Lush will be hosting a pop-up shop raising money for G(end)er Swap where individuals can purchase retro clothes and second-hand finds on 29th and 30th of March!

G(end)er Swap aims to educate, advocate for and to celebrate gender non-conformity as a way to promote better inclusivity (gender-neutral spaces, size variation and accessibility) for queer and trans individuals in the mainstream fashion world.

The project has three main components:

• Clothing pop-up events where individuals can exchange clothes or find trans specific items in a community and trans-inclusive space.
• Workshops: developing and implementing discussions and awareness activities based on gender identity and style.
• A style archive (QUEERTEXSTYLES) that documents the voices of LGBTIQ+ individuals and their relationship with clothes. This is an interactive installation that travels to collect stories. This archive participates in a digital archiving movement utilising the hashtag #QUEERTEXSTYLES – we have had over 100 submissions thus far.

All three of these events travel worldwide and have been included in LGBTIQ+ conferences and festivals in England, Bulgaria, Belgium, Northern Ireland and the Republic, and has participated in university-wide learning seminars including University of Oxford, Queen Mary University, NUI Galway (Ireland) and McGill University (Canada). G(end)er Swap has been involved in several pride events and took part in an art residency for six months at LimeWharf Cultural Innovation Hub in East London to develop and implement a pop-up shopping service for trans individuals to shop and get connected to LGBTIQ+ specific resources.

On the day, there will be activities that’ll encompass the following themes: educate, celebrate and embrace. There will be a photo booth area to contribute stories to the QUEERTEXSTYLES archive, an information area about the project, its main aims and information on how to get involved, plus sharing information on queer and trans individuals shopping experiences in mainstream retailers. There will also be a pop-up shop where individuals can purchase retro clothes and second-hand finds.

During this weekend, 100% of the proceeds of their Hand and Body Lotion Charity Pot (minus the VAT) will go to G(end)er Swap. The money raised will go towards supporting the projects marketing materials and venues to support long term pop-up spaces.

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Barefoot Wine & Bubbly is again running its successful #BareYourSole roadshow campaign across the UK during July. Now in its third year, the activity, which sees a Barefoot van travel the country, encourages people to be proud to be different and to revel in their uniqueness.

Research by the award-winning wine brand has revealed that 84% of Brits believe that being comfortable with who you are and being accepted for your true-self ultimately makes you happier.

Visitors to the Barefoot van will not only get the chance to try a range of the brand’s wines, but will also be invited to ‘bare their sole’ by proudly declaring their unusual hobbies, habits or passions on a Barefoot sticker – and the more unusual, the better!

The #BareYourSole tour will visit a range of locations between 4 and 29 July, including Liverpool, Leamington Spa, Manchester, London, Oxford, Brighton, Coventry, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham and Birmingham.

The activity was created by global brand experience agency Sense, which is again running the campaign. Ciara Garratt, Account Manager at Sense, says: “Launched in 2016, Bare Your Sole champion’s Barefoot’s core values of diversity and inclusivity by encouraging people to share their hidden passions and celebrate each other’s quirks. Barefoot want to remove any pretentiousness surrounding wine and make it more fun and less serious. The concept has worked so well that we’re proud to be rolling it out for a third year in succession celebrating the fact that people feel happier when they are comfortable in their own skin and free to express themselves.”

Sense is an award-winning marketing agency that specialises in helping brands do exciting things in the real world, to create authentic communications across the marketing spectrum. It manages campaigns from strategy to evaluation.

Barefoot Wine & Bubbly started up in California in the 1960s. Its founders believed that wine should be more fun and less serious; and created a wine that could be enjoyed by everyone from first-time wine drinkers to hard-core aficionados. Barefoot Wine is the most awarded and #1 wine brand in the US and was introduced to the UK in 2009. Staying true to its grassroots beginnings, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly gives back to local non-profit groups through charitable wine donations. In addition to several years of cleaning British beaches with Surfers Against Sewage, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly has also supported the LGBT community for over 25 years.

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Adidas, Aon and Aviva are backing this year’s Rainbow Laces campaign, which is run by LGBT charity Stonewall UK to combat homophobia and transphobia in sport.

The 2016 campaign aims to recruit consumers, schools, sports clubs and other organisations to take part in a week of action in November culminating in a weekend of activity on November 26th and 27th to show that “everyone can play a part in making sport everyone’s game”, as the charity puts it.

The Rainbow Laces campaign is supported by TeamPride, a group of global organisations committed to making sport open to all regardless of sexual orientation or gender issues.

The Rainbow Laces campaign originally launched in 2013, backed by book maker Paddy Power, and saw sets of rainbow laces sent to dozens of major football clubs. Free newspaper Metro has also been a supporter in the past.

This year’s campaign launch has been supported with the release of new ICM research commissioned by Stonewall which suggests that younger sports fans are more likely to think that anti-LGBT language is harmless if it’s just meant as banter (22% of 18 to 24-year-olds compared to 13% overall).

The research also reveals that 18 to 24-year-olds are twice as likely to say they would be embarrassed if their favourite player came out as gay (22% compared to 12% overall.

However, the research shows that the majority of people think that offensive language towards LGBT people in sport is a problem (59%), with young people more likely to identify it as a ‘big problem’ (28% compared to 13% overall).

Football fans are the most likely to hear homophobic abuse, with 72% of fans hearing it while watching live sports in the past five years.

However, despite this, the research highlights some encouraging trends. Across the general population, nine in 10 (88%) would be either ‘proud’ or ‘neutral’ if their favourite player came out as gay (50% proud, 38% neutral).

Ruth Hunt, the chief executive of Stonewall, said: “We’re pleased that such powerful organisations have stepped up and given their support to our ‘Rainbow laces’ campaign, and now we urge more organisations to become part of our team. Sport should be everyone’s game but sadly, the research released today shows that homophobic, biphobic and transphobic abuse continues to heard on the terraces and in sports arenas across Britain.”

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed by ICM (63%) say more should be done to make LGBT people feel accepted in sport. Almost two thirds of young people (60%) say that open LGBT players would have a positive impact on the culture of sport, and 63% of young people say they wish more sports players were open about their sexual orientation.

Hunt adds that “there is a persistent minority who believe this sort of abuse is acceptable. These vocal few may be under the illusion that anti-LGBT language is harmless but it makes lesbian, gay, bi and trans fans and players feel unsafe, unwelcome and unable to be themselves. We need high profile sports clubs and personalities to stand up as allies and help make sport everyone’s game by showing that homophobic abuse has no place in sport.”

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