Wearing Your Truth With Michelle Howell, Chief Culture Officer of The Outrage
Fashion has proven that clothing can speak louder than words. We’re all quite familiar with how our personal style can oftentimes initiate a simple exchange of words. Like how you find yourself standing in line at a coffee shop and the stranger behind you adoringly asks, “I love those boots, where did you get them?”
But, aside from compliments and the occasional, but much appreciated, online shop referral, clothing can also direct us to lead a much more complex conversation. Just as fashion can represent our individual taste in silhouettes and styles, it can also help communicate something greater than ourselves.
Whether it's wearing a decorative bib in solidarity of the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or a graphic tee-shirt that reads, ‘we should all be feminists,’ fashion can be used as a device to communicate a political stance or advocate for a social cause.
Photo Courtesy of Michelle Howell
Founded in 2016, The Outrage has become the hub for activism in marrying community with fashion and establishing a growing network of people looking to make a change in their communities, the US, and the world. Its aesthetically-pleasing line of t-shirts, face masks, bracelets, and even jumpsuits pledge to end police brutality and racial profiling, speak up for mental health, and vote women into office. Headlining their Shopify page is a memo that reads “the issues aren’t new, but the merch is.”
At its core, The Outrage makes it easy, tangible, and far from intimidating to get out there and get involved! This unique organization-turned-community encourages their members to “be outraged here” and reminds them that sitting in discomfort is counterproductive in these revolutionary times.
Its promotion of several social justice movements and issues ignite these crucial conversations all through the power of wearing your truth.
Michelle Howell has been the Chief Culture Officer at The Outrage since October 2019. As a creative activist, Michelle has dedicated her life and career to spearheading local, domestic, and international community engagement initiatives.
The Kentucky native shares her innate desire to create change in the world from a young age, a few of her favorite Gloria Steinem quotes she lives by, and what is next for The Outrage post-2020 presidential election. Together, we discuss how fashion can take the first step in establishing an ongoing dialogue surrounding the most pressing social issues.
Erica: Can you recall a moment in your life that you felt you were called to pursue activism and overall public service? From there, when did you first hear about The Outrage, and can you walk me through what attracted you to work with this organization?
Michelle: I often think (when I’m asked this question) of a quote by Gloria Steinem — “Feminism starts out being very simple. The instinct of the little child who says it’s not fair and it ends up being a worldview that questions hierarchy altogether.” I grew up with a critical eye to the way things were, and it’s only in retrospect that I see the accumulation of moments. But, the moment I started identifying as an activist was during my first year at college.
The start of my activism begins working with victim-survivors of sexual assault. During my freshman year, I frequently found myself on the other side of conversations with individuals sharing their stories of sexual assault. The stories kept coming. I realized that they were going to keep coming and I needed to equip myself better for not only these conversations but to dismantle the root of the issues altogether. The late nights consoling that turned into early mornings organizing are the moments that drive me — these are the faces I see at the start of each day. So, it began.
My story with The Outrage began when the CEO + Founder, Rebecca Lee Funk, and I met in late 2017 while both serving on the board of the Women’s March DC, even though I was aware of The Outrage’s work prior, having stumbled on the organization earlier that year.
In just a few conversations with Rebecca, it was clear that The Outrage resonated deeply with the community, and organically was growing to become the hub for activism that it is today. True to our grassroots, folx resonated with the notion that the org was carving and making space for progressive issues and wanted more in the form of events, activations, and merch that encompassed a wide breadth of intersectional issues. Rebecca was looking for someone to build out that community + culture arm.
At the same time, I was spending my days thinking a lot about the institutions that make movements work — the idea of an organization that existed supplementally to fuel movement-building pulled me right in. We shared a shot of whiskey and the rest is history.
Photo Courtesy of The Outrage.
EC: Since May 2018, you have been with The Outrage. Can you provide a brief overview of what your position as Director of Partnerships & Branding looked like as well as your current role as the Chief Culture Officer?
MH: Even though the title changed, my roles and responsibilities have looked the same during my time at The Outrage. My days are spent overseeing all aspects of branding, marketing, creative, community, partnerships, and strategy, working very closely with community partners and our amazing team.
Each day looks a bit different but the core goal remains the same each day, “How can we transform culture to create a more just society — a kind of transformation that would make this a better world to live in for all of us?” Driven by community input, I’m trying to fulfill that commitment every day.
EC: The Outrage is pairing fashion with community and activism. How do you find clothing to be an effective way to communicate a message and help establish an ongoing discourse?
MH: Clothing is a tool to drive social change as it represents how we engage, manifest, and express our beliefs every single day. Here, I’m driven by yet another Gloria Steinem quote and belief that “a movement is only composed of people moving.”
It’s The Outrage’s role in everyday moments that really fires me up:
The people that buy a shirt that says, “This land is whose land?” to wear at a 4th of July BBQ to start a conversation on Indigenous Rights
The person that comes in to buy an LGBTQIA+ pin to wear on their suit because their department is meeting with Vice President Pence the next day and they want their resistance seen
The people that high five while walking down the street because they’re both wearing a “Resist” jacket
There are so many stories like this.
Fashion can build solidarity, raise awareness, and inspire action, but fashion is just the tip of the iceberg, as the aforementioned actions alone are not enough. We use fashion as a tool to help you put your foot in the door and then we equip you with tools to kick that door wide open by designing products with action in mind — whether that’s starting a conversation, marching at a protest, or running for office.
Then, there’s fashion that captures cultural moments and creates symbols and uniforms for social movements. For example, in 2018 we teamed up with activist Charlotte Clymer to make a “November is Coming” jacket riffing off of Melania Trump’s “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket, kicking back 100% of the proceeds to RAICES. The jacket was then worn all over the halls of the Capitol during the 2018 confirmation of Kavanaugh, and “November is Coming” became the rallying cry for the SCOTUS protests. While we didn’t stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation, we did elect the most diverse Congress in history. Was it the jacket? Of course not, but we can’t deny the power of a symbol that becomes a rallying cry to action. The beauty of The Outrage is that we provide multiple points for engagement because we understand that activists develop on a continuum of change — fashion can be a first step to a lifestyle towards progressive, radical transformation.
EC: How have you seen The Outrage transform from being a feminist apparel line to a space for activism?
MH: What started as an organization (since the opening of its first pop-up in 2017 and now the opening of their first community space in Spring 2019) pulling on one lever — fashion — for social change, grew in two years to be an organization with multiple levers allowing us to curate resources that encourage lifelong learning, break down systemic problems into tangible action items, and provide multiple engagement points to pull folx in regardless of if they’re new to activism or been here for decades.
The Outrage was founded to be a feminist e-tailer kicking back 100% of the proceeds while ensuring ethical production practices. We’ve built off that foundation to create a hub for activism that provides both the scaffolding and venue to make change a reality through sustained civic engagement. We seek to be the megaphone, not the voice, as we build community and shift culture by leveraging events, activations, fashion, marketing, membership, and IRL community spaces to amplify the social issues of our time. With flagship headquarters based on Piscataway Land in Washington, DC, we’re poised and ready to build a network of hubs for activism across the nation in the next 5 years.
In Angela Davis’ talk Making a Difference, she says, “Figure out ways of making these issues visible.” That’s what we’ll continue to do. As always, there is more work to be done to be as inclusive and as intersectional as we strive to be. The work continues.
Photo Courtesy of The Outrage. The Outrage DC Community Space pictured.
EC: Now that the election is over, what types of work is The Outrage encouraging their consumers to get involved in?
MH: Since The Outrage’s existence, we’ve frequently been asked, “What are you going to do once Trump’s out of office?” To which we reply, “Exactly what we’re doing right now.” Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and every other -ism has pervaded our society regardless of who is in office. Now that the election is over, we’re asking for a commitment from our community that they promise to be as active under a Biden-Harris administration as they were under a Trump-Pence administration. We voted them in, and now we hold them accountable.
For The Outrage, we’ll continue the vital issue-based work with an intersectional approach, working on issues including, but not limited to, racial justice, environmental justice, women’s rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigrant rights, ending violence, workers rights, disability justice, AAPI and Indigenous rights. Additionally, we’re working to prioritize more policy-based work on issues such as DC Statehood, abolishing the Electoral College, expanding the courts, and more. For anyone looking to stay involved with The Outrage, we invite you to become a member of The Outrage.
EC: How do you personally find your personal style to reflect your values and beliefs?
MH: I strive to surround myself with objects that have a story so that I know where the piece came from, leveraging fashion to tell stories as the personal is always political.
The majority of my wardrobe is second-hand pieces predominantly passed down from my mother, my granny, and my grandmother. I started wearing these pieces around the same time that I both left home in rural Kentucky and started my activist journey. While secondhand is, of course, more sustainable than buying new, I find I wear the pieces often as a sense of connection to place and “the extent to which my senses and sensibility are deeply informed by the geography of place” — words from native Kentuckian and activist Bell Hooks.
Kentucky is often stereotyped as “backwards,” and yet it was the playground that fueled my adult radicalism. Wearing my great-grandmother’s costume jewelry everyday or a dress from one of the grandmother’s is my small way of remembering these roots.
Howell (Left) wearing the mentioned blue suit.
There’s also a sense of reclaiming these pieces for me. For example, I wore a blue suit that was originally my mom’s to the opening of our first community space. After a night celebrating progressive values, I took off the suit knowing how much sexism my mom maneuvered when she wore it. So, in that way, I’m trying to breathe life into an item as a form of gratitude to the women before me that paved the way for me to do what I do in the world.
The remaining pieces that I purchase, if not secondhand, are from womxn-owned brands, with a focus on WOC brands. When I touch an item in my wardrobe, I want to know and be able to picture the face of the person that designed or curated it. Of course, you will always find me wearing at least one piece from The Outrage, if not more.
Follow The Outrage on Instagram @theoutrageonline
Check out their website and get involved at: the-outrage.com