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"  If three is a trend, then one hundred is a full-blown movement, and that is exactly what Ollie Henderson wants. The model-cum-activist caused a street-style stir at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney last month while launching her campaign, Start The Riot, which aims to &amp;quot;encourage young people to become politically aware and involved,&amp;quot; Henderson tells BAZAAR. To launch the project, Henderson hand-painted 100 t-shirts with political slogans, handed them out to her brigade of genetically blessed model friends, and asked recipients to wear them between shows. Street-style photographers flocked to the DIY gems and garnered a hatful of publicity in Australia and worldwide. What do her slogans advocate? Well, a variety of issues both local and global, including economic reform (&amp;quot;Welfare Over Wealth&amp;quot;), marriage equality (&amp;quot;Love is Love&amp;quot;), and ethnic diversity (&amp;quot;Reject Racism&amp;quot;). We spoke to Henderson about using the catwalk as a platform for change. What is Start The Riot all about, and how did it begin? Start the Riot began when I was in New York, a few weeks ago. I was feeling really frustrated by the political climate in Australia. There were a lot of things going on that I didn&amp;#039;t particularly agree with, and I was feeling frustrated and helpless. Coming back to Australia shortly after I was having these feelings, I thought I had to do something. Especially coming into Fashion Week, one considers what they are going to wear, so it seems liked the perfect opportunity to make my mark. And make a mark you did. Photos of the t-shirts appeared on street style blogs all over the world. Did you expect to receive such global media attention? No, absolutely not. I expected it to get a little attention. Last year I had a t-shirt that said &amp;quot;Suck my Cervix,&amp;quot; which was quite popular. So that is kind of where the idea came from as well. After the excitement around that, I thought, this year, why don&amp;#039;t we say something clearly important. So I was expecting it to have a similar kind of range, but I am really surprised at the global reach--having American magazines write up on it, British magazine write up on it, and finding it on Canadian blogs. It&amp;#039;s been surprising and extremely flattering. Is Start the Riot a one-woman show? Are you the brains behind it all, or are there other people involved? Yes, it&amp;#039;s basically my project. I&amp;#039;m really grateful to all of my friends, as I&amp;#039;ve had so much support on it, like people helping me come up with slogans. I also brought out a &amp;#039;zine discussing current political issues, so a lot of my friends are contributing in that way. We&amp;#039;ve made videos and done photo-shoots too to use as promo for the project and really get the word out there. I am blessed to have the assistance of my friends. And speaking of friends, we noticed a number of other Aussie models sporting the shirts at Fashion Week: Rachel Rutt, Nicole Pollard, Amanda Ware, to name a few. How did they all get involved? I spoke to them about the project, and everyone was really enthusiastic to get involved. I wanted to have as many people wearing the t-shirts as possible. I&amp;#039;m trying to encourage people to come up with their own slogans. I wanted to try and encourage people to think about these things more and also to feel that they were showing their own voice and not just tagging along to a pre-existing project.  Now that you&amp;#039;ve achieved this global reach, what do you plan to do next? Is there a future to Start the Riot? I am not really sure. I only conceived this idea several weeks ago, so it&amp;#039;s all really fresh. But I feel that people have received it really well, so it would be a shame not to continue. I have had so many people contacting me about the t-shirts and shops contacting me about stocking them. But I only made 100 and I gave them all out. I&amp;#039;ve been looking at producing more and talking to stockists to get them out further. But I feel like Start the Riot will go out beyond that. I&amp;#039;m not sure where it will go 100%, as I have many ideas. But, watch this space. Good things will happen. The whole campaign is about creating awareness among young people. Do you think there&amp;#039;s a lack of involvement with that demo? I&amp;#039;m not sure if there is a lack of awareness, but perhaps a lack of motivation. I know, at least for myself, in the past I&amp;#039;ve really cared about issues but was disheartened because I&amp;#039;ve felt I could do nothing. And then, as a result of that, I chose to ignore what was going on because I didn&amp;#039;t know what I could do as an individual. I think like lot of other young Australians are feeling the same way, and the whole aim of this project is to encourage them to know that every little thing makes a difference. Reposting an article on Facebook makes a difference. Having a conversation with your friend makes a difference. Wearing a t-shirt makes a difference. Hopefully if we can all band together and start talking about these issues, then something will happen, and we can make positive changes in our world. Keep up with the campaign by liking the Start The Riot Facebook Page or joining its Facebook group. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a2264/ollie-henderson-riot/>