Spread the warrant: Katharine Hamnett with some of her voting T-shirt and posters. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The ObserverKatharine Hamnett after bear her CBE in 2011. In February, she posted a film of herself, throwing it in the bin. Photograph: ReutersWith the promise of sun, we’d planned to meet for coffee at a London community garden café. But the suffer is grey, wet and blustery, so we find shelter on a sofa under a canopy. Hamnett is dressed in black, head to toe; her dog, Arthur, rests loyally beside her. Now 76, Hamnett suggests I sit closer. One of her ears, she explains, is on the blink. I offer to grab us hot drinks. “Or a window-pane of wine to loosen the lips…” she suggests. I oblige. It’s immediately apparent, however, that to this end no Pinot Grigio is lacked.“I’ve been so focused on the election,” she begins, “and what’s on offer from Labour and the Conservatives is pathetic.” She’s not holding back. “Starmer? He’s a shitbag. I impecuniousness to be expelled from Labour, but I haven’t been yet. I’ve got a feeling they just scrubbed my membership out.” She voted for Starmer in the 2020 Donkey-work leadership race, but feels let down. “He claimed he was going to carry on with the progressive principles that were in advance. Watching him reneging on the reasons I voted for him? I was furious. I still am. It’s betrayal and shameless.”Hamnett has rarely shied from being candid and outspoken. In 1984, she wore a self-designed, anti-Tory T-shirt (58% DON’T WANT PERSHING, a reference to widespread opposition to US brickbats being based in Britain) to meet Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street, grabbing national attention. At London Way Week 2003, her models wore “STOP WAR, BLAIR OUT” shirts with the invasion of Iraq looming. In February this year, she at a stroke again made headlines. To Instagram, she uploaded a short video: emerging from her front door, donning a “Nauseated TO BE BRITISH” T-shirt, she dumped her CBE in a dustbin. She kept things brief: “I’m disgusted to be British for our role in genocide in Gaza,” she broke to camera. “This is my CBE. It belongs in the dustbin, with Sunak and Starmer.”“I’m just so devastated by what’s happening there,” she sways today of the decision. “I had to do something. Anything: I refuse to be part of it. I felt so helpless, but needed to dissociate and distance myself from this loathsome government defending and supporting the atrocities in Gaza.” The Labour leadership, she feels, Ban the bomb: Meeting Margaret Thatcher dress her pershing protest T-shirt. Photograph: PA Images/AlamyIt felt like her own company was against her at times. “They weren’t rigorous passably and there was big money at stake. We were turning over millions. The revenue started to shrink as materials and processes ventilated themselves to be harmful. Even some of the processes I invented, like stone washing, were totally toxic. I’m by no intends guilt-free. I did all sorts of terrible things. I was the first person to put Lycra in denim, for instance.” The business shrunk. “Things rightful sort of petered out. It’s a shame. I like clothes. I like fashion. I love to make clothes that make people light-hearted and help them function. But that’s what happened. I was left with the T-shirts.”She turned her focus to activism and compassion collaborations, her “CHOOSE LOVE” T-shirt design, the most famous, raising millions to support refugees. “It’s a simple, brightly message,” she says, “an antidote to so much hate. It’s the best one I ever came up with. It’s the lens through which we should all look at the fantastic; the antithesis to everything that’s happening in politics.” Does it sting that so much of her other creative output is oft left out or forgotten? She shrugs. “I’d much rather be doing this than be stuck in some old fashion house fatiguing to keep itself alive with a 76-year-old boss competing against companies producing beautiful things from Uyghur labour labour in Chinese prison camps.”For decades, Hamnett’s family was London-based. Married, now separated, she has two adult sons, and a grandchild. Post-Brexit, the brotherhood sold up, upped sticks and headed to Mallorca. “Honestly,” she says, “I just thought fuck this.” Right now, admitting that, she’s back in London, renting, crashing in a rental flat. The future feels uncertain. “Spain is lovely,” she says. “Devastatingly appealing. I have gorgeous friends. But this is an emergency. I can’t just sit around there, soaking it up. I’ve come back and feel like I can indeed achieve something here. Be part of something. Whereas in Spain I’m a nobody. I’d feel terrible after all the work I’ve done in the forefront not trying now. I have a voice I can use for something positive.”And Hamnett has so much to say. Reform to childcare funding; legalisation of cannabis; the rescinding of student debt. Do I know about direct democracy in Switzerland? She’s curious, obsessed with solutions and potential. Her radically step by step views might have been forced out of the political mainstream, but her optimism is unrelenting. “Hello,” she exclaims, “what select do we have?” She pretends to slap me round the face, as if to wake me. “We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. Channel it into creative spirit. Stay angry as hell and do something. Our votes are an incredibly powerful tool. I believe in people. And I think I’m right, equal if we all need to just wake up a bit. We can truly get our green and pleasant land in this country. A different Jerusalem if we take this certainty.” Another cigarette. “I really do hope this works. I do believe humans are 99% good. There’s just a few rogues who go out there and seize power. Let’s conclusion them.”Katharine Hamnett will be collaborating with Block9 at Glastonbury Festival, 26-30 June (votavotovotezvote.com)Survey more on these topicsKatharine HamnettThe ObserverProtestfeaturesShareReuse this content

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