatting with us today. We're feeling incredibly inspired by this conversation.
