330 – Fast Fashion Meets Justice, with Live2Free Students at Vanguard University

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by the Live2Free president, Delaney Mininger, as the two discuss the upcoming Fair Trade Fashion Show at Vanguard University.

Delaney Mininger

Delaney is the president of the Live2Free club at Vanguard University and the Global Center for Women and Justice. Delaney is a third year student at Vanguard and a sociology major. She says her passion for preventing human trafficking started at just 11 years old when her mom went with a team to Italy to help women involved in trafficking there.

Key Points

The Fair Trade Fashion Show promotes self-expression through fashion while encouraging consumers to consider the ethical implications of their clothing choices and the production processes that affect the dignity of workers. Fast fashion contributes to overconsumption and supports exploitative labor practices. The culture of buying cheap clothing leads to waste and supports industries that profit from modern slavery. The podcast emphasizes the importance of supporting Fair Trade items and thrifting as ethical alternatives. Fair Trade ensures that workers receive fair wages, while thrifting helps reduce waste and is often more accessible for budget-conscious consumers. The Live2Free club, through initiatives like the Safe Kids, Safe Communities Program, aims to educate youth about human trafficking, healthy relationships, and online safety, filling an educational gap often overlooked in traditional school curriculums. Human trafficking is a global issue, not just a problem in the U.S. The Fair Trade Fashion Show aims to encourage audiences to recognize their role as consumers and to make informed choices that can contribute to reducing demand for exploitative labor practices.

Resources

Live2Free FairTrade International Fair Trade Fashion Show Goodwill of Orange County  Fiet Gratia Tony’s Chocolonely Fair Trade Fashion Show Tool Kit

Transcript

Sandra Morgan 0:14

You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode #330: Fast Fashion Meets Justice, with Live2Free Students at Vanguard University. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. I am so happy to have Delaney Mininger here in the studio with me for today’s podcast. Delaney is the president of the Live2Free club at Vanguard University and the Global Center for Women and Justice. Delaney is a third year student at Vanguard and a sociology major. She says her passion for preventing human trafficking started at just 11 years old when her mom went with a team to Italy to help women involved in trafficking there. So Delaney, thank you for coming in today.

Delaney Mininger 1:25

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Sandra Morgan 1:27

How long have you been president of the Live2Free club?

Delaney Mininger 1:31

I have just become president this year. I’ve been fully onboarded. I did some work over the summer, but officially starting at the beginning of this school year I became president.

Sandra Morgan 1:42

So maybe I should be addressing you as Madam President.

Delaney Mininger 1:45

Perhaps.

Sandra Morgan 1:46

Perhaps, oh my goodness. Okay, so one of the first things that happens every fall is we dive right in here at Vanguard with the Live2Free club for a Fair Trade Fashion Show. How did you get involved with that?

Delaney Mininger 2:05

Yeah, so my first experience with the fashion show was actually during Welcome Week. I was walking through the campus mall, and I walked up to a booth that was talking about human trafficking. Like forementioned, my mom had been working with victims of human trafficking since I was younger, and so I had an interest, and I just saw that there was a fashion show, and I thought that was such a fun way to get involved and to get some experience with clubs and different activities on campus. I signed up for that fashion show. I signed up to volunteer as a model, and that year was so fun. I met a bunch of people. I made a lot of friends. It was a really great experience. I love fashion, I love thrifting, it’s a big passion of mine, and has been for a couple years now. So I thought it was just so me, and it fit so well. The next year, my sophomore year, one of the interns asked if I would take on a management level position for the fashion show, still volunteer, and just help out with the other models since I had experience from the year before, so I just helped out there with the fashion show, leading some models. As the year went on, I got closer with the interns and they were telling me that I should interview for the positions and get more involved with the club, and I just had a big passion for it, so I got more involved, and that kind of just led to me being here.

Sandra Morgan 3:27

And now we’re just days away from the fair trade fashion show. So tell us about your theme for this year’s show.

Delaney Mininger 3:36

Our theme for this year is Fashion with a Passion, and Fashion with a Passion is all about considering the individual. In one aspect, fashion is something that the individual can use to express who they are and what they love. I have a lot of people tell me, “Your style is so cohesive, it’s so you. How did you figure this out? You’ve got it all together.” And I usually tell them, “Yes, my style is me, and the reason why it fits is because it’s just everything that I am and everything that I love.” You would point at something and say, “Oh, this looks like something you would like,” instead of, “This is you, you are this and you’re in this box.” It’s like, I have curated my style just to be me and a collaboration of everything that I love and I am. And so I encourage that other people do that, and I love to tell other people that your style should be you, and you should make your own choices of what that’s going to be. We want to make sure that when we’re considering those choices and we’re making those choices for ourselves as the individual, we’re not forgetting about the individual who is allowing us to make those choices, and who’s making it possible for us to express ourselves in that way. We want to make sure that we’re not getting self centered, we’re not thinking about ourselves in a way, but we’re thinking about those who make it possible for us to do that.

Sandra Morgan 4:56

Let me ask a question here, because I love this idea, and even though I’m a few generations removed from the students here at Vanguard, I get put in boxes. I get messages on social media that tell me what to wear for my age, and I don’t like that. I’m really leaning into this Fashion with a Passion, but my problem is, how do I do that? Fit my budget, number one, well, maybe number two, because number one is, how do I make it fit my values? People all know how strongly I believe that we have to be part of the solution to ending labor trafficking. So how do I make this fit my values?

Delaney Mininger 5:49

A big part of making sure that something fits your values, especially when it comes to fashion, is that you have the opportunity to shop Fairtrade, and a lot of us have the opportunity to do that. Fair trade basically just means that it’s a trading partnership that aims to improve the trading conditions for marginalized producers and workers in developing countries. It’s based on principles of dialogue, transparency, and respect, and seeks to create a greater equity in international trade. The great thing about fair trade is that we have so many different options of what fair trade items we can buy, and then for those who can’t afford fair trade as it does tend to be more on the expensive side, because we’re making sure that every step is taken to ensure that people are getting paid fair wages and what they should be, and treated properly. It does tend to be on the more expensive side, but there is alternative options, such as thrifting or second hand shopping.

Sandra Morgan 6:46

Let me ask you about that, it’s more expensive. Because people have complained to me about that, and I’ve challenged that thinking because I’m not sure that we need so much stuff.

Delaney Mininger 7:02

Yeah.

Sandra Morgan 7:03

Maybe it’s better for us as consumers to think about how much we really need, versus what we want, while at the same time we’re thinking about how it impacts someone else. Is it expensive if someone is getting paid a fair wage? if I’m contrasting that, and here’s my question, if it’s less expensive and it costs someone their dignity, their freedom, is that too high a price for us to pay so that we can save a few dollars?

Delaney Mininger 7:50

Yeah, I think that’s really important, is to consider the cost and the trade off. I think the term Fair Trade really well represents what it is, because yes, you are making that trade. You are getting this item, and you are knowing that it is not at the cost of somebody else. You’re knowing that it’s not at the cost of their dignity and who they are, and the value that they have as a person. It is a fair trade that you are getting this item for yourself and that they are getting treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. I think that’s such an important part of this. Talking with older generations, especially, they’ve kind of gotten a lot better at decreasing their consumption and, talking to one of my advisors, they talked about a capsule closet, I think was the term they used, which is like investing in pieces that are going to last longer and going to be better quality. I think that when we’re factoring in the treatment of the people who make them, that just adds even more to it. It’s not just something that you’re going to buy one week and get sick of and throw out the next because it didn’t cost you much, so it doesn’t matter, but it’s something that you are investing in for yourself and for the treatment of others. So it’s going to last long, you’re going to love it for a long time, and you’re going to know that the values that were made to make that item are something that you agree with.

Sandra Morgan 9:17

Wow, I love that, and I love that you’re having conversations with your professors, with staff here at Vanguard. It reminds me of one of the co-founders here of the Global Center for Women and Justice. When she first started mentoring me, we had this conversation, that’s a lot of years ago I’m not even going to say how long, and I asked her what she did. She said, “I have a simple rule. If I’m going to get a blouse, I have to decide what blouse I’m getting rid of that is already in my closet.” And I lived overseas for several years, and one of my best friends and I love to travel together. When I’m with a group of Americans, I feel like, okay, I’m doing pretty well because my suitcase is only this big and their’s, I can’t even lift it. But then I’m with my friend in Greece, and we’re going on a three day weekend, and I said, “Do you want me to help you get your bag?” “Oh no, I’ve got it.” Everything. She’s got everything in a backpack for three days. I think it is part of a mentality, and we can do a better job with less.

Delaney Mininger 10:43

We’ve definitely become more accustomed to thinking that we need more things than we do.

Sandra Morgan 10:48

We could have another conversation about the difference between need and want. Okay, back to the fashion show, because you and I could chat about this, we agree so much. How does the fashion show impact global slavery?

Delaney Mininger 11:05

A big aspect of the fashion show is decreasing over consumption, like we were just talking about, as it’s one of the main drivers behind the fast fashion industry and other unethical businesses. For anybody who doesn’t know, fast fashion is basically industries that benefit from people who buy so much, so many pieces of clothing, and they buy them at very cheap prices so that they can throw them out, or they can do whatever, and it doesn’t really affect them because they didn’t pay too much for those items.

Sandra Morgan 11:36

Is that like the the culture of ‘I have to have an entire new spring wardrobe, and then a fall wardrobe, and then a holiday wardrobe.’

Delaney Mininger 11:44

And it’s not just seasonal. I mean, with social media, we see so many trends come and go within months, and it becomes this huge thing that everybody’s doing. So then everybody thinks, well, “everybody’s doing” so then everybody thinks that they have to be doing it, and then they buy all of these items, and then all of a sudden they see something that says, ‘this is out, this is in.’ Then everybody’s like, “Oh, well, now I got to throw all that away, and I got to get all this,” and they want to buy them cheap, because if trends are going to come and go like that, then you want to be able to dispose of the items that are out and buy the items that are in. And so social media has definitely increased that over consumption.

How does the Fair Trade fashion show counter that?

Well, I mean, just in general, if there’s a profit to be made, there are always people who are going to do whatever it takes to make that profit, and they don’t care how it’s going to disparage somebody else or how it’s going to affect somebody else. So we want to make sure, at the fashion show, that we’re encouraging others, that it is important, that we do care, and it is important that we don’t support businesses that profit off of labor trafficking and what we would consider modern day slavery. We encourage, like we said, second hand shopping, thrifting, buying fair trade items. We invite vendors who are fair trade vendors, and we’ve reviewed all of their practices and made sure that they are employing ethical practices. And then we ask them to advertise their clothing and their food, their jewelry, whatever it is that they have, we ask them to advertise those to our audiences so that they know how many options there are to shop Fairtrade and how many choices that they can make that are ethical and that they are not forced into encouraging this negative behavior that leads to disparaging others.

Sandra Morgan 13:30

When I go to the fashion show, I can shop?

Delaney Mininger 13:32

Oh yeah, we have so much shopping. No, we don’t want to encourage over consumption. So yes, shop responsibly, shop what you need, but also you can walk away knowing that the things that you did buy are going towards a good cause, and they’re not something that is against your values.

Sandra Morgan 13:53

If we’re shopping responsibly and we want to have a great fashion show, how are we going to get clothes that university students with student debt can afford?

Delaney Mininger 14:08

That’s definitely a big thing. I would say it is a big privilege to shop Fairtrade. It’s a privilege to be able to afford those more expensive items, and we want to make sure that nobody feels like they don’t have an option to also support ethical businesses and ethical practices. We have partners like Goodwill of Orange County who get their clothing donated to them, and then they sell them for much cheaper than the retail prices that you’re going to be seeing. Most stores, I’d say shirts are like 30, 25, at the lowest right now, and Goodwill does like 7, 8, 9, so you’re having a way lower price range, and then it’s just more accessible and more affordable to those who want to shop ethically and want to make sure that they’re not going against their values, but also are on a budget, like us college students. I mean, for me, I even have to be careful about how much I’m thrifting because I am on a budget, and I need to make sure that I’m not over consuming and also that I’m not overspending.

Sandra Morgan 15:16

What I love about thrifting, and I’ve been a big fan since the Fair Trade Fashion Show first started here, and I learned how to do that better, is number one, it doesn’t go into a landfill, it gets recycled. So in many ways for me, thrifting is like recycling bottles and bags and all those things. Yeah. It seems like it disrupts the economic cycle of buy, buy, buy, by giving an item of clothing another life. At first I kind of struggled, but I know this brand that I just picked up at the thrift store, and I know they don’t have good practices, so it really became important for me to study what it meant to disrupt that cycle, because that is another aspect of the ethics. I think I also wanted to commend your leadership team for vetting the vendors who will be at the fashion show. Who are they representing? How are they demonstrating that their supply chain is clean of exploited and trafficked labor? So when you’re thrifting, tell me what your experience is, how you take your values into the thrift store with you?

Delaney Mininger 16:51

Well, like a lot of people my age and even people older, I started thrifting because it’s all my bank account could handle at the time. I probably started thrifting my sophomore year of high school, and being a younger sister, I just wanted something other than hand-me-downs, because that’s what I had had for most of my life. I just wanted to have more freedom over my expression of self and I couldn’t afford anything other than thrifting, so a couple friends and I started thrifting, and it very quickly became an activity that we all loved to do together, because not only is it more affordable, but it’s fun. I mean, it’s definitely different than your average shopping experience. Every single item is unique, and you’re not going to find two of the same thing, but it’s just really fun. It’s a fun activity for me, and so that’s originally why I had started thrifting, is because it’s what I could afford, and it was a fun activity. But as I learned more about the impact that the fast fashion industry was having and that overconsumption was having, on not just our society and our people, how we treat people, but also our environment. I like that you said that, that you were saying these clothes get recycled. That’s such a big part of it, because the fast fashion industries, they toss out those clothes and they end up in landfill, and the textile industry contributes to so much of the pollution that we’re experiencing in our environment right now. I loved that it had an environmental impact, it had a societal impact, that was something that was so important to me, and so I very rarely shop retail anymore, because of how much I love the experience of thrifting. It’s also a great way to bond. When I meet new people and I tell them that I like to thrift, and I found out that they like to thrift, it’s a great activity to do together, because it’s something that is just so unique. It’s different than other shopping experiences.

Sandra Morgan 18:43

I think I’ve watched our Vanguard community, our students, really institute thrifting as an activity that is socially aware, at the same time as socially beneficial to creating strong relationships. And this was epitomized for me when I took a team in 2023 to Madrid, Spain. We were working with a group called Fiet, who works with victims of human trafficking, identifying, restoration, now they’re moving into prevention, and we’re taking another team there in 2025, and our student team said, “Dr Morgan, we’re going to go shopping. When do we have to be back?” When they came back, they had all these bags. They found the thrift store in Madrid, and so they took what they’ve been doing here, on their trip internationally. I think this is a growing trend here,

Delaney Mininger 19:52

I think it is one of the better trends, because we are seeing a lot more influencers who aren’t just shopping at these, I mean of course, we see a lot of hauls that are just crazy amounts of things, and they are a lot of the time from businesses that we wouldn’t necessarily want to support, but a lot more influencers and just popular people on social media are encouraging thrifting, and I think that’s a great trend. I think we should be encouraging that, and even if you are buying more of those items, you know that you are not directly supporting businesses that don’t match your values.

Sandra Morgan 20:27

And disrupting that cycle is just one piece of the big picture. We also are focusing on asking businesses to follow supply chain transparency best practices. We’re asking businesses to look at the workers along that supply chain and how they’re caring for that. We’re asking our communities to actually learn about how this works. Yesterday, I had a dear friend here in the office. She’s been a mentor for me, and so we’re talking about another generation, she could probably be your great, great grandmother.

Delaney Mininger 21:16

Oh, wow.

Sandra Morgan 21:17

And I gave her a Chocolonely bar, and she asked me all about it. Chocolonely is the chocolate from the Netherlands where the founder actually had himself arrested because he contributed to labor trafficking. Of course, they dropped the charges, but he made the issue on the front page, so people realized that his choice to eat chocolate enslaved a child in Africa. That’s the kind of awareness that we want to create here. And as my friend was leaving and she picked up the remains of her chocolate bar, she said, “Well, now I have to buy chocolate that doesn’t use any slave labor.” It changed her life. and I think we are hoping that the Fair Trade Fashion Show will make that kind of impact right here in our own community. Let me ask you one more question. Rnding human trafficking has listeners in 166 countries. Why does this matter to them? Isn’t this just a problem in America?

Delaney Mininger 22:39

I think that’s probably a question that a lot of people have. I, as we talked about earlier, know that human trafficking is not something that just happens in America. Labor trafficking is not just something that happens in America. Modern day slavery happens all over the globe right now, and it’s a huge problem that people are facing everywhere, in countries like Venezuela, in countries like Chile, Brazil, there’s so much labor trafficking going on, whether it be for our clothing or for our food, and though it might not be right in our backyard, we might not be the ones with slaves who are asking them to do these things, if we’re supporting businesses that are asking that of people, that are asking people to live with no wages, asking people to work with no wages, or in bad living conditions, then that’s not right. That’s just as bad as being the problem, contributing to it, letting people benefit from that unethical practice, it’s not something that we want to be doing. So it’s important to people in all these different countries that are listening to this podcast to know that it is happening all around you. And even if you are not the one that has a slave, you’re not the one that’s directly contributing to it, you’re still being a part of the problem if you aren’t checking yourself and checking what you’re buying, checking the practices behind. It’s not enough to just not be the problem. You have to make sure that you’re taking every effort you can and in every choice that you have, making sure that it matches your values and it matches what you want to do and who you want to support. We really want to encourage people, at the Fashion Show, to check their options, check what they can do. We know that it’s all around us. It’s something that we’re going to run into no matter what, and it’s difficult. It’s definitely harder not to be a part of the problem, but it is possible, it’s possible to not contribute to that. I think we should have that conversation of what is a want and what is a need? What things do we need? Those things that we do need, how can we make sure that when we are buying them, we are buying them in a way that represents who we are and represents how we feel about people and what they deserve? That’s such a big part of Live2Free and our mission. The fashion show is not only a great opportunity to mix people’s passion for fashion and passion for social justice, but it’s a great way to encourage people to check themselves, check their choices and when they’re expressing themselves, which is a freedom and privilege that they have, to also think about the individual behind that. Think about the individual who is giving them the opportunity to do that and the freedom to do that. At Live2Free, I just want to give our mission statement, we challenge a generation to make personal choices that recognize the dignity of the individual, the responsibility of consumers to slow the demand that drives modern day slavery, and to network with others, to rescue, rebuild, and restore the broken lives of victims. That’s our mission, and that is just a huge part of the fashion show and something that we really want all of our attendees to see and feel and relate to, and then take that and act on it.

Sandra Morgan 25:51

Delaney, your passion comes across so well in that and I believe you are living that mission statement. This is another generation of Vanguard students from Live2Free that will go out into the world and end up in some of those 166 countries, making their passion, living, and useful, hands on. Let me ask you how people can connect with Live2Free.

Delaney Mininger 26:25

With our Live2Free club, you guys can connect with us. If anybody’s on campus listening here at Vanguard University, you can come up to us, any of the cabinet members. There’s Kevin Arciga as our vice president, Chloe McLeroy as our communications chair, and me, Delaney Miniger as president. You guys can come up to us, ask us questions, get involved. For anybody listening anywhere else, our social media is @_live2free_ on Instagram, and we also have our email, l2f@vanguarduniversity.edu that you guys are able to contact if you guys have any questions, if you want to find out how you can get involved, how you can support us on our mission, even if it’s from a distance. We would totally appreciate that, and we’re always looking forward to hearing from anybody who has questions or wants to get involved. That’s some ways that you can reach us.

Sandra Morgan 27:17

I heard that if you are a teacher in Orange County, you can ask for a Live2Free team to come to your school. Is that true?

Delaney Mininger 27:27

Yes, that’s going to be our Safe Kids, Safe Communities Program, which was originally peer educators, and that’s also a way that I got involved with the club, originally. Before even becoming president, I became a peer educator, and I got to have the experience of going to these different high schools and teaching kids things that I certainly was never taught in high school. We’ve had a lot of other people on the team say very similar things, that it’s just so great to be able to share this experience with them, share this information with them, because it’s something that we lacked when we were in high school. It totally would have been helpful for us to have somebody older than us but still in a similar age range, somebody that could still relate to us, just let us know that they care about us, and they care about our well being and who we are, and what we are going to do with our lives, they care about what happens to us. I mean, that would have been so life changing for me to hear at that age, and I think it really is for a lot of these kids, important to hear that somebody, anybody, cares about them and their well being, and the choices that they make. We talk about different things like healthy relationships, online safety, we do overviews of human trafficking, and it’s just something that the health programs at schools, especially when I was in high school, were totally lacking, and it’s vital information. We want to make sure that we’re getting out there and sharing that with kids and sharing that with teachers too, so that they know how to help kids the best that they can and recognize signs of kids who are in danger or kids who are at risk. We want to make sure that they are aware of those things so that they can help them, and it’s just so important to us. I love the peer educators team and I would definitely recommend, if you guys are on campus, any Vanguard students, getting involved with that, it’s a really great opportunity. We have a good team lined up, and we’ve been doing so much to prepare to go back to these high schools. If you can get involved, highly recommend it. If you can support this in any way that you can, we definitely recommend.

Sandra Morgan 29:27

Thank you so much your passion, like I said, your passion is contagious. For our listeners who aren’t in Orange County, reach out to us. We would love to give you some resources, get you connected, because you can raise up an army just like this in your own community. Thank you for being here. Have a great day.

Delaney Mininger 29:53

Thank you for having me. I will have a good day, you have a good day too.

Sandra Morgan 29:57

Okay, bye, bye.

Delaney Mininger 29:59

Bye.

Sandra Morgan 29:59

Listeners, we’re inviting you to head over to the endinghumantrafficking.org website. That’s where you can find resources we’ve mentioned in this conversation and so much more. Check out the Fair Trade Fashion Show Tool Kit. If you haven’t visited our website before, a great first step is to become a subscriber, then you’ll receive an email with the show notes with each new episode every two weeks. Of course, I’ll be back in two weeks for our next conversation