IN A WORKSHOP in Marrickville, 7km south-west of the Sydney CBD, a group of refugee and migrant women chat quietly as they work. The room is filled with bolts of cloth, spools of thread, clothing racks bursting with colourful garments and desks covered with sewing machines, fabric scissors and measuring tape. Fatima Sultanzi, from Afghanistan, feeds fabric into a sewing machine. Lilyrose Po, from Myanmar, is cutting out fabric patterns. Xiuyan Han, from China, is in the early stages of sewing a suit – for the Governor-General, no less.
These women work for The Social Outfit, a Sydney fashion label and social enterprise supporting refugee and migrant women to jumpstart careers in Australia. Since 2014, it has trained and employed more than 1360 women and diverted 16 tonnes of fabric…
