EntreFEST: Andre Wright speaks on climate activism, empowering youth

Fashion activist Andre Wright rang in the third and final day of EntreFEST 2024 as a keynote speaker. Mr. Wright spoke to a group of more than 50 attendees Friday morning in Cedar Rapids’ Olympic South Side Theater. He covered a range of topics including community entrepreneurship and sustainable fashion practices.  Best known for co-founding […]

Fashion activist Andre Wright rang in the third and final day of EntreFEST 2024 as a keynote speaker. Mr. Wright spoke to a group of more than 50 attendees Friday morning in Cedar Rapids’ Olympic South Side Theater. He covered a range of topics including community entrepreneurship and sustainable fashion practices.  Best known for co-founding the Humanize My Hoodie movement and brand alongside abolitionist and criminal justice educator Jason Sole, Mr. Wright has made an impact on the global fashion activism scene.  He said once celebrities started wearing Humanize My Hoodie, the movement took off.  “When celebrities started wearing it, now it’s pandemonium …‘They got a celebrity wearing that thing? Now I’m wearing it too,’” Mr. Wright said, in his keynote address. “It became this thing. We got New York Fashion Week. We got a contract with Footaction, and we were in 250 stores across the nation.” He went on to note the importance of having so many people familiar with the story of Humanize My Hoodie, and how they frequently sell out of limited-offer drops. He said although the movement continues, he is now focusing on putting it forward to the youth.  Now, Mr. Wright works with students at the Wright House of Fashion to empower youth and develop their skills, and spoke on the importance of that at EntreFEST.  “If you go back in history and look back at any kind of movement, every movement was led by young people,” Mr. Wright said. “It wasn't us, we got to play. But the young people are the people who actually do the work.” The fashion house — the only one of its kind in Iowa — is a nonprofit organization aiming to engage and inspire young people to build leadership and community skills through creative expression. He said currently, he has a number of students attend the Wright House every week, working on artistic and entrepreneurial projects or being social.  “They spend time with us. Most of the time they come in they might be sleeping, or playing ping pong. We just set up a screen printing unit so they can come in and screen print,” Mr. Wright said. “They just started building their own brands or personal brands, but they're the brands that they want to actually project onto the world. This is remarkable because the kids don't have to come here … But they come back every week, every single week.”

Mr. Wright noted several of the local projects accomplished through the Wright House, including fundraising $1,000 for Liberty High School’s only club dedicated to Black and Latino students.  He said he has received a certificate from the University of Iowa as a BizInnovator Startup Teacher, which enables him to allot college credits to kids creating their own businesses and brands. Mr. Wright also works with the Iowa Department of Labor, establishing the department’s only graphic design program to connect designers with companies, the first of which is Universal Music.  Mr. Wright focused much of the talk on climate activism, and how to build a sustainable fashion industry that steers away from microplastics and petrochemicals.  “I took kind of a hiatus away from mass producing clothing and designs and all this stuff, so I could learn a little bit more and be more responsible with the craftsmanship, with the designs and the limited quantities, and how can I help people reduce their closet space,” Mr. Wright said. “We can't have social justice if we don't have climate justice, because if we can't have a clean place to walk on, then what's the point in doing this?”  He has started working with Natural Fiber Welding, a company that makes plant-based materials to replace petrochemicals in textiles.  After his talk, Mr. Wright answered a few questions from the audience, including one about how he navigated the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of how the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 "propelled" the success of Humanize My Hoodie.  He said when the Black Lives Matter movement began to lose a lot of its allies after 2020, it was frustrating and disappointing to lose some of the protection needed, but he endured.  “But I still wanted to go somewhere else and do other things. I never did stop building empowerment for our people,” he said. “I never let that stop us.”  Wrapping up the talk, Mr. Wright promoted his new upcoming book, "Fashion Activist: My Life as a Designer, Dreamer, and Disrupter," which is available for preorder.