Fashion as empowerment. Social responsibility, technology and resilience.

Jonathan Joseph believes that fashion is for everyone. He started his company Little Red Fashion as way to educate children about the fashion industry through tech-enhanced books and resources that empower the next generation of fashion lovers, leaders, consumers, and creatives through a lens of DEI and sustainability.

Jonathan worked as a consultant in the woman’s luxury fashion and sportswear industry. During this time he saw a lot of toxicity and negativity that not only affected people working in the industry but also consumers through marketing and advertising. He thought that it would be possible to shortcut some of these issues such as the body dysmorphia created by unrealistic standards by empowering children rather than fixing broken adults.

After being left at an orphanage in Columbia when he was a baby, Jonathan was adopted when he was nine months old. He then grew up in New York where he was diagnosed with Ataxic Cerebral Palsy (ACP). This is a very rare type of Cerebral Palsy that affects perception, balance and fine motor skills but Jonathan’s parents taught him to be resilient. He wasn’t treated any differently by his family. It was ‘OK you have Cerebral Palsy but you can find ways around it and we will fight for you’.

Living with ACP became normal for Jonathan. His is non generative and when he was younger he undertook a lot of physical and occupational therapy. He also had to wear leg braces and these helped get him into fashion. His Mother was always looking for ways to empower him against the ACP by finding clothes and accessories that provided ‘armour’ in a world that may otherwise have been judgmental. Jonathan feels his Mother was a great role model. She was diagnosed with breast cancer before he was born and he can remember when she was going for chemo or radiation treatment she always had a scarf and her favourite Dior sunglasses - her armour for a situation that was disempowering by its nature.

Jonathan feels that you can use fashion as part of your therapeutic approach by creating a persona or armour or by realising that how you currently present yourself might be part of your ongoing issues. There is also the opportunity to use fashion as a lens to deconstruct the negative things that the fashion industry is notorious for. Fashion is a double-edged sword.  It can be very empowering but you can also get wrapped up in the consumer culture that puts a premium on fashion to the detriment of financial or mental health. The need is to create a healthy relationship between fashion, the consumer culture and children. Children need to realise that whatever their online personality is it comes from them and should be empowering. As long as they are aware of that then they are approaching it in a healthy way.

The fashion industry brings together a lot of topics under its umbrella, business, design and textiles for example. Jonathan’s company Little Red Fashion uses fashion as a lens to talk about and deconstruct complex issues and broker conversations between children and adults. Fashion is infinitely relateable and can play a role in how children navigate the world. Jonathan uses augmented reality (AR) to help highlight the goals of diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability by enhancing static resources like books to make them more dynamic and interactive and easier to engage with things such as body positivity They also have a fashion mentorship scheme so children and families can get resources and insights from professionals across the field in different disciplines that may inspire them – helping to move away from the ‘need to know someone in the industry’.

Jonathan’s first book The Little Red Dress is available on website preorders from February 2022

You can find out more about Jonathan and Little Red Fashion here.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.