Extinction Rebellion protest: Climate change campaigners block roads in bid to disrupt London Fashion Week

A group of climate change campaigners are staging protests in a bid to disrupt London Fashion Week.

More than 100 activists from Extinction Rebellion joined the march on Sunday, which called on the fashion industry to halt trends of excessive consumption and urged the British Fashion Council to declare a climate emergency.

Protesters holding a banner which read “rebel for life” blocked traffic outside Tate Britain during Victoria Beckham’s show, with Mercedes provided for the event being held up.

In a bid to disrupt the third day of fashion week in the capital, campaigners moved to the event’s main venue at the Strand, where they blocked several roads with their banner.

Nuala Gathercole Lam, from Extinction Rebellion, said: "We ask the fashion industry, who do you want to listen to, the youth and the future, or the words of our current Prime Minister, whose Government is criminally neglecting the UK's agreed responsibilities under the Paris agreement in the face of the ecological emergency?

"Now it is time for the fashion industry to hear the call of the youth."

Protester Lucas Spencer, 17, who travelled to London from Leeds, said: "I feel like it's everyone's problem.

"The world is being killed, we know it is, it's not just dying, there are people killing it and if nobody speaks about it nothing is going to change.

"The fashion industry creates a lot of pollution and the chemicals they use create a lot of waste."

Leaflets handed out by the group said the protest was a campaign against "the catastrophic consequences of inaction".

Fashion fans at the show also said they supported an end to "fast fashion" and throwaway culture.

Speaking outside the main venue, Tatiana Phillips, 34, a personal stylist, said: "I'm sure there should be something done, there's a reason, but I don't think they should go crazy about it.

"Just yesterday at the festival and today they have been talking about sustainable fashion and how it's important to move that way."

Student Holly Cudby, 21, who was also visiting, added: "I think it does need to be more sustainable, fast fashion, even though I buy into it."

Explaining the reason behind the protests, an Extinction Rebellion spokesman said on Twitter: “We are disrupting London Fashion Week to invite the fashion industry to join us in rebellion. We all need to wake up to the climate and ecological emergency and to use our influence to save all life and the future.

The whole of society must wake up to the climate and ecological emergency. This means disrupting business as usual. Clothing production has more than doubled globally in 15 years and in the UK we’re buying twice as much as 15 years ago. This is unsustainable on a planet with finite resources.”