Stay ConnectedWARDROBE CRISIS is a fashion podcast about sustainability, ethical fashion and making a difference in the world. Your host is author and journalist Clare Press, who was the first ever Vogue sustainability editor. Each week, we bring you insightful interviews from the global fashion change makers, industry insiders, activists, artists, designers and scientists who are shaping fashion’s future.
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Copyright: © 2022 Clare Press
If you listened to last week's interview w. Jem Bendell and wondered, "What on Earth do I do now?" And you weren't up for moving to Bali and getting collapse ready by starting a self-sufficient permaculture farm...we've got you!
This week's episode is about practical action being taken right now to protect the rights of Nature.
Clare is sitting down with two can-do women, fashion designer Lucy Tammam and Stop Ecocide International's Jojo Mehta to decode one of the topics of the moment, ecocide law.
You might have noticed this idea gaining momentum. Ecocide refers to the mass damage and destruction of ecosystems – severe harm to nature which is widespread or long-term. The idea is to criminalise it. And it's happening! It's become national law in several countries with many more discussing it. In March, the EU passed a law that criminalises actions 'comparable to ecocide' - a revolutionary legal development; the first law of its kind to be adopted by a political entity with substantial global influence. In September, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa submitted a proposal to the International Criminal Court for recognition of ecocide as a crime.
What does all this mean for fashion? Listen to find out!
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Okay, brace yourselves...
Brands love to set sustainability goals. But what if it's all nonsense? What if net zero, the obsession with carbon, and the idea that renewables are taking over from fossil fuels, are all part of a fake green fairy tale that we tell ourselves because the alternative is too difficult to imagine. Or that corporations tell us so that they can keep on with business as usual.
WTAF? We know. It's... a lot.
Is it true? You decide, after listening to this week's guest.
Jem Bendell is an emeritus professor of sustainability leadership at the University of Cumbria, the author Breaking Together and founder of the Deep Adaptation movement, as well as Bekandze Farm school and folk band Barefoot Stars.
If it sometimes feels like everything's collapsing around us, Bendell argues that's because it is. From the climate and cost of living crises to rising geopolitical tensions, and don't get us started in the widening gap between rich and poor. He says, it's not a sudden thing, like we see in Hollywood movies about the end of the world. Rather, he argues, collapse is a process, and one that's already begun. The question he's asking is: what can we do on the other side?
Some people, he writes, are already: "dramatically changing their lives to prioritise creativity and social contribution. They are worrying less about their career, their financial security or following the latest trend. They are helping those in need, growing food, making music, campaigning for change and exploring spiritual paths. That is happening, because they have rejected the establishment's view of reality and no longer expect its officers to solve any of the worsening problems in their society." Others are just pretending nothing's wrong.
Can cats help? Do doomsters really have more fun? Where does hope come into all this? Clare sat down with Professor Bendell after his keynote at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney to ask all this and more.
Music: Mystical Cat by Barefoot Stars, launched in support of Villa Kitty, donate here.
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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What is the role of a fashion designer today? Thinking purely about gorgeous clothes is so last season. Gone are the days when designers could consider only a collection, how it will sell and what the customer might be looking for.
Forward-thinkers are already beginning to take more holistic view and adopt a living systems approach. They’re asking questions such as, Can we make like Nature makes? How might fashion create nutrients instead of waste? How can we use biomimicry in sustainable ways? Program living systems to produce bespoke products? And, how can we build a truly regenerative system in place of the current degenerative one?
“We won't have a choice in the future. We will all have to include sustainability in everything we do,” says this week’s guest Carole Collet -a bio designer, professor of textile futures and the director of LVMH’s Maison/0 incubator for emerging talent focused on regenerative luxury.
Carole was raised in Burgundy, France, to respect Nature. Her mother worked in a flower shop, her father in a greenhouse. In 1991, she was in London studying for her Masters in textiles when she had a revelation: “It’s in biology that the answers will be.” Traditionally, textile design education focuses on weaving, knitting or maybe printing. “It's very craft based,” says Carole says, “and I love craft; I think it’s justified. But at Masters level, I felt like it was too restrictive.” She went on to set up the first Material Futures program at Central Saint Martins “to explore what textiles could be”.
A philosophical conversation that extends way beyond fashion, encouraging us to ask the big questions about what sort of world we want to build - and our responsibilities in doing so.
We might begin, suggests Carole, by challenging our anthropocentrism, and ask, "What does a bee want? How about a fish?"
Thought-provoking!
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Happy Secondhand September! Six years ago Oxfam UK came up with the idea of using September to encourage people to: "Shop second hand to take a stance against fast fashion and dress for a fairer world." They say it's a moment to come together “to choose a more planet-friendly way to shop, and dress for the world you want to see."
How does preloved help with that? We all know that fashion waste is a problem, that new clothing and textile production is a serious contributor to the climate crisis. According to ThredUp, if every consumer bought just one this year secondhand garment instead of a new one, it would he like equal to taking 76 million cars off the road for a day.
Plus by shopping with Oxfam, and other charity shops, you’re investing in the vital work in local communities.
This week Clare sits down with mega multi-tasker Eunice Olumide MBE - model, environmentalist, broadcaster, DJ, author, curator now filmmaker (phew!) - ahead of Oxfam’s London Fashion Week show, to discuss thrifting, her new documentary about the history of British hip hop, moving beyond performative activism, and the challenges of championing secondhand in a world still dominated by the business model of new...
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Fashion month is about to kick off again, with all eyes on New York, London, Milan and Paris. But the obsession with the so-called fashion capitals has long seemed out of touch. Yes, that's where the money is (well, Paris is anyway), but in our globalised world, there are many more fashion capitals that should not be overlooked. There are fashion weeks all over the place, all year round. But while Lagos, Melbourne, Berlin and Copenhagen deserve their place in the fashion spotlight, what happens when you're well off the beaten fashion track?
East Arnhem Land, for example...
These days, rising Australian fashion star Liandra Gaykamangu calls Darwin home, but that's the big smoke compared to where she grew up in Milingimbi (Yurruwi) in the Crocodile Islands - albeit with a sojourn to the Wollongong surf coast. Now her print-led namesake brand is making waves in fancy places. This mum of three used to be a high school teacher and her fashion-forward design is winning her prizes.
A beautiful, far-reaching conversation the covers a lot of ground, from creative life in Australia's remote north, caring for County, and tuning into nature (what are the frogs telling you?) to mentoring nex gen Indigenous entrepreneurs, and what it takes to break through when you're outside of circles of power.
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#underconsumptioncore is a thing! For this episode, we’re in London visiting British journalist Tiffanie Darke to talk about her viral wardrobe challenge, The Rule of Five. She’s also got a new book coming out in the US. What to Wear and Why, Your Guilt-Free Guide to Sustainable Fashion promises to get you "rethinking what clothes we buy, wear, and toss out, knowing that we can have a positive environmental impact while still looking good and dressing well”.
It was during the pandemic, when Tiffanie was working at Harrod's, as the editor of that famed luxury department store's magazine, when she had a revelation. Mindless shopping felt meaningless.
Then she read a shocking report by the Hot or Cool Institute - Unfit, Unfashionable, Unfair revealed that if we're serious about climate action, those of us in the global north/rich countries are going to have to have to drastically reduce our consumption. Of everything! So how much new fashion is sustainable if we want to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees? Buying just five new garments a year. Yikes!
This is the story of how one woman set out to do that, and catalysed a movement along the way. Also up for discussion, who’s to blame for the mess we find ourselves in? Could it be Gen X, those formerly hedonistic Cool Britannia types? After all, they were the first fast fashion fans…
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Welcome to the last of our Copenhagen Fashion Week interviews (if you missed the previous Eps, do go back & take a listen).
This one is refreshingly honest conversation with Danish knitwear designer Amalie Røge Hove about her much-loved label, A. Roege Hove, and the ups and downs of being an independent fashion business.
Widely celebrated as the next big thing, for the past few years A. Roege Hove was a CPHFW highlight. But last season, Amalie was not on the schedule, although her brilliant work was part of the Ganni NEWTALENT platform to amplify rising talents.
So why no runway? Everybody loves A. Roege Hove. After launching in 2019, they were stocked by the likes of Matches and Selfridges, dressing all the It-girls and winning all the prizes, including 2023's International Woolmark Prize.
That winter, however, the label went into administration.
Alas, it's a depressingly common situation. With many independents going bankrupt in the last few years, or finally deciding to close their doors because of rising costs and other stresses - including, of course, those who put sustainability at the heart of what they do.
How much of a problem is the wholesale model here? Can you grow too fast? Can you make it without financial backers? What happens if you can’t keep up? Or supply chains take a hit for reasons outside of your control? We thank Amalie for sharing her story so that others might benefit.
*Since this interview was recorded in February, we are happy to report that A. Roge Hove has returned in a new form and showed again at the CPHFW Spring ‘25 collections.
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Our Copenhagen Fashion Week special continues! Clare sits down with Finnish menswear designer Rolf Ektroth.
Last season, his hand-knits, made with Finnish yarn manufacturer Novita, were made available as pattern and yarn kits, so that home knitters could recreate his runway pieces. He loves macramé and hand embroidery, yet his collections have a modern street vibe that feels very polished. Perhaps it's because he's not actually a new name - Rolf Ekroth has been celebrated before, with glowing reviews in magazines and shows at Pitti Uomo before the pandemic. His label has had its ups and downs, he lost his backers at one point, but he kept at it.
So, in part this is conversation about a career as a progression and taking the long view. It's about perseverance, figuring out what really matters to you and how we are all the sum of our experiences. It's also highly amusing - Rolf is crackup funny. And brilliant! Learn his name - we predict, it's going to be everywhere.
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If you're not in Copenhagen for fashion week, here's your (virtual) ticket :)
Last week, we talked to Ane from Alpha about studying fashion in the Nordics and how to make it as an artistic designer.
Over the next three episodes, we’ve got interviews with some of the most exciting names to watch from the region.
First up is Alectra Rothschild, whose show for her Masculina label was one of the most anticipated, thanks to last season's electric on-schedule debut.
Vogue noted it was "probably history-making' - because Alectra was the first openly trans woman to show at Copenhagen, and because of the her iconic community casting. Listen out in this chat for the part about what a positive force that representation has been - she gets so many messages from fans around the world saying they feel seen. And want to place orders.
Another big theme in this interview is sustainable business models, and what works when you're a small designer. How do you scale? Do you want to? Do you even try? Maybe you plan to go and work for an established house instead? Or, is there a way to stay independent, cater to your community and keep things bespoke?
For Alectra (who trained as a tailor, worked at Mugler and did her MA at Central St Martins in London), it's about seeing herself as a "designer, but also maker, artist and costume designer" and focusing - for now at least - on commissioned pieces.
Ask her to sum up her clothes and she says, “flamboyant, high femme, and quite shameless”. She’s done with being put in a box and categorised - we contain multitudes. Above all she wants to enjoy herself. She makes clothes for night life. Her runways are a party, calling to mind the 1980s when the most exciting fashion scene was DIY, driven by club culture and community. Good times ahead.
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We hear it all the time: fashion students are overwhelmed by overproduction and the ruthless churn of creative directors at the big luxury houses. How can they forge a creative path without contributing to the problem? If they decide to operate outside the system - crafting extravagant one offs, for example, or only making to order - how will they survive financially? What is the point of fashion if you can’t wear it?
Ane Lynge-Jorlén is the Danish fashion academic behind Alpha, a fashion incubator for directional design talent from the Nordics. The Alpha showcase at Copenhagen Fashion Week is always exhilarating, but as you will hear that's not all they do - they've got a big exhibition coming up in Norway's National Museum at the end of the year, and they do a bunch of industry mentorships working with the likes of The Row, Browns London and 1 Granary.
But really this interview with Ane is about, as she puts it, "fashion's cultural value" - fashion is technically in the realm of applied art, as opposed to the fine one. But whatever you want to call it, fashion as artistic expression has value beyond the commercial. Can you wear it on the bus? That depends on how daring you are. Ane probably would!
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Empathy, kindness, wellbeing, caring, sharing, repairing - not traditionally the first words that spring to mind when I say "FASHION!" But things are changing. Are we moving towards a new paradigm where who cares, wins? If we accept that the old ways (overproduction, exploitation, rampant shareholder capitalism, waste) don't serve us, why not redesign the whole thing along radical new lines? What might that look like?
If you're intro underground fabulousness pushing disruptive fashion forwards, you might have noticed that in Arnhem, the Netherlands, the State of Fashion Biennale 2024 happened over the summer. The theme was 'Ties that Bind', and it explored ideas around ‘dismantling tradition’, ‘political bodies’ and ‘the fabric of shelter’.
This Episode was recorded at the previous event in 2022- and saved up because some of these stories are in Clare’s latest book Wear Next.
Says Clare: “Come back in time with us to that glorious summer. These conversations explore timeless themes. If anything, what we discuss feels even more relevant today. Also, if you've been feeling a bit blah about conventional fashion weeks and events, this should shake you up. It proves that not everything has to be about business and brands!”
With the central theme Ways of Caring, the 2022 State of Fashion Biennale set out to discover ways to make the fashion industry more sustainable and caring. Participants were chosen from an open call, and over five weeks, more than 70 designers, artists and makers from all over the world, and the public bubbled with ideas on how to repair “the broken relationship between the production of fashion and the wearer”.
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Complete this sentence: The future of fashion will be…
Welcome to Series 10 of Wardrobe Crisis! We're kicking off with a conversation about the future of fashion, recorded live earlier this year when Wear Next came out in the UK.
Clare is in conversation Tamara Cincik, Professor of Fashion & Sustainability at Bath Spa University, at the first ever event of the UK's new National Centre for Sustainable Fashion, which is based there. A robust discussion beginning with regenerative fashion, and swooping energetically through slowing down fast fashion and what’s the point of fashion week to fibre sovereignty, the creative wellbeing economy, fashion burnout and mental health. We also talk about representation and inclusion, and ask: who gets to make the policy decisions that shape fashion's future?
P.S. Intrigued by Clare’s reference to the State of Fashion Biennale in Arnhem? Tune in next week for more.
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What does it take to make it as an independent, small, local ethical business in a global world that favours big brands? How can we work together to ensure that our local businesses and creatives are literally sustainable - in that they thrive and stick around, and continue to give us the awesomeness that, at times, we maybe take for granted?
It's not just fashion this applies to, but all the beautiful, unique, heartfelt local businesses that make our neighbourhoods sing - the cafes and family-owned restaurants, the fruiters, newsagents, hairdressers and book stores. Don't forget the circular services (like the one we featured last week - Clare's local cobbler, Roger Shoe Repairs).
In the interview hot seat are Rowena and Angela Foong - two of the three sisters behind an ethically-driven, family fashion business called High Tea With Mrs Woo, based in Newcastle, Australia - which just so happens to be the world's biggest coal port BTW (listen out for a super interesting discussion on how being amongst all that fosters a special kind of community action around building alternatives).
Mrs Woo (for short) is a studio of many things - natural fibre fabrics, unique designs, and the craft of pattern-making and sewing in house, but also mending workshops, community activations and collaborations with innovative textile upcyclers. As they say, you need to wear many hats to make it these days, but that's also part of the joy. Not that it's easy. In this frank interview the sisters' share their challenges and strategies - which include "co-retailing" - fun! Practical! To all those struggling with crazy rents, listen up.
This episode is a love letter to all the small sustainable businesses out there.
We appreciate you!
But it's also a provocation to customers: if you value this stuff, you need to support it - otherwise one day you might turn around and find it gone.
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Forget brands for a minute, the real circular fashion economy is the repair shop on your high street…
Do you have a fab local cobbler or clothing alterations service? This episode is a reminder to thank them for being here and fixing our stuff.
They are cornerstones of the circular fashion economy, and not some distant future dream - they’re already here, and in many cases have been for decades. Honing skills that simply can’t be learned overnight. They’re the best! Here’s to them! Keep giving them your business, and make sure you tell them you appreciate them. Everyone loves to be appreciated.
My local cobbler, Roger of the (locally) famed Roger Shoe Repairs is gold. And this classic Roger conversation is a treat. That’s all. Enjoy!
Clare x
P.S. Here are the links to the crowdfunder for my documentary, Urban Forest.
Your support is much appreciated.
https://www.pozible.com/project/urban-forest-a-documentary
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Bobby Kolade is the designer behind Ugandan fashion label Buzigahill - which puts the politics of upcycling and waste colonialism at its core with the brilliant, provocative concept: Return to Sender.
Buzigahill's collections are made from items of secondhand clothing donated in the global north, and increasingly being dumped on the global south in unsustainable numbers. Why “return to sender”? Because much of Buzigahill’s clientele is in Europe and North America.
Like Kantamanto in Accra, Ghana; Owino Market in Kampala receives huge numbers of bales of second-hand clothing every week, from countries in Europe, from the US and Canada. As a result, in 2023 second-hand accounted for 80% of all domestic clothing sales in Uganda.
But how much is too much? Who is monitoring for quality and consistency? Are we right to keep talking about "donations" in the context of this undeniably big business? As Bobby says, it's not charity - it's a trade, and too often an unequal one with many impacts on local economies as well as the environment when it becomes textile waste. So surely it's good, right, when a receiving country finally says: "No more! We don't want your cast-offs." Or is it? As usual, there’s no simple answer...
This enthralling conversation was recorded before Uganda’s government announced a ban on second-hand clothing towards the end of last year. A situation that continues to evolve.
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Thank you!
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What do your clothes say about you? Dear listener, I bet you've thought about this before. Fashion is a language in itself. But, what about the language we use to describe - and by extension to include, or to exclude - the people who wear it? Or don't get to wear it? The people we're marketing it to, or employing.
Fashion communication isn't just about the clothes. It's about how we talk to each other.
Meet Lou Croff Blake, a Berlin-based non-binary fashion practitioner, scholar, artist and community organiser. Their work merges queer theory with community-building, advocating for intersectional equity and amplifying the visibility of marginalised genders. Which sounds like a of words! Because it is. Carefully considered words chosen to challenge the dominant narrative.
Open to learn? Join us on a deep dive on DIEB - diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging - as we consider the existential question: do we really want to build a more ethical fashion industry? If so, doesn't that have to be one where everyone can feel a true sense of belonging?
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
Tell us what you think!
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Can fashion lift its inclusivity game? When 28-year-old British model Junior Bishop - who just so happens to be a wheelchair user - spoke at the Houses of Parliament recently, she called on the fashion industry to do more to tackle its disability access issues. Levelling the playing field is integral to the wellbeing economy - what’s the point of only some of us get to have our wellbeing considered?
“When looking at fashion and media today,” said Junior, diversity and representation are gradually improving. That’s important. “We hope to simply see people who look like us - our ‘imperfections’, our ‘flaws’, the little things that make us who we are.” Also, purely from the economic rationale, how do brands expect to sell to people who don’t see themselves in campaigns?
As Junior acknowledged: “The excitement of being able to see someone who is a wheelchair user, a cane user despite their age, has a limb difference, has Down syndrome, has albinism, the list goes on… Having those with disabilities or their family members tearfully say ‘I didn’t know people like us could do that kind of thing’; that is why this movement needs to continue to grow." Representation is an important first step, but we can’t stop there.
This inspiring conversation, packed with practical advice and emotional intelligence, comes with a call to action: want to do better on this stuff? Ask disabled people what they need!
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
Tell us what you think!
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Rich, white and privileged - the creative arts sector has a class problem. Particularly in class-obsessed Britain, where middle-class people are twice as likely to work in creative jobs than their working class contemporaries. According to the Evening Standard, "the worlds of TV, film, music and the arts are dominated by straight, able-bodied white men living in London, despite them only accounting for 3.5% of the [UK] population."
Not that this is purely a UK problem. In New York, 85% of artists represented by commercial galleries are white. In Australia, where one in four of us were born overseas, culturally and linguistically diverse creatives are still barely represented in fashion at all. And consider the global luxury brands, with their spate of recent cookie-cutter creative director hires - can anyone actually tell the difference between these men from their photos alone?
But, "What about the new editor at Vogue?" I hear you say. Too often, the celebrated hire is still the only Black or brown person in the room.
I bet you can think of a thousand places where career progress is affected by your postcode, where you went to school and what your parents did. And lurking behind all that: race, gender, sexuality, difference, not to mention how much cash you've got...
It's time for a power shift!
Meet Rahemur Rahman, a British-Bengali artist, educator and designer who is determined to change the system, not simply tinker round the edges of representation. He made it, despite the odds. Raised in working class Tower Hamlets, he studied fashion at Central Saint MartinsHe studied fashion at Central Saint Martins, where he now teaches. Designs from his debut London Fashion Week collection menswear collection were acquired by the V&A Museum. Now, he's the director of training and development at Bari, a new incubator supporting South Asian creatives in East London as part of the British Bangladeshi Fashion Council.
This is a lively conversation about what it takes to, practically, turn things around - not just talk about it. Hint: no true diversity and inclusion without addressing the class barrier!
We're also talking the creative innovation meets heritage craft, social impact fashion, holidays with friends, and the joy of working on what matters.
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
Tell us what you think!
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We all know clothes have meaning, beyond just looking nice. We’ve often talked on this podcast about the importance of how they are made. This week, we’re considering how fashion’s meaning stretches beyond supply chains and our wardrobes, to shape our culture and the way we see ourselves collectively. How does fashion see itself when it comes to race and privilege? How about the male gaze?
Clare sits down with Caryn Franklin, journalist, style icon, fashion citizen (not consumer, please!), one-time presenter of The Clothes Show and all-time national treasure. These days her work centres on education and activism - she’s a visiting professor of diverse selfhood at Kingston School of Art, in London, and gained her MSc in applied psychology specialising in selfhood, objectification, inclusivity and gender bias.
Partly, this interview is a personal one about a life in clothes but it’s also a provocation: How can we use fashion as a vehicle for positive self-esteem, rather than allowing it to make too many of us feel small, too much of the time?
All up, rollocking good chat with Caryn Franklin, MBE. Enjoy!
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
Tell us what you think!
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How much is enough? How can creatives incorporate the idea of sufficiency in their output? If you make physical objects, what does it really mean to be sustainable in your practice? And, how can you, as my guest this week, Richard Malone, puts it, "do your own thing and stick to it" in the context of fashion's relentless push for newness?
Also, where does class and privilege play into all this? Does Fashion with a capital ‘F’ actually want to be more inclusive and welcoming? Or is all the talk of breaking down the barriers just lipservice? The fact is: many of the people who “make it” in fashion have an had a head start. You only have to look at the current obsession with Gen Z nepo babies. Let's not pretend the playing field is level.
Richard Malone is queer London-based, Irish fashion designer, artist and maker, whose work challenges subtly a system that's built on unfair advantages. A thought-provoking conversation about everything from colonisation and the loss of Irish craft traditions, to what fashion shows are really for!
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
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Why does fashion have such a problem in accepting all bodies they way they are, and recognising the beauty in different shapes and sizes? I know, I know, we’ve heard it all before, yet depressingly little changes.
Our guest this week has had enough! Self-described as “that body morphing b*tch”, Michaela Starck is a super-talented London-based Aussie creative director/designer/dreamboat who’s beautiful work includes her own glorious self, as well as Paris-worthy, bow-bedecked frillies.
A frank convo on fat-shaming, where the body positivity movement fails, and the magical powers of backing your own vision. Even when people in your life keep telling you you’ll never make it? Especially then! Take that, naysayers!
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
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If you’re interested in natural dyes, or want to know more about hands-on textile techniques, this episode is a joy. It's also a great one if you are into ideas around seasonality and connection to Nature. Aren't we all?!
Continuing our Pacific theme (don’t miss last week’s Episode with Fiji Fashion Week’s Ellen Whippy-Knight) these two stories are also from Fiji, but a long way from its capital Suva. They’re both about different aspects of Indigenous practices, and living in balance with the the land, the oceans, the skies and biodiversity.
First, meet Letila Mitchell, a renowned artist, designer and performer from Rotuma. Her work in the fashion space grew out of costume, & has developed into a practice that’s all about revitalising traditional Rotuman textile making, and re-finding cultural knowledge disrupted by colonisation.
Our second interview is with Noleen Billings, from Savusavu, on Fiji’s northern island of Vanua Levu. Noleen isn't famous or a fancy expert in anything other than common sense but her simple message is a powerful one: In the busy modern world, it’s easy to forget the Nature usually knows best. Indigenous wisdom is deeply connected with reading Nature’s signals, and we can all learn from that. There are universal lessons in here, as well as some thought-provoking questions. For example, what does it mean to be wise? Where does schooled knowledge, written down in books, fit in - and why do we have to so rigid about it? Knowledge that’s shared and passed down in different ways is just as important…
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
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When Anna Wintour was introduced to Ellen Whippy-Knight as the founder of Fiji Fashion Week, the Vogue editor-in-chief exclaimed, “Fiji has a fashion week?!” Sure does, Anna. It turned 16 last year, and is an established force in a small yet burgeoning Pacific fashion scene.
White sands and turquoise waters. Surf breaks. Rugby. Fiji is rightly famous for these things, it’s also an international garment-manufacturing country with an independent design community, mainly focused on the local market and the Fijian diaspora.
Now Ellen, a formidable fashion force in her own right, is determined to bring sustainability and technical design education into the picture...
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
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Addicted to thrifting? Wondering where all your money’s gone? Feeling the fashion clutter feels? If you answered “yes” to any of the above, it might be time for a fashion detox.
From Slow Fashion Season to ReMake’s 90-day No New Clothes challenge to the Rule of 5, more of us are looking for ways to circuit-break bad fashion habits. There’s a real movement going on with conscious fashionistas sharing what’s worked for them when it comes to slowing down, buying and wasting less.
Our first guest for 2024 is Jenna Flood, a slow fashion stylist who’s been sharing tips and tricks with her followers around what she calls her Wardrobe Freeze.
It all began for Jenna after she created a spreadsheet to track where her money was disappearing to. Turns out she was over-spending on ethical brands and treating second-hand like it was fast fashion – ultra high turnover. It didn’t help that she works in a consignment store surrounded by temptation…
What rules did she set for herself? How did she stick with them? And, was it worth it?
Jenna says completing her challenge has left her with a thrilling sense of freedom.
Now, you can’t buy that!
Check the shownotes for links & further reading.
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CONTENT WARNING. A note from Clare: "While in this Episode, we talk about creativity and hope, baking and Strictly Ballroom, and address a wide range of things from the politics of climate action to biodiversity, we also discuss the details of going on a hunger strike. Personally, I would say that bit is not suitable for children, although I suspect Gregory would disagree. I'd also like to let you know there's mention of eating disorders in this interview. It's a compelling listen - there's much to think about and learn from here, and I admire Gregory's stand and his ethics. But do exercise your own judgement with little or vulnerable/ anxious ears around.
Thank you,
Clare xxx"
How far would you go for climate action? Changing your lifestyle? Sounds doable (to an extent!). Divesting from businesses that support the fossil fuel industry, perhaps? Would you consider getting into politics? Or more controversial actions, like risking arrest at a banned street protest, or harbour blockade, for example? Our guest this week embarked on a much more unusual - and indeed dangerous - strategy to spur the government into stronger action on climate issues.
Gregory Andrews is a former diplomat, and was Australia’s first ever Threatened Species Commissioner. He worked as a public servant for more than 30 years, including for 15 years in the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Environment, Climate Change, and Indigenous Affairs. Today he's an adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Canberra's Institute for Applied Ecology.
In November 2023, in the run up to COP28, he stationed himself outside Australia's federal parliament, and staged a hunger strike for climate action. His demands included that the government stop permitting the logging of native forests, and end subsidies to fossil fuels companies. He lasted 16 days before ending up in hospital. This is his story.
Check the shownotesfor links & further reading.
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It's that time of year again, when world leaders (along with marketers from brands, oil and gas industry lobbyists, celebs on their private jets) head to the UN climate conference to discuss what to do about greenhouse gas pollution and our warming world. Extreme weather! Rising sea levels! Phasing out fossil fuels! Wait, actually, maybe tone that last one down because it's a bit hard, and our mates in the extractive energy industry aren't keen ... okay, how about: Phasing down fossil fuels? That sounds more reasonable...
Luckily there are also voices of reason at these events.
It's time we listened more to them.
As a group of Pacific Climate Activists head to COP28 in Dubai to tell the world what it's really like to live on the front line of climate change in a low-lying island nation when one-in-100 year cyclones hit back to back, Clare sits down with Ni-Vanuatu woman activist Flora Vano, to hear about her work empowering women in the climate movement. Turns out it's going pretty well.
Flora is fab, and her message is one of hope and inspiration as well as hard truths. You need to hear her beautiful words about her connection to the oceans and what we can learn from Mother Nature. Plus she's a fashion fan. We start this conversation with the power of visual communications - Flora loves bright colours and often arrives at events with a statement bloom tucked behind her ear. But don't let that fool you into thinking she's not a serious player. She's travelling to COP28 with the demands of Vanuatu's 9,000-strong Women I Tok Tok Tugeta (women talking together) network, demanding gender equality and climate justice. Flora has a clear message to governments and industry: she wants them to start looking seriously at the losses faced by Pacific Island communities, and others, as a result of climate change they did not cause.
Check the shownotes on wardrobecrisis.com for links on how you can help Flora and her fellow activists at COP28, and for more info.
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“When did we decide we couldn’t make stuff anymore?” asks this week’s guest, Meriel Chamberlin, the textile technologist behind Full Circle Fibres, an Australian startup producing “paddock to product” garments on-shore.
We know that the fashion industry’s climate impacts are significant, and that most of it comes down to the textile production stage. So how can we do things differently, close to home? Who needs to come together to make that happen, to share expertise, innovate, and also to fund it? How might fibre production tread more lightly on the land? Protect, or even enhance, biodiversity? These are some of the big questions driving the initiatives we’re talking about on this week’s show.
We've often covered the trouble with factories on this podcast; issues around garment worker injustice and unfair conditions. Very important stuff! But we hardly ever hear about the excellent factories. This is an Episode about the opportunities to make fashion more sustainable at the factory level, and the skills and capabilities that already exist. That might mean some re-shoring, but it’s also an encouragement to value what's already in our backyards.
Reports of the end of textile manufacturing in so-called consuming countries are exaggerated. We've still got it! Albeit on a smaller scale than when our parents were young. Wherever in the world you are listening, Meriel wants you to look around and recognise what you already have in terms of local skills, manufacturing & R&D capacity. Australia, for example, produces some of the world's best fibre, and there are still production facilities domestically for most stages of the supply chain. Find a gap? Might be worth working to close it.
Full Circle Fibres is a recipient of the Country Road Climate Fund. Discover here.
Check out the shownotes on wardrobecrisis.com
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Our guest for this Special Edition interview is JUNO GEMES, one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary photographers.
Born in Hungary, she moved to Australia as a child. In 1970, then a young artist, she spent six months living on Country with Aboriginal communities at Uluru. She went on to documents First Nations activism and the Civil Rights Movement in this country for five decades. Juno photographed many of the early protests and meetings led by Aboriginal activists in the ‘70s and ‘80s, forming lifelong friendships with key figures in the Movement. She photographed the Uluru Handback Ceremony in 1985; marches and activations around the Bicentennial in 1988, and she was one of ten photographers invited to document the National Apology in Canberra in 2008.
Wherever you are listening across the world, these stories are important to discover. It’s obviously not just Australia that grapples with a legacy of colonisation, and you care about sustainability, the questions linked to all this are fundamental ones: how do we want to live, in relation in one another? How can we heal and listen and unlearn to change systems that don’t work anymore?
Missed part 1? Do go back and listen. Or find it here. Can you help us share it?
These podcasts are in addition to our usual programming and form a 2-PART SPECIAL EDITION ON THE VOICE REFERENDUM IN AUSTRALIA.
They came about because Clare kept speaking to people who hadn’t yet read the ULURU STATEMENT FROM THE HEART.
We wanted to help with that, and to be active on behalf of our deeply felt support for the YES23 campaign in this referendum.
Part 1 is a mini pod on the Uluru Statement and the question of Indigenous recognition in the Australian constitution - it’s under 10 mins, ideal to share!
As Juno says at the end of this interview, whatever happens with the Aussie referendum on October 14th, this is part of a long fight for social justice that continues. And there’s hope! “Don’t argue with people who don’t see it yet, because they will eventually … We can see this groundswell of good will, of kindness of wanting to know, to learn, of opening up to each other.”
RESOURCES:
The Australian Fashion Council supports Yes - more here.
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In this mini pod, which is Part 1 of our Special Edition on the Voice, you will hear RACHEL PERKINS read you the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Rachel is an Australian filmmaker, a proud Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman and the co-chair of the YES23 campaign. She is also co-chair of Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, and is a signatory to the Statement from the Heart.
“As the largest consensus of First Nations peoples on a proposal for substantive recognition in Australian history, the road to the Uluru Statement from the Heart is a long one even without mentioning the decades of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activism that came before it.” Discover more here.
It forms the cornerstone the referendum that’s asking Australians to recognise Indigenous culture in this country’s constitution, and establish a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
“FOR THE PAST 250 YEARS, WE HAVEN’T PROPERLY LISTENED TO THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN HERE FOR 65,000. THIS IS OUR CHANCE TO FIX THAT.” Yes23
You will also hear from JUNO GEMES. One of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary photographers, she has been documenting the civil rights movement in Australia since the 1970s.
What next? For the full interview with Juno, listen to Part 2.
RESOURCES:
The Australian Fashion Council supports Yes - more here.
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It’s fashion month again and the big brands with the big budgets dominate our feeds. But amidst the commercial noise of the contemporary fashion circus, independent gems still exist. There are true artists who go their own way, and often set the future trend agenda (although they tend not to get the credit). Our guest this week is one of them. He’s been shaking up the London underground scene since the ‘90s. Meet Dr NOKI, the original upcycler. Just don’t call him that…
NOKI does fashion on his own terms, including the language he prefers to describe his work. He “custom-builds” his “mashups” and “landfill drops”. It’s a practice that owes at debt to dadaism, and made sense of his dyslexia when he was young. The story reaches to back into the ‘90s club scene, through the culture jamming of the No Logo years to end up at the cutting edge where art and fashion collide today.
Now, a new generation that’s interested in sustainability is discovering him for the first time. Last year, Hypebeast heralded NOKI as “a tried and true member of the sustainability movement — arguably being a founder of the word before it even really became a thing.”
But does he relate to that? How does he see his work? What inspired it all back in ‘90s London’s rave scene? And how does he see the future for fashion’s young waste warrior disruptors? Part fashion history lesson, part provocation to challenge our consumerist culture, this one’s an adventure - enjoy!
Check out the shownotes on wardrobecrisis.com
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Woolmark's new ambassador Taylor Zakhar Perez is a rising Hollywood star known for his leading man roles. You might recognise him from a certain rom com that we're not mentioning here (in respect of the actors' strike), or his role in a royal drama based on a cult book (again, not going there). Maybe you know his Paris fashion week looks - snaps of him emerging shirtless from his car outside the Prada’s menswear show went viral in June.
But whether you’re one of his 4.7 million Instagram followers, or discovering his work for the first time here, there's no denying Taylor's charm. He's smart, down-to-earth, generous with his time and endlessly curious, and we love that he was up for a conversation about how to use influence for good.
In this conversation, we discuss the risks and rewards of daring to talk about sustainability when you're known for something else, why more famous names don't get involved in climate activism or rewear their clothes, and how thisformer competitive swimmer became a supply chain nerd. For Taylor, if he’s going to work with a brand, he wants to see what goes on behind the scenes. More of that please!
Check out the shownotes on wardrobecrisis.com
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Series 9 has landed! Our first guest is Cyrill Gutsch, the fascinating founder of Parley for the Oceans.
With his partner Lea Stepken, this NY-based designer and branding expert started his global environmental organisation in 2012, after bumping into Pamela Anderson at an art fair. Pammy was wearing a Sea Shepherd T-shirt, and when Cyrill asked her why, she told him Sea Shepherd’s activist-in-chief Paul Watson was in trouble - he’d been arrested in Frankfurt on an international warrant. Cyrill, being German, thought he might be able to help, and went to visit Watson in his lawyer’s office. There, he learned that Watson’s strife was a drop in the proverbial compared with what's happening to the oceans. Plastic pollution! Climate change! Overfishing! Could creativity be the super power needed to turn it around?
The rest, as they say is history. Cyrill decided to ditch his regular clients, and donate his time to just one: OUR OCEANS. Specifically, “raising awareness for their beauty and fragility” and “collaborating on projects [to] end their destruction.”
Over the years, such projects have included: working with Adidas to phase out single-use plastics; partnering with big-name visual artists on everything from underwater sculptures to sustainable surfboards; funding research into new materials; and setting up programs in schools. On a practical level, Parley’s work is just as likely to play out as beach cleanups in the Maldives as it is to be a new Dior bag. It’s all in the mix, to beat what Cyrill calls “our addiction” to virgin plastic.
Next on his To-Do List? Just a total materials revolution. “We need to change the way we make stuff.”
Check out the shownotes on wardrobecrisis.com
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Danish designer Cecilie Bahnsen studied at RCA in London, and interned with John Galliano and Erdem before starting her own label in 2015. You’ve probably seen her voluminous dresses, or her recent sneaker collaboration with ASICs. Cecilie says she operates at the intersection of couture and ready-to-wear – it’s high craft, she creates her own textiles, and loves to use embroidery and smocking which lends her work a certain whimsey. But although expensive, it’s not untouchable, as you will hear. Cecilie wears hers’ on her bike! A very Danish approach.
We talk about the challenges of upcycling precious scraps which defy standardisation. The idea of timelessness in a novelty-obsessed world.
Building a creative business, and how Cecile approaches scale and growth. What it takes to make it - determination, for sure, but also a really clear sense of what you want, and how you treat others.
Ultimately, though, this Episode is about joy - the pleasure we can find in clothes, even down to the sound of fabric rustling. With all our worries about sustainability, we can easily forget why we came to fashion in the first place.
Thank you for listening to the show. This is the last Ep for Series 8. We'll be back in 4 weeks - Series 9 starts September 6!
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Meet Danish creative Henrik Vibskov - fashion designer, costume designer, curator, musician and professor. He shows at Copenhagen Fashion Week (which is coming around again next week) but also Paris, and he has a store in New York. A supremely conceptual designer – his last collection, Long Fingers To Ma Toes, was inspired by the tomato in weird and wonderful ways.
In this interview Henrik shares his experience of living up to CPHFW's recently introduced 18 Minimum Sustainability Standards. What did find de-motivating about trying to implement sustainability initiatives, and what kept him going? But also, how did he get here? Why the vegetable obsession? Would anyone come to a 3-hour fashion show? (Spoiler alert: they did!) What is fashion actually for in 2023? And what do the next generation of artistic designers need to make it? It's all up for discussion in this charismatic convo.
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ICYMI: fashion has a greenwashing problem. No wonder policy makers, consumer watchdogs and NGOs are taking an interest. According to the UN:“Misinformation and greenwashing are ubiquitous ... As sustainability has grown as a selling point, all manner of vague and inflated claims have appeared across advertising, marketing, media, packaging and beyond.”
Enter the UN's new Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook, an open-access guide that seeks to change that, while better aligning how the fashion industry talks with the climate goals of the Paris Agreement. This week, we're delighted to welcome the Playbook's lead author, Rachel Arthur, to the show to deep dive into its recommendations.
We're asking: What if marketers, PRs, fashion journalists and photographers used their creative powers to encourage us to live a 1.5 degree lifestyle, instead of endlessly update our consumer goods? (Curious about a “1.5 degree lifestyle”? Listen for the full explainer!) How could professional communicators use their talents to get behind a more sustainable future? Rachel calls them “architects of desire”, and says people who work in advertising, marketing and media play a vital role in persuading us what to want. Which comes with great responsibility…
Access the Playbook here for free.
Check out the shownotes for more links.
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Hang on, what's the question? Why is everyone talking about regenerative farming, for starters. For fibre as well as food. #regenag is fashion's new favourite hashtag. What if we put back more than we took out? Stopped drenching the land with toxic chemicals? Worked in harmony with Nature? Could we feed and clothe the world if we produced less, and differently? Would we starve? Would prices skyrocket? How did we get to this place, where no one - not the land, not biodiversity, not the nutritional content of food, and not the farmers who are on the front lines - wins?
Oh, and have you heard the one about there being just 60 cycles of soil left on Planet Earth? That's no joke. While this oft-quoted stat has been disputed, there's no denying that intensive, so called "conventional" farming practices are depleting soil health the world over.
During WWI, food shortages had us in a panic. No wonder, in the 1950s and '60s, we were obsessed with maximising yields. Through a combination of hectic new pesticides and herbicides, cheap synthetic fertilisers, and tearing out trees and hedgerows to make managing monocrops easier, farmers produced so much, there was plenty to spare - and waste.
But the bonanza couldn't last forever...
Today, they are experiencing a backlash. Once celebrated for filling our plates, farmers now find themselves vilified for destroying our environment. That many are the very same people who remember when everyone loved and respected them, and are only doing what governments and consumers said they wanted, is not often discussed. Can regenerative farming save them, and our soils?
Sarah Langford is the author of Rooted, How Regenerative Farming can Change the World. She’s also a farmer herself, although she didn’t start out that way. A must-listen Episode as a stand-alone, but for maximum inspo, listen back to the Eps on sustainable materials, animal cruelty, and leather supply chains when you're done!
Check out the shownotes for more links.
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There's much debate around the sustainability credentials of leather vs vegan alternatives (most of which are still PU - polyurethane). Is one natural and bio-degradable and the other simply plastic? Sorry, but it's not that simple, not least because today's global supply chains are so long and complex. Then there's all the toxic substances used in conventional tanning. And we haven't even talked about animal cruelty yet. But amidst the confusion, there are obviously better ways to do it than cutting down the Amazon to graze cattle, then drenching the hides in heavy metals.
Meet British accessories designer turned local leather supply chain builder, Alice Robinson. With her business partner Sarah Grady, Alice runs Grady & Robinson, a startup that’s trying to rebuild the local leather supply chain in the UK, in a totally traceable way, connecting regenerative farmers with processing and vegetable tanning in Britain.
Their goal is to offer a product that traceable to its farm source, made entirely in the UK, and biodegradable at end of life. That’s a big ask, because the industry has all but disappeared in Britain, so if you’re a emerging handbag designer – as Alice was when she was studying at the Royal College of Art a few years ago - and you want to buy single-origin leather locally, you pretty much can’t. This didn’t sit well with her, so as you will hear, Alice decided to do it herself - buying a sheep five miles away from her home in rural Shropshire, and documenting its entire journey from the field it lived in, through its slaughter, through to the tanning processes and accessories production.
If you're vegan and don't believe in using animal products, that works. But if you're still eating meat and wearing leather, you need to understand how it's made.
Today Grady & Robinson is working with Mulberry and the Institute for Creative Leather Technology at Northampton University, through the government supported R&D project, The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology to try to figure out a way to finish leather at a commercial scale in the UK, with ingredients that are known to be sustainable, natural and biodegradable.
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When it comes to the fabrics we make our clothes from, there’s much confusion. Many of us don’t have a clue what textiles we’re buying and wearing; we’re not really teaching it in schools and brands don’t tend to talk too much about it, not least because so many of the textiles they use are unsustainable synthetics.
But materials matter, and they are all around us. Getting back in touch with them can be really satisfying. And when it comes to creating a more sustainable fashion industry, their impact is enormous. What we choose, whether as designers or consumers, really makes a difference.
Amanda Johnston is an academic and former fashion designer who works on education projects for Sustainable Angle, which puts on the Future Fabrics Expos in London - the perfect person to take us through what’s happening in the world of sustainable textiles today.
Think of this as your Sustainable Textiles 101 go-to! We’re answering some of the popular questions we often get asked: How do you choose the most sustainable textiles? Why is the fashion industry still so dependent on polyester, and why is that a problem? What’s the story with MMCs (man-made cellulosics) and new gen feedstocks? Will biotech materials start to take over? And what do we think about the boom in vegan leather alternatives?
Check out the shownotes for more links.
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Why are animals so often left out of the conversation about sustainable and ethical fashion? We talk about people and planet, but less often about our fellow living creatures. This week's guest Emma Hakansson wants to change that. She challenges us to rethink the idea of animals as commodities - they are, she says, someone, not something.
Emma is the founder of Collective Fashion Justice, an organisation that puts animals as well as people and planet at the heart of an ethical fashion industry. A self-described “activist, passionate about anti-speciesism, autonomy and collective liberation,” Emma is also an author, her books include How Veganism Can Save Us (Survive the Modern World)and she was one of the producers of, and also appears in the documentary, Slay.
In this interview, we zero in on leather. “By the time it has been turned into a bag, a pair of shoes, a belt or a jacket, we tend to forget it, leather is skin,” says Emma. “Thanks to long supply chains, the power of the global leather industry and big luxury brands, plus the pretty language used to market fancy handbag materials, most of us never think about how leather is produced. As with supermarket meat and dairy products, we’ve totally disassociated from its origins." Emma believes cruelty should never be in style. She’d like us to check our morals, and ask ourselves how comfortable we really are treating animals as a commodity.
Whatever your view on that, the way that most leather is produced in such high volumes today is an environmental nightmare, she says, while its supply chains conceal as much social injustice as cut-and-sew does for the garment industry - it just gets less attention.
Check out the shownotes for more links.
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You might know her from the cover of Italian Vogue, campaigning against Victoria's Secret for its lack of diversity, or her role as ambassador for organic beauty brand INIKA, but what Robyn Lawley wants to talk about is spinach. In this candid interview, she tells her powerful personal story of overcoming some pretty scary health issues, and challenges us all to rethink our relationship with meat and dairy products.
We're used to talking about vegan diets as planet-friendly and cruelty-free, but could their anti-inflammatory properties also help people heal from auto-immune conditions? While the studies are scant, and the official line remains that: in general, autoimmune disorders cannot be cured - what you eat obviously plays a role in the body's complex responses.
When Robyn was diagnosed, while pregnant, with Lupus, her health outlook seemed bleak. Doing the rounds of hospitals and conventional doctors left her feeling frustrated and hopeless. But as a young mum with a thriving fashion career, she was determined to try everything before succumbing to the suggested chemo treatments. For Robyn, following a strict "hyper-nourishment protocol" (powered by green veg and flax seeds) had far-reaching effects. Today, her lupus is in remission, and she hopes to help others.
Going vegan, she says, was a win-win - it also allowed her to reduce her climate impacts and do something about the nagging guilt she felt the more she learned about animal cruelty in the factory farming system.
Check out the shownotes for more links.
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This week Clare sits down with legendary Aussie Greenie, Bob Brown to talk Tasmania’s old growth forests - where towering eucalypts that have been standing for centuries are threatened with the chainsaw, thanks to government short-sightedness and corporate greed. The good news? Grassroots action is rising, as the numbers of tree-appreciating citizens swell, helped by a glowing new documentary, The Giants, by Rachel Antony and Laurence Billiet.
The film's subjects are indeed giants - not just Bob, but the towering Eucalyptus Regnens, Huon Pine and Myrtle Beech trees of the Tarkine forest. As Bob said back in the 1980s when another pristine wilderness in his adopted state was under siege - destroying these natural wonders would be like scratching the face of the Mona Lisa. Don’t worry fashion fans, we do talk about clothes at the end - Bob has thoughts on strategic dressing for getting what you want, including at protests.
This interview is both essential and a thrill for anyone who cares about forests and life on this planet.
Check out the shownotes for the background on Bob and the Tarkine.
Discover the movie at www.thegiantsfilm.com
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Thank you for listening!
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Ten years ago, the devastating Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka proved just how deadly the business of making clothes could be for marginalised garment workers. In countries like Bangladesh where cheap clothing is produced at high volume, and wages are kept low, it’s these workers - mostly young women - who face the greatest exploitation and vulnerability.
As a result, a new consumer movement was born in the form of Fashion Revolution. New agreements, like what’s now known as the International Accord and Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry, were developed. Supply chain transparency became a buzz phrase. We’d entered a new era of scrutiny, spotlighting working conditions, poverty wages and brands that failed to do the right thing. So far so good, but today the power imbalances persist between brands and suppliers that result in unfair purchasing practices persist, the right to unionise is by no means universally upheld and almost no big brands pay a living wage.
Events commemorating the disaster’s anniversary went hard on the hashtag, #ranaplazaneveragain - but how much has really changed since 2013? Are factories everywhere safer? How about fairer? To what extent has fashion production really become more ethical?
You're going to hear from three people who spend their days advocating for a better deal for garment workers:
TAMAZER AMED is ActionAid Bangladesh’s lead for Women’s Rights & Gender Equity.
SARAH KNOP is Baptist World Aid Australia’s Advocacy Manager.
NAYEEM EMRAN is Oxfam Australia’s Economic Justice Strategic Lead.
Check the shownotes for links and further reading.
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Psst! Mushroom leather is not actually made from mushrooms – but it is fabulous! Much Like our guest this week. Merlin Sheldrake is the biologist and author of the extraordinary book, Entangled Life, How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures.
You might not give fungi much thought, but mycelium networks are working their wonders all around us. And we need them! Together with bacteria, fungi are responsible for breaking down organic matter and releasing carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus into the soil and atmosphere. Without fungi, nothing would decay. We partner up with fungi to make some of the foods and drinks we love the most (hello, bread and beer). And fungi is also causing quite the buzz in fashion, thanks to the invention of new leather-like materials and plastic alternatives derived from mycelium. Forward-thinking designers from Iris Van Herpen to Stella McCartney have been inspired by fungi’s wonderful properties and intriguing life.
Prepare to be wowed by this enlightening conversation that might just change the way you think about everything around you.
Essential listening this Earth Day! Value the show? Please help us spread the word by sharing it with a friend, and following, rating and reviewing in your fave podcast app. Got feedback? Tell us what you think! Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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Whether it’s the joy of dyeing cloth with pomegranates, the age-old practicality of turning sheep wool into felts and knits, or the rich legacy of complex embroideries and silk Ikat weaving, Central Asian textile traditions are bonded by cultural meaning and a respect for the natural world. And resources: nothing gets thrown away, as this week’s guest Aigerim Akenova explains through her love for patchwork - her nomadic ancestors' answer to upcycling.
Aigerim is the country co-ordinator of Fashion Revolution Kazakhstan. With a global outlook (studied in Milan, lives in California), she's also a contemporary Kazakh designer determined to centre sustainability in the national fashion conversation, as the country she was born and raised in scales up its design and creative industries. Still, the big money in this former Soviet territory of 19 million people, is still in mining. The economy is based on oil, coal, gas, but also things like copper, aluminium, zinc, bauxite and gold. As Aigerim puts it: "We've got the whole periodic table." And Kazakhstan is the world's largest uranium producer.
What role could sustainable fashion play in growing newer, lower carbon industries here in line with SDGs? What do young urban Kazakhs and Central Asians in neighbouring countries want from the fashion today? As well as its craft heritage, Kazakhstan also has a vibrant modern fashion scene, its own fashion week, and (doesn’t everywhere?) fast fashion - so how can these two sides find balance in future? Aigerim says we have much to learn from nomadic traditions of sustainable clothing systems.
THIS IS OUR ANNUAL FASHION REVOLUTION SPECIAL BE CURIOUS, FIND OUT, DO SOMETHING. This year's theme is Manifesto for a Fashion Revolution - check it out here.
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How much do you know about the chemicals you're exposed to through every-day things like cosmetics and skincare, clothing or even food packaging, and food itself? How about what chemicals might be contaminating air, soil and water from industrial processes? Do you ever even think about it? We often presume governments and companies will protect from harmful substances, but history is full of examples where the advice over what's safe and what's not changes over time (from asbestos to cigarettes to talc) - the science moves on, new studies are published and one day something everyone presumed was just fine turns out to have grim consequences. Can anyone really say what levels of chemicals with potentially harmful healthy effects are definitively safe for people, animals and the environment, given the variables involved?
Andrea Rudolph is a sustainability pioneer, and a much-loved Danish cultural force. A former TV and radio presenter, she started her organic skincare company Rudolph Care back in 2009, after taking part in a Greenpeace activation that tested the blood of eight Danish volunteers for chemicals present. What Andrea discovered rocked her world, and changed the path of her career.
Now she’s on a mission to raise awareness about toxic PFAS. Andrea wants to see “forever chemicals” banned from consumer products, and to stop any more of them from building up in our environment. This is also the story of one woman’s battle with breast cancer, the power of Nature and how life gets even more precious when you fear losing it. A heart-felt and ultimately hopeful interview, about activism, vulnerability and what really matters. Andrea's message to the consumers: We can change things - but first we have to know what we're dealing with.
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A year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, over 8 million Ukrainian refugees have been registered across Europe. According to UNHCR, the vast majority of civilians who have fled the war are women over 35 with one or more children. Men aged between 18-60 are not permitted to leave (except under special circumstances).
This week, instead of the regular fashion angles, I’m bringing you this very personal conversation with Olena Braichenko, a Ukrainian refugee who, with her six-year-old daughter, is currently staying with my best friends in London. When I go to visit them, they joke that I never want to leave. How must it feel when you can’t?
Finding refuge in a new country is obviously a wonderful thing - and we acknowledge the many millions who aren’t so lucky - but what’s it like to try to make your way somewhere far from home, with strangers? To have to learn a new language? When your husband, parents and many of your friends are back home, and you’re watching the war on the news? When your life, as Olena puts it, feels “on pause”?
This is also a story about sustainability and food culture, Ukraine’s famous černozëm black soil, long traditions of foraging, pickling, small family farms and growing your own veggies. It's a story about home, what we love, and how we live.
Olena is a food writer, publisher and academic, who with her husband, Artem, founded Yizhakultura – a project dedicated to Ukrainian cuisine, where scholars, chefs, food critics, and food anthropologists discuss its history, culture and heritage. She believes in the power of culinary diplomacy, to help get beyond the single story. War is devastating, but people, she reminds us, are more than their experiences of displacement. “I am firmly convinced that everyone who has survived occupation needs to be seen not as a victim, but first and foremost as a person.”
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Fashion doesn’t exist in a vacuum. As Coco Chanel once said, it’s “in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what’s happening.” So how, as a designer, you do respond to what’s going on in the world when that's a tragedy close to home or heart?
On February 6, 2023 a magnitude 7.8 earth quake hit south-eastern Türkiye, and northern Syria. It was catastrophic - causing unfathomable damage and loss of life. Official figures put the death toll beyond 50,000 people. And to make matters worse, it was bitterly cold winter. Against such a backdrop, fashion’s concerns may seem trifling, but the region is a textiles centre, while and the many garment factories on the other side of Turkey will also feel the effects, with huge numbers of people displaced and vulnerable. Plus through all this, fashion month went on.
What do you do as a creative from an affected country, when you’re reeling from this but not there on the ground? Or not physically impacted? How do you just carry on as normal? Should you even try? If not, then what? On a practical level, do you cancel your fashion show? Realistically, what good would that do?
Do you try to compartmentalise, or block it out, or use your platform to speak out and raise money? Probably all of the above, at the same time! There’s obviously no correct answer, but these are the questions. And also, the context for this week’s interview with London-based Turkish designer Bora Aksu, who shares candidly about what it means to be a creative trying to navigate all this.
But while this is how the conversation begins - it's not how it ends. At it's heart, this is a warm, hopeful and inspiring interview about fashion, family, craft, heritage, upcycling and the practical work of trying to choose the most sustainable textiles as a fashion designer – Bora has been has doing it for years, long before sustainability became the next big thing.
If you’d like to make a donation to the ongoing relief and humanitarian work in Türkiye and Syria, please see the shownotes at www.thewardrobecrisis.com
Value the show? Please help us spread the word by sharing it with a friend, and following, rating and reviewing in your fave podcast app. Got feedback? Tell us what you think! Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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How do you feel about trends? In sustainable fashion circles, that word can have negative connotations. After all, it's the sped-up trend cycle delivers us fast fashion. Flipping between different, and often conflicting, fashion trends, it's easy to lose control, buy and waste too much. But there's more to trend forecasting than predicting that next week you'll be wearing blue. Or Barbiecore. Or whatever momentary madness TikTok is serving.
Mapping cultural, lifestyle, economic and societal trends helps us form a picture of where we are headed and shape our strategies for everything from new business models to reaching our chosen audiences.
Want to know how the metaverse will impact retail? Or if consumers are really likely to spend more on sustainable solutions going forward? Keen to figure out how Gen Z thinks, or if that's even a thing? Some predict generational terms will soon be a thing of the past...
This week, Clare sits down with Christopher Sanderson, co-founder of London-based trend-forecasters, The Future Laboratory, to ask, what's around the fashion corner - and how they heck do they figure that out anyway? What's the role of intuition, and how can you hone yours? A must-listen for anyone in business who doesn't want to fly blind.
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P.S. In Australia & want to book a presentation for your company? Here's the link to Chris's March 23 speaking tour.
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No doubt you’ve heard the buzz about regenerative agriculture. But who’s actually putting it into practice for the textile sector? At the soil level? Brands can say they want it, regulators can try to incentivise it, chemical companies might resist it, but at the end of the day, it’s the grower who has to actually do it.
What’s it really like for a small-scale Indian cotton farmer trying to make a living? What challenges do they face? And what’s in it for them if they do decide to transition their fields and methods back to the old ways? Yes, the old ways... because, guess what - regenerative agriculture is not at new idea!
This week, Clare meets Nishanth Chopra, founder of Oshadi, a "seed to sew" fashion supply chain, contemporary womenswear brand, artisanal textile company and regenerative cotton farm in India.
This is a story about how the future of textiles and modern artisanship relies on learning lessons from the past. It’s also about one extraordinary young man’s drive to make a difference, and his galvanising tactics - let’s just say, he’s not someone willing to take no for an answer. Nishanth is proving that it can be done.
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As New York Fashion Week rolls around again, it’s the perfect time to listen to this interview with Hillary Taymour, founder of the much-talked-about NYC label Collina Strada.
Collina Strada is produced locally in small runs, using mostly deadstock. They’ve been working with the Real Real to upcycle unsold items, and with Liz Ricketts at the Or Foundation to upcycle and divert T-shirt waste in America before it heads offshore, and ends up in places like Kantamanto Market in Ghana.
Known for shaking up the sustainability conversation stateside, this CFDA/ Vogue Fashion Fund finalist is also often heralded for its work around diversity and inclusion, and championing representation in their shows, but Hillary has no time for that. She says, they simply cast their community; their friends and artists they admire. Whether that’s the label’s co-designer Charlie’s septuagenarian mum; the model Aaron Philip (self- described “a black woman in a wheel chair who happens to be trans”); or a musician like Dorian Electra - it's not that Collina is doing something radical. Rather, that the conventional fashion system is super out of touch.
This is a candid conversation about going your own way, finding joy on creativity, and the frustrations of trying to be a sustainable fashion designer inside an unsustainable system.
*Note: We've been saving this one up - this conversation one was recorded before the break after Series 7.Also before Alessandro Michele’s departure from Gucci was announced.
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On the surface, this is the story of Samorn Sanixay’s epic adventure to map Australia through a colour study of its natural eucalyptus dyes. Last year, she set out to do just that, spending a year travelling around the country collecting leaves from these wonderfully diverse trees wherever she went.
But that's just the starting point of this feel-good interview with the natural dyes expert and co-founder of artisanal weaving studio Eastern Weft in Vientiane.
Ultimately, this is a conversation about belonging, forming friendships and connections to country, and the idea that we have more in common than we think.
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Forget Vogue. Sourcing Journal should be required reading of you really want to know how the business of fashion works. Clare’s guest this week Edward Hertzman founded this trade journal (now part of FairChild, which owns WWD) out of frustration that no one in media was telling the full story about how supply chains operate. A former apparel sourcing agent himself, with a degree in economics, the tough-talking New Yorker tells it like it is.
In the garment game, suppliers and manufactures take most of the risks, while brands wield most of the power. “It’s a very one-sided relationship,” he says. Add in unfair purchasing practices (which are way too common) and downward pressure on prices, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster - as we saw during the pandemic. And who do you think has to invest in all these new sustainability initiatives brands are talking up? Often, it’s the manufacturer. Remember what brands always say: “Well, of course we don’t own the factories or the mills …”
Can the industry change? Who's doing it right? What does a true partnership - as opposed to a purely transactional relationship - between brands and suppliers look like? And what should we expect to happen this year when the cost of living crunch meets the realities of overstocked warehouses? Because many brands, particularly in the US, says Edward, are sitting on giant piles of unsold stock ...
Required listening for anyone working in the fashion sector.
Don't forget to check the shownotes for all the links. Find Sourcing Journal here.
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In our first interview for 2023, we make the case for why Fashion’s New Year’s Resolution should be to slow the f*ck down...
What does it mean to thrive in your career? How do you define success? Is that the same way that society, or your industry, defines it? Chances are there’s a disconnect. Because capitalism has been telling us for so long that it’s all about the hustle and the speedy output, that's become the dominant narrative. It's time you set your own pace. Fashion has a pretty terrible record on this, says Georgina Johnson, but it doesn't have to be this way. This inviting interview with the author of The Slow Grind is full of wise insights and practical inspiration.
Don't forget to check the shownotes for all the links. Find Georgina on Instagram here, and at www.theslowgrind.world
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Turn it up for the holidays! As he publishes his latest book, Reflections, Clare sits down with the colourful genius behind Alternative Miss World, who believes life is too short for muted tones...
Andrew Logan is an artist, sculptor, jewellery-maker, yoga devotee and one of legendary English counter-culture fashion eccentrics. He's also the founder of the Alternative Miss World event, which turned 50 in 2022. Billed as "a celebration creativity and beauty that goes beyond gender, age, race and sexuality", David Hockney was a judge at the first one in 1972, and over the years notable judges, co-hosts and contestants have included: Biba founder Baraba Hulaniki, Leigh Bowery, Divine, Jarvis Cocker, Derek Jarman, Grayson Perry, Brian Eno and the stars of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
This interview's got it all - from painting elephants for the Pirelli calendar in India with Zandra Rhodes, and going to Ozzie Clark’s fashion shows in the ‘70s, to developing a spiritual practice, communing with the trees ("They don't say much!") and absent friends.
A high jinx conversation about finding and following your creative calling, fashioning the self with joy in your heart, and bringing the fun back to dressing up.
Don't forget to check the shownotes for all the links.
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Ever worry that sustainability talk is so much hot air? Us too. So this week, we're focusing on... BURPS AND FARTS!
Now that we've got your attention, this is serious topic. According to UNEP, methane has accounted for roughly 30% of global warming since pre-industrial times and is proliferating faster than at any other time since record keeping began in the 1980s. While it hangs around in the atmosphere for less time than carbon does, while it is here, it's more potent. Where does it come from? Livestock emissions account for about a third of human-caused methane emissions. And yes, there's a fashion connection thanks to leather and wool. What if feeding livestock a certain type of seaweed could help? It can!
Meet Sam Elsom, the Aussie behind Seaforest - an environmental tech company set up to tackle climate change by the power of seaweed.
Don't forget to check the shownotes for all the links.
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We hear so much about product in fashion; about the clothes, and the brands. Thankfully, we’re now starting to hear more about the makers, garment workers and skilled artisans behind the manufacturing scenes. But we still hear very little from the people and processes behind the raw materials.
This week, we’re looking at wool, with a lovely interview with Tasmanian woolgrower Simon Cameron, who Clare met seven years ago while writing Wardrobe Crisis. Simon manages Kingston in the northern Midlands of Tasmania, near(ish) to Launceston. His father farmed it before him. In fact, the property has been it in the family for four generations. Now, as then, Simon shares the joint with wombats, wallabies, bettongs even Tassie devils, and mob of superfine Merino sheep. But the little things are just as important - the native grasses and wild flowers, which, here, are largely intact in some of the state’s last remaining pristine grasslands as they were pre-colonial invasion.
What are the challenges of managing the land in this way? What’s life really like on the land? How is Kingston’s clip produced and what makes it so special? And what’s the story behind MJ Bale’s quest to make carbon neutral wool with Kingston as a partner?
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The race offshore hollowed out the fashion and textile industries in much of Europe, the US and Australia. But if you happen to live there, chances are you've got amazing fashion skills on your doorstep but you just don't realise. While much of the infrastructure has disappeared, the talent is still there. And still coming through.
When Yoox-Net-A-Porter execs visited Dumfries House, Scotland to see how The Prince’s Foundation is working to inspire and upskill young people in the textiles area, they saw an opportunity: to support fashion graduates in luxury, small-batch production and produce a very special collection in the process. They called it the Modern Artisan project.
This week, Clare sits down with Jacqueline Farrell, education director at DumfriesHouse, and three of the eight participants in this year's Modern Artisan programme - emerging designers Isabelle Pennignton-Edmead, Emma Atherton and Emily Dey.
Who doesn’t love a royal connection? So yes, The Crown, but this is really an Episode about process - how do the clothes we buy get made? What goes into it?
If you can sew, could you do it? This is a lovely listen if you are studying fashion or want to. Or if you’re teaching it. But everyone who sees designer gear only once it reaches the stores, should find this insightful.
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Welcome back! Series 8 is here ... finally! We're kicking off with a fascinating conversation about greed, excess, imagination, innovation, education and redefining sustainability for fashion. Phew.
More exclusive than Chanel - because they barely produce anything you can buy? An anti-establishment fashion duo that works with royalty? Why not? Vin + Omi rewrite all the rules.
They call themselves ideologists. They're also fabric inventors, creative thinkers and system-challengers. Now also feature film-makers. Hear about their manifesto, and why it includes this: “We believe it is not enough to produce a new textile or product, artwork or designs; we can do more by thinking about the origins and surroundings of each project. In our fashion work, we have no interest in following the planet damaging ways most current fashion business models are run.” Be inspired! Be outraged! Tell us your feedback, we can't wait to hear from you.
Thank you for listening. Can you help us spread the word? Find Clare on Instagram & Twitter. More on www.thewardrobecrisis.com
Follow the brilliant Vin + Omi here and here.
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Fancy wearing a dress coloured sunny yellow by daffodils or a shirt dyed blue with woad? This week we're talking natural dyes and the magic of textiles derived from plants for a special episode produced with Fashion Revolution and guest-hosted by Carry Somers.
Carry's talking with garden designer Lottie Delamain and natural dyes expert Kate Turnbull. Together, they've created a garden for Chelsea Flower Show "to inspire visitors to re-imagine the link between what we can grow and what we wear, showcasing creative possibilities and innovative thinking around how we can use our resources to create more sustainable solutions."
They say: "Throughout history plants have played a fundamental role in fashion – as dye, as fibre and floral motifs, connecting us to a place or culture. In our global world this connection has been lost. Today our clothing is likely to be created using fossil fuels and toxic chemicals, damaging human health and nature’s ecosystems."
We say: we love the power of plants!
Find out more about the garden here.
Follow Carry on Instagram here, Lottie here, and Kate here.
Don't forget to let us know what you think! As usual, further links are on www.thewardrobecrisis.com
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What comes to mind when you hear the phase: power dressing? In the 1980s, it was big news in the corporate world - with woman in big-shouldered designer suits, showing the men who was boss. But using clothes to communicate your status goes back as far as fashion does. In Ancient Rome, it meant the right to wear purple. If you were a courtier at Versailles, it meant the finest brocades.
Today, you might think that if you can afford it, you can have it, but as Kim Kardashian proved at the Met Gala last week - it’s still complicated. There remain many circumstances when other people try to tell us what we can and can’t wear, and what is appropriate.
“There’s always been a way of using clothes as a powerful tool,” says this week’s guest, British costume designer Jessica Worrall. In her work costuming theatre and film productions, she uses clothes to signify what characters stand for and how they fit in to the storyline. Her latest project uses digital collage art to mash up Old Masters with high fashion runway. Have the power dynamics of fashion today changed since Elizabeth I of England’s sumptuary laws dictated how who wore what? You decide.
Check out Jessica’s work here.
Tell Clare what you think here.
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Earth Day is not about buying eco-friendly stuff. This year, we challenge you to put your feet in the grass or the ocean, and your credit card away (unless you’re using it to donate to an environmental charity). Let’s make Earth Day about raising our voices for better government policies to protect biodiversity and act on the climate crisis. Let’s make it about communing with the birds, insects, animals and the trees.
Start here! Meet Dr Greg Moore - a botanist and 'plant mechanic' at the University of Melbourne with a specific interest in arboriculture. His passion for trees is centred around understanding how they operate and cope with their environments, and appreciating the benefits trees provide in urban spaces. In this Episode, Clare and Greg take a walk in the park to talk about the genius of trees. And you’re invited.
Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
Tell us what you think on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress
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Fashion Revolution Week 2022 begins April 18th. This year's theme is Money, Fashion, Power. Why? As Fash Rev's communications manager Ruth Macglip says in this Episode's intro: "The mainstream fashion industry is built on the exploitation of people and the planet, with wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few. Basically, it’s time to reimagine the values at the heart of the fashion system and scrutinise what it is we’re really paying for.”
You probably already know that the fashion industry has problems! Issues for garment workers range from low pay and unsafe working conditions through gender discrimination, bullying and intimidation, to a lack of social security or social safety nets when things go wrong. As they did - spectacularly - for so many during the pandemic.
What’s the answer? Improve transparency and uphold rights, pay a living wage and ensure workers have a seat at the table while all this is discussed. In this enlightening conversation, Clare and her guest Ineke Zeldunrust, Coordinator of Clean Clothes Campaign, unpack how this might happen - and why it must.
Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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What Can Fashion History Teach Us About Sustainability? Which fashion figures tower over the history books? Who’s fame stands the test of time, and who gets forgotten - and why? What can we learn from wartime rationing and the Make Do & Mend movement? How was life when home-sewing used to be the norm rather than exception? What new materials rocked the runways in the 1960s, and did disposable fashion originate with a faddish paper dress?
This week, we take a look at some of the sustainability angles and moral dilemmas from fashion history’s archives, with American fashion historian Rachel Elspeth Gross. It’s a conversation is full of intriguing stories from fashion’s past, that might help make sense of the present – or encourage us to look at it in new ways.
Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
Tell us what you think on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress
Find Rachel @rachel.elspeth.gross
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How one company is turning greenhouse gases into a plastic alternative that biodegrades.
As Scientific American points out, "carbon is the giver of life - your skin and hair, blood and bone, muscle and sinews all depend on carbon. Bark, leaf, root and flower; fruit and nut; pollen and nectar; bee and butterfly; Doberman and dinosaur—all incorporate essential carbon. Every cell in your body—indeed, every part of every cell—relies on a sturdy backbone of carbon." Carbon isn't a monster - although it's sometimes painted that way.
Carbon dioxide, however, is obviously causing us serious problems. We can't keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Reducing emissions and switching to renewables are the obvious first ports of call. But might we also be able to rethink unwanted greenhouse gases as a feedstock - something useful that we could turn into a product?
That's what this week's guest is proposing. Meet Mark Herrema, co-founder and CEO of Newlight Technologies, the company behind Air Carbon. He’s hoping this bio-based material will revolutionise the plastics industry. And Nike agrees...
Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
Tell us what you think on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress
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We love to talk about our 2030 goals, but climate change is not some future worry – it’s here today. It’s already bringing more frequent extreme weather events, as we’ve seen in Australia recently. In late February, early March, catastrophic floods hit northern NSW and southern Queensland, after intense rain fell over the eastern seaboard. Rivers burst their banks, sending houses, roads, farms, and public buildings underwater. People died. Communications were a struggle. It some cases, it took days for the emergency services to arrive, and people were left to fend for themselves, rescuing their neighbours in whatever floated, and organising their own-off road vehicles and even helicopters.
Three weeks later, it isn’t over for the thousands of affected. Beyond the mind-boggling extent of the clean-up lies a housing crisis. But this is not a gloomy interview. Our theme is radical hope. Meet Northern Rivers local Zoe Gameau, who shares how her local community, and women in particular, sprang into action to help and organise on the ground. And, yes, there’s a fashion angle – clothes take on a special meaning when you’ve lost everything.
Find links and more in the shownotes here.
Follow Wardrobe Crisis on Instagram. Clare is @mrspress
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Have you bought digital garments for your avatar yet? Would you like to? You need to listen to this!Moin Roberts-Islam is the Technology Development Manager at the Fashion Innovation Agency, at the London College of Fashion, and he’s here to answer all our questions.
In this riveting interview, you’re going to hear him explain pretty much every entry level thing you need to know about how digital fashion works, why it’s exploding, what brands are doing, how gaming is involved, who is buying digital garments and why, plus we discuss the Metaverse and NFTs, and how all this relates to sustainability.
Let us know what you think. Follow Clare on Instagram @mrspress @thewardrobecrisis
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On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine. The news headlines filled with terrifying stories of missile strikes on residential areas, hitting apartment buildings and killing civilians; of nuclear power plants being attacked and 1 million people fleeing country. What has fashion to do with all this?
The morning that Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war was also the first day of Milan Fashion Week. And as the violence continued, so too did the fashion shows, next in Paris. Fashion’s Instagram feeds were unsettling mix of commentary on Kim Kardashian’s outfits and blue-and-yellow street style looks inspired by the Ukrainian flag. Some brands used their platforms to take a stand for peace. But solidarity only goes so far.
How should fashion respond to war? What is our moral obligation? Saying you care about something is not the same as doing something about it, so beyond a social media post, how can an industry like fashion contribute meaningfully? Should brands the retailers impose their own sanctions on Russia and halt business there? What support do Ukrainian designers need? Is it okay not to speak out? And when does this become simply, as guest today puts it, common sense, or an expression of our common humanity.
In this week’s Episode, Clare sits down with Venya Brykalin, fashion director of Vogue Ukraine to ask these questions and more.
Want to help Ukraine? Please visit this website: https://how-to-help-ukraine-now.super.site/
Thank you for listening. As usual, find further links and details on the shownotes on thewardrobecrisis.com
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What does it mean to leave - voluntarily - your homeland, to make a new creative life in another country? How might the place you left behind and the new one you chose collide in your work? Thirty-five years after he left Koyoto and enrolled in East Sydney Technical College, with a big dream and small bag full of kimonos nicked off his mum, Akira Isogawa is an Australian national treasure. He's been the subject of major museum retrospectives, designed costumes for the ballet, and seen his work worn by supermodels, and championed by Vogue editors and influential buyers. But Akira is still as humble as they come.
Clare sits down with the iconic Japanese-Australian fashion designer to discuss home, roots and the future, and past, of fashion. It’s a delightful conversation touching on the artist's creative journey and his collaborators, his long fascination with Japanese textiles and his approach to sustainability - which considers minimalism, recycling, repurposing and mending.
Let us know what you think. Follow Clare on Instagram @mrspress @thewardrobecrisis
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Have you heard about New York’s proposed sustainable fashion law? It’s called the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act, and if it is passes those behind it say: this groundbreaking piece of legislation that will make New York the global leader in accountability for the $2.5 trillion fashion industry. Supporters include the likes of Stella McCartney and Jane Fonda.
So, why do we need it?
If New York were a country, it would rank as the world’s 10th largest economy, bigger than Canada, Russia and Korea. You already know that the global fashion industry has major climate impacts. It is responsible for around 4% of carbon emissions (some say 10%). Meanwhile, supply chains remain stubbornly opaque, garment and textile workers continue to get a raw deal and fashion waste is a major polluter. And New York, as an iconic commercial rag trade hub, has the potential to play a powerful role in transforming things.
This week, Clare sits down with Maxine Bedat, founder of New Standard Institute, one of the driving forces behind the Act. They discuss how it came about, what it hopes to achieve and whether it's likely to fly. Maxine is sustainable fashion pioneer, formerly one half of Zady and last year she published her first book - Unravelled, The Life & Death of Garment.
Let us know what you think. Follow Clare on Instagram @mrspress @thewardrobecrisis
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This week we sit down with New Yorker Mara Hoffman to find out how she turned her namesake brand into a sustainable fashion leader, what makes her tick - from astrology and to the inspirational beauty of Mother Earth, and being a mamma thinking about the next generation.
The MH brand does a bunch of cool stuff, like working with natural dyes and regenerative agriculture projects. There’s even a peer-to-peer preloved Mara Hoffman marketplace called Full Circle. They also work with a local social enterprise called Custom Collaborative that provides jobs and training for from low-income and immigrant communities.
In this warm discussion, Mara and Clare discuss why we still need physical stores and spaces to connect is in ways that aren’t quite the same online. The burden of physical stuff, the responsibility that comes being a designer today. And plants! And SATC legend Patricia Field. Enjoy! Mara is tops.
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Do we really believe that we can pursue infinite growth on a finite planet? Why would we even want to?
This week's guest is Tim Jackson, the ecological economist who wrote Post Growth, Life After Capitalism.
It's a very persuasive argument for a complete rethink of how we define success, and why we need a new type of economy, one that prioritises relationships and meaning, over profits and power. Tim sees this book as "both a manifesto for system change and an invitation to rekindle a deeper conversation about the nature of the human condition.” Sound good?
What that might look like practically? How could we get there? On this Episode, Tim and Clare discuss all this and more, from how advertising fuels overconsumption and why big companies are banking on green growth, to the future of work, what a single universal income could do for us, and even a bit of fashion – by way of an 18th century philosopher.
Head to our website for further reading and links.
We hope you enjoy this thought-provoking conversation! Please consider rating and reviewing in Apple podcasts, and sharing the show with your friends.
You can find us on Instagram here, and here, and Clare on Twitter, here.
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After two years of fashion weeks globally being more or less on pandemic pause, they're back.
Last week the Paris couture shows drew crowds in the French capital. As we publish, Scandinavia is in the spotlight with Copenhagen's event. The big four are going ahead this month, albeit with a few big names missing and some format changes. London's will be a gender neutral digital-physical event, showing "menswear, womenswear and gender neutral collections" - after London Fashion Week Men's was cancelled in January. New York is planning with physical shows, despite Tom Ford having to cancel due to Omicron disruptions. And while the schedules for Milan and Paris womenswear have yet to be published, they are expected to include some heavy hitters, including Gucci in Milan.
So, we ask – is this the start of everything going back to the way it used to be? Why shouldn’t it be? And what is the alternative? Do need fashion weeks at all? How can we reinvent them? What role could they play in sustainability?
This week's guest is Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week. Discover how she introduced pioneering new sustainability requirements as a condition of brands showing on the Danish runway, and what it takes to get the carbon footprint of an event like this down.
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And you thought Zara was fast fashion! Buckle up because new trends are landing daily if not hourly, as a new breed of online disruptor throws out thousands of styles a week to see what sticks. Brands like Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing and Fashion Nova are part of a new ultra-fast fashion era, but Shein is by far the biggest player.
Worth a reported $47 billion, the Chinese company is now the biggest selling fast fashion brand in the US. But how does it work? What's the secret to its giant reach? And just how many items does it drop in a week?
In our first episode for Series 7, host Clare Press sits down with the American journalists Meaghan Tobin and Louise Matsakis who, along with Beijing-based Wency Chen, spent six months looking into this, from every possible angle. From speaking to garment workers and interviewing shoppers to tracking down one young TikTok user who saw her vintage vest morph into thousands of copies, taking her personal photo along for the ride - without her permission.
Let us know what you think. Follow Clare on Instagram @mrspress @thewardrobecrisis
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You've probably heard about degrowth, which is: "a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being." (If this idea is new to you, have a listen to Episode 135 with economist Jason Hickel).
Question: is it time to apply such thinking more specifically to the fashion industry? What would that look like?
This week's podcast presents the ideas of a new fashion activist organisation called Fashion Act Now (FAN), born out of Extinction Rebellion. They are calling for "a radical defashion future" - their interpretation of: "the role fashion must play in degrowth. It is a transition to post-fashion clothing systems that are regenerative, local, fair, nurturing and sufficient for the needs of communities."
They argue that the current system - which they call Fashion with a capital 'F' - is not only environmentally unsustainable because it's addicted to overproduction, but, in its current form, morally bankrupt being built on oppression.
"Defashion may sound negative," says FAN co-founder and former fashion journalist Bel Jacobs, "but we think of it as a movement of joy, possibility, liberation. It does not mean the end of beautiful clothing."
On this podcast, you will hear from Jacobs, along with her fellow FAN co-founder, the activist Sara Arnold;Extinction Rebellion co-founder (a former fashion designer herself) Clare Farrell; anthropologist Sandra Niessen (who has researched the clothing and textile tradition of the Batak people of Sumatra, Indonesia, for almost 40 years); fashion museum curator and founder of Denier Shonagh Marshall; and New York-based stylist Samantha Weir.
To take the Fashion Act Now pledge, see here.
Follow them on Instagram here.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/12/6/ep-152-fashion-act-now-is-time-to-defashion to read yours and #bethechange
Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis.
Find the shownotes here.
This is the final Episode of Series 6. See you in January 2022 for Series 7!
Don't be a stranger - follow Clare on Instagram @mrspress @thewardrobecrisis
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More than half of all the textiles use today are polyester. You will definitely have poly in your wardrobe, even if you prefer natural fibres. Synthetics are lurking everywhere, whether as polyester, nylon, or blends mixed with cotton. Poly is cheap, ubiquitous and it's not going away any time soon. It's also made from fossil fuels, doesn't biodegrade and most of it ends up as waste.
Cyndi Rhoades believes recycled is the answer.
A UK-based, US-raised activist turned entrepreneur, she founded Worn Again Technologies (originally called Worn Again) in 2005 - determined to make a difference and create a business out of solving the challenge of textiles ending up in landfill or incineration.
Initially, she looked to upcycling. “It was really hard it make it work at scale, but also ultimately we weren’t solving the problem of textile waste," she says. "Once these second-life products were used, they would end up in landfill anyway. So we were only postponing textiles going to landfill. It made us realise that recycling at a molecular level was the solution.”
From her formative days in London's early 2000s sustainable fashion scene, to living on a barge off-the-grid today, Cyndi has a long view on how this space has evolved and what's coming next.
Ever wondered how virgin polyester is actually made? Did you know the recycled kind is almost always made from recycled plastic bottles, not textiles? How sustainable is it? How do we decide? It is greenwashing? Can we really make fashion circular? What would that look like? Why is it taking so damn long? This Episode is like a masterclass in material-to-material recycling.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/10/16/ep-151-whats-the-story-with-recycled-polyester-cyndi-rhoades-from-worn-again-explains-all to read yours and #bethechange
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Are you unwittingly contributing to waste colonialism via your wardrobe choices? What happens to our unwanted clothes when we donate them? Overproducing and underusing clothes has far-reaching consequences, as this week's guest Liz Ricketts of The Or Foundation explains.
Each week, around 15 million pieces of secondhand clothing arrive in the Kantamanto second-hand clothing market in Accra, Ghana - and 40% goes to waste.
This is the story of how your old shirt or dress or pants might end up clogging drains in Accra. Or form part of a heavy rope of textiles in the ocean, or lurking under the sand like some dystopian synthetic sea monster. Or smouldering on a waste mountain in an informal dump that’s been on fire months.
It doesn’t have to be this way - maybe your old clothes will get fixed up and sold on to live another life. It’s complicated, as are the solutions.
What do you think? Let us know! We're on Instagram @mrspress and @thewardrobecrisis, and on Twitter @mrspress
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/9/29/ep-150-liz-ricketts-waste-colonialism-dead-white-mans-clothes to read yours and #bethechange
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Are you a special person? How self-obsessed are we, as a society? How and why do we compare ourselves to others? What makes us group-ish? Violent? Or community minded? How about narcissistic? And is that getting worse?
This week's guest is the British author Will Storr, who's latest book is Status Game: on social position and how we use it.
After reading one of his previous books - Selfie, How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us - Clare persuaded him to come on Wardrobe Crisis and share his ideas and research about what lies beneath our social media culture, power games, virtue signalling and obsession with getting ahead.
Will is also the author of a book, TED talk and creative writing class called The Science of Storytelling.
In this lively discussion, Will and Clare talk about everything from Ancient Greece to TIME magazine covers; the origins of the self-esteem movement to Instagram; narcissism, perfectionism, mental health and the origins of western individualism.
What do you think? Let us know! We're on Instagram @mrspress and @thewardrobecrisis, and on Twitter @mrspress
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/9/7/ep-149-status-self-obsession-mental-health-amp-whats-really-controlling-how-we-act-will-storr to read yours and #bethechange
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Everyone's talking about climate action and social change - but Fashion is still carrying on like it's 1999. The velvet rope! Exclusivity! Snobbery and barriers to entry that lock many young designers with new ideas, out. Fashion weeks alone are massive carbon emitters, before we've even considered production. Pre-pandemic, the carbon footprint of all the media, buyers, models and designers going to the big four fashion weeks (NY, London, Milan & Paris) over a 12-month period, was enough to light up Times Square in New York for 58 years!
And you're no doubt familiar with fashion's unfairness, murky supply chains and lack of diversity.
Change is due.
But the industry seems determined to get back to business as usual. This week's guest, London-based Kenyan fashion designer Anyango Mpinga has other ideas. Digital presentations could change the game, she says. But that's just one piece of the puzzle. Fashion must find its heart again.
In this inspiring conversation, Anyango and host Clare Press talk purpose, service and giving back - and how, in Anyango's case, coming from a family of strong African women has shaped her. The designer shares her advice for independents trying to be as sustainable as possible, and the broader industry that needs to do better on diversity and inclusion. Big Fashion - take notes!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/8/16/ep-148-inspiring-fashion-anyango-mpinga to read yours and #bethechange
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Have you heard the one about throwing your clothes away being better for the planet than renting them?
In this Episode, we get the real story on the study out of Finland that spawned so many clickbait headlines, then ask a British retail legend about what's driving the fashion rental boom. We hear from a purpose-driven millennial founder about what her company is doing to ensure rental really is a greener fashion option than buying new clothes; and learn the secrets of eco-friendly dry cleaning (which... is actually wet - who knew?).
Featuring interviews with: Professor Jarkko Levänen of Lahti University of Technology; Jane Shepherdson, chair of My Wardrobe HQ; Victoria Prew, co-founder of HURR, and Dr Kyle Grant, founder of Oxwash.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/8/13/how-eco-friendly-is-fashion-rental-really to read yours and #bethechange
Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Don't forget to hit subscribe!
Find us at wwww.thewardrobecrisis.com & on Instagram
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Who's Shaping Sustainable Fashion's Design Future? Each Wardrobe Crisis series we present a new generation talent episode, spotlighting emerging fashion designers who are pushing sustainability forward.
This time we’re talking with: a positive knitwear designer from Canada who’s ongoing collaboration with Post Carbon lab sees her creating living garments that photosynthesise as you wear them. A British fashion multi-tasker who works as a sustainable womenswear designer focused on deadstock materials, a freelance writer, model and stylist. And a community-driven womenswear designer from Brazil who is wowing with his artful, high-craft textile treatments - and challenging fashion’s obsession with youth while he’s at it.
Meet Olivia Rubens, Joshua James Small and Joao Maraschin.
This Episode is guest-host - Nina Van Volkinburg, fashion academic and co-founder of the Reture designer upcycling marketplace.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/8/3/ep-146-whos-shaping-sustainable-fashions-future to read yours and #bethechange
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How do you feel about getting older? Maybe you’re so young it feels a world away? Or maybe you’re feeling it, and wondering where the time went?
This week’s guest fashion influencer Lyn Slater has no such worries - she reinvented her career in her 60s, going from college professor to Instagram star and being described as “one of fashion's finest-dressed people”. Since then she’s been written about a thousand times as a sort poster woman for growing older stylishly. But now, she’s examining further what it means to be old, and what we think about that word, from old people to old houses to old things.
In a recent post on her blog, Accidental Icon, she wrote: “I’m going to keep saying I’m old over and over until it drains all the pejorative connotations from the word and the exuberant proclamations like, ‘60 is the new 40’ which still seems to imply younger is better.”
Does old still have a stigma? How does it relate to slow, slowing down, slow fashion, appreciating things that have been around a bit. Are we on the brink of a new-old revolution? It's time to have a conversation about how to be old!
Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/7/27/ep-145-how-to-be-old-with-accidental-icons-lyn-slater to read yours and #bethechange
Don't forget to subscribe! And if you listen in Apple Podcasts, please consider rating & reviewing. Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis
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“The 21st century has brought a critical dilemma into sharp relief: we must stop shopping, and yet we can’t stop shopping.” - J.B MacKinnon
Have you noticed that stopping shopping is trending? It used to be a very unusual challenge to take on, but fashion detoxes are going mainstream as people begin to question hyper-consumerism and look for ways to resist it.
But what would happen if we all turned off the fashion tap tomorrow?
And not just fashion - consumer goods in general. What if everybody stopped shopping all at once? The wheels of the economy-as-we-know-it would grind to a halt. There’d be mass unemployment, and potentially chaos, the most marginalised people would be worst affected. And what about all those small business, including the ethical and sustainable ones? What about your job?
Could we find a balance between curbing our consumerist excesses while keeping afloat?
In this must-listen episode, Clare quizzes author J.B. MacKinnon about his riveting thought experiment. When he started thinking about his central dilemma - that the planet seems to need us to stop consuming so much, while the economy seems to require us to keep doing it - no one could have imagined what was around the corner. Covid made the thought experiment real...
Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/7/6/ep-144-the-day-the-world-stopped-shopping-jb-mackinnon to read yours and #bethechange
Don't forget to subscribe! And if you listen in Apple Podcasts, please consider rating & reviewing. Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis
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Lock up your linens! Emily Adams Bode has designs on your grandma's tablecloths. And her quilts. America's favourite emerging menswear talent made her fashion name upcycling characterful old domestic textiles and dusty deadstock - winning a CFDA award and a Woolmark Prize while she was at it. The result is menswear with meaning, designed to be passed down the generations.
This is a lovely quirky conversation about what inspires her as a maker and collector, the joys of upcycling and the layers of meaning in hand-worked and customised clothes.
Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Find our website here.
Don't forget to subscribe! And if you listen in Apple Podcasts, please consider rating & reviewing. Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/7/3/ep-143 to read yours and #bethechange
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Welcome back! Series 6 is here!
The title of this episode asks you to leave your pre-conceptions at the door. There is no one way for a refugee to look, seem, dress and show up in the world.
On World Refugee Day, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) asks us to honour refugees around the globe. To celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home countries to escape conflict or persecution.
And so we are excited to bring you this extraordinary interview with Aminata Conteh-Biger.
Aminata is an UNHCR ambassador in Australia. She's also an author, speaker and the founder of Aminata Maternal Foundation. We met when I hosted an event for her wonderful book, Rising Heart, at an organisation in Sydney that we both support called The Social Outfit.
Like everyone who has listened to her tell story, I was deeply affected by it, but also by Aminata's spirit. She has endured some terrible things, but if I had to think of words to describe her they'd be about love, joy, generosity, fun, glamour, the sisterhood and activism. Aminata is a fabulous fashion fan, mum, women's rights and maternal health advocate, and, yes, refugee.
She is the sum of her many parts - proof that we are not one story, even when that story is as big as hers.
In 1999, during the civil war in Sierra Leone, the then 18-year-old Aminata was a kidnapped by rebel soldiers. She was held captive for several months, and finally freed as part of a negotiated prisoner exchange. When she fled to Australia, with UNHCR's assistance, she had no idea what it would be like. She arrived here with nothing and to had to start again.
Trigger warning - this conversation includes reference to rape and details of violence. But ultimately this is an uplifting story about fleeing one home and finding another - and joy along the way.
Thanks to Spell, this episode is proudly brought to you by The Climate Council.
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While you were distracted by the latest luxury It-whatever (and the shiny, ridiculously expensive global marketing behind it) slow local fashion makers were carefully, quietly crafting their wares regardless - on a fraction of the budgets of the big fashion names.
It's time to take more notice of them! Because if we don't support the independents, how will they thrive? Can small local makers compete with the big guys today, and should they try? Or is it time to build new networks that create a totally different playing field?
Meet one woman going her own way - and sharing what she's learned along it.
Simone Agius is the Melbourne maker behind Simetrie - a disruptive, hand-crafted accessories brand that's challenging norms.
Thank you for listening to our "pass the podcast mic" series. We've loved making it for you. If you can help us spread the word, please do (we're indie too). A nice rate & review in Apple goes down a treat.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/4/29/simone-agius-simetrie-how-to-handcraft-a-handbag to read yours and #bethechange
Follow us on Instagram here and here.
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CALLING ALL TREE-HUGGERS! Nicole Rycroft founded Canopy Planet at her kitchen table in Vancouver with a small budget and a big idea - to protect the world's precious forests.
20 years later, Canopy is one of the leading organisations fighting globally for last frontier forests and engaging business - including the fashion industry - to find alternatives to unsustainably sourced wood in their supply chains.
Do we really use ancient trees to make trivial things? Try pizza boxes and party frocks.
It's an outrage (and you'll hear Clare getting mad about it in this chat) but it's also an opportunity for change, and Canopy is doing something about it.
This bonus Episode was produced in partnership with Fashion Revolution. The theme this year is Rights, Relationships and Revolution. Forests have rights too!
Thank you for supporting our work. If you like this Episode, please share it - we appreciate your help in spreading the word.
Find the shownotes & all things Wardrobe Crisis here.
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How big is sustainable fashion in Iceland? You might be surprised to find out.
We also nearly called this Episode: The Secret Lives Of Sweaters. Listen and you will see why!
In this fascinating, surprising conversation about funny jumpers and changing the world, you will meet Ýr Jóhannsdóttir - a textile designer, artist/activist upcycler from Reykjavik.
With her label Ýrúrarí (and her huge Instagram following) she is making a name for herself using creativity and humour to challenge fashion's unsustainable ways.
People want to have fun with fashion, she says, and if we can use that to get a serious message across, that's a powerful thing. Also up for discussion: Iceland's craft and wool tradition, appreciating the local, resourcefulness, tool libraries and the future of fashion as sharing.
This is part of our "pass the podcast" mic series - the (extended) finale! Where we're telling listener stories. Love it? Please help us spread the word. If you can rate & review in Apple, we'd be grateful.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/2/12/podcast-139-series-5-finale-part-2-fixing-unsustainable-fashion to read yours and #bethechange
Follow us on Instagram here and here.
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Vintage and second-hand fashion is in the news more than ever before. It's set to eclipse fast fashion within ten years. The designer re-commerce sector is booming. But as shopping pre-loved becomes more aspirational, are those who rely on thrifted clothes being locked out?
What's not up for debate, however, is that the piles of discarded fashion and textiles keep growing. The excess is real. Where it ends up, who pays the price, what that price should be, what's selling, what's not, what should be ... in this week's episode we address all this and more as our listeners take a seat in the interviewee's chair.
Welcome to Part 1 of our #sharethepodcastmic finale, featuring vintage rental store-owner Ali Dibley on clothes with personalities; dedicated thrifter Julia Browne on the evolution of opshopping and street style photographer Liisa Jokinen on preloved's digital revolution.
Find the shownotes here.
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Who else talks to their plants? This week's joyful episode is a love letter to what we grow - in gardens, allotments, veggie patches and pots on our windowsills the world over. But also what grows wild - in the woods, hedgerows, fields and scrub, the verges by the freeways, even the cracks in city pavements.
Your guest host, musician and gardener Nidala Barker, talks with her friend and fellow green thumb, Kobi Bloom about connecting to Earth, respecting our Mother and the marvellous magic of plants.
Up for discussion: How can learning more about plants and their wonder help us heal the planet? What exactly is a regenerative farmer or gardener (and how can you be be one)? What happens if we donʼt pull out the weeds? What can we do about food waste? And why is compost so often the answer to life's big questions?
But first, here's Nidala singing good morning to her veggie patch... you could not make this up - but she does! Every day it's a new song. Ah, told you this one was a joy.
Find Nidala on Instagram here.
Find Kobi here.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/2/8/podcast-137-the-magic-of-plants-organic-gardening-and-why-weeds-are-wonderful to read yours and #bethechange
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Welcome to another episode of series 5 - #sharethepodcastmic
Don't forget to hit subscribe and if you value these conversations, please share them with your communities.
Your guest host this week is Ayesha Barenblat, founder of ReMake, and she is in conversation with Nazma Akter, founder and Executive Director of the Awaj Foundation.
Nazma has been fighting to improve workers' rights in Bangladesh's garment sector for 30 years - and she started out as a garment worker herself, aged just 11. Hers is a powerful, persuasive, brilliant voice from the workers' side. So why have't you heard it before?
The answer is because fashion - yes, even sustainable fashion - operates with a power imbalance that too often shuts workers out. We rarely hear from the people who make our clothes, especially those in low-wage countries. Instead, we hear from brands talking about garment workers, or well meaning white people talking on their behalf. Mostly, we hear from those who make the decisions, rather than those who must live with them. But if we are to build a truly sustainable and ethical fashion industry, we must make space for the people who make our clothes.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/1/28/podcast-136-ayesha-barenblat-interviews-nazma-akter-garment-workers-raise-your-voice to read yours and #bethechange
Follow ReMake here.
Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis
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Everybody's talking about degrowth. Does this mean we've finally woken up to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse? Are we ready to challenge capitalism's obsession with GDP and perpetual expansion? If so, what's the alternative? And how can we apply this to fashion, beyond simply "buy less"? How might we reimagine the whole system, and rethink how we measure success?
This week's guest host Nina Gbor interviews Jason Hickel about his new book Less is More - How Degrowth Will Save the World.
Jason is a rockstar economist (no grey suits here) focused on global inequality, political economy, post-development, and ecological economics. He teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London and serves on the Statistical Advisory Panel for the UN Human Development Report 2020, the advisory board of the Green New Deal for Europe and on the Harvard-Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.
Follow him on Twitter here.
Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis
Find all the links and shownotes on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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Meet Belinda Duarte, former athlete and educator, current inspirational leader, formidable female exec, proud First Nations Australian and the inspiration for Series 5 - #sharethepodcastmic
Just in time for January 26th - a significant day in this country. It's time to #changethedate
There's so much up for discussion in this one - from Belinda's family story, to sustainability and Indigenous wisdom, raising strong young people, ethical leadership and how we can use sport and culture to move towards reconciliation.
Find Culture is Life here.
You can find extensive notes & links on what you hear at www.thewardrobecrisis/podcast
Enjoyed the episode? Please share it! Tag us on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress
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In March 2020, Grace Lillian Lee and Teagan Cowlishaw announced Australia's first ever Indigenous fashion council - First Nations Fashion & Design. In December, they held their first fashion show - Walking in Two Worlds. But don't expect just any old runway. This is a beautiful story about reframing the fashion discourse, connecting to country, and mentoring emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fashion talent.
Grace is this week's #sharethepodcastmic guest host and she's in conversation with First Nations Fashion + Design ambassador - model Charlee Fraser. Charlee is a proud Awabakal woman and a beautiful spirt. She's also a Paris fashion week favourite with multiple magazine covers under her belt. Follow her on Instagram here.
Find First Nations Fashion + Design here.
You can find extensive notes & links on what you hear at www.thewardrobecrisis/podcast
Thank you to our sponsors Bendigo Art Gallery.
Enjoyed the episode? Please share it! Tag us on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress
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Welcome back to Series 5, #sharethepodcastmic
Why are all eyes are on Indigenous Australian fashion right now? Try 60,000 years of sustainability... "We're the original fashion industry in this country," says this week's guest host Yatu Widders-Hunt of the vibrant, continuously evolving First Nations fashion and design sector.
In this Episode, we hear from curator Shonae Hobson about her Piinpi exhibition - the first major survey of contemporary Indigenous Australian fashion to be undertaken in this country. And from designers Julie Shaw of Maara Collective and Teagan Cowlishaw of Aarli.
You can find extensive notes & links at www.thewardrobecrisis/podcast
Enjoyed the episode? Please share it! Tag us on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress
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Why does so much fashion still cling to strict men's and womenswear codes? Is the industry finally ready to shake off tired old binaries and embrace the trans and gender-nonconforming community? Or is Harry Styles' Vogue cover about as far as it goes?
For this week's #sharethepodcastmic episode, sustainable fashion journalist Aditi Mayer is in charge.
She's interviewing Alok Vaid-Menon about their new book, Beyond the Gender Binary. Alok is a gender-nonconforming poet, author, performance artist and designer.
Up for discussion: everything from gender neutral fashion, to the limitations of representation to what it means to truly redefine beauty. Also, fashion has been largely silent on the rising wave of transphobia, says Alok, yet continues to draw inspiration from gender-nonconforming people.
This episode is a powerful call to designers "take it as an ethical imperative to de-gender their lines" and to "everyone, regardless of your gender, to make this an issue."
It's time for all of us to start asking difficult questions, say Alok. "Asking our favourite brands, our favourite designers: why do you continue to gender your product? What is the purpose of this? The next piece is, how are we subverting gender tropes in our own lives? Are we dressing to fit an idea of what women or men should be, or are we dressing for ourselves?"
Find Alok on their website here.
Find all the notes https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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For this week's #sharethepodcastmic episode, Aja Barber is in charge.
She's interviewing her friend, Kalkidan Legesse, founder of Sancho's - a pioneering Black-owned sustainable fashion store in Exeter in the UK.
Sancho's sells ethical and fair trade clothing, gifts and accessories from sustainable fashion brands like People Tree, Armedangels, Lefrik and Just Trade. They also really innovate with their pricing accessibility - and you'll hear all about that in this interview.
What else gets unpacked? Kalkidan's Ethiopian roots and how returning to Addis Ababa as an adult sparked the idea for Sancho's. The million racist micro-aggressions people of colour face in the fashion industry (and everywhere else), who gets the power, and how to be an ethical leader.
Here's Kalkidan's own website. Here's Sancho's on Instagram.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/12/2/podcast-130-aja-barber-interviews-kalkidan-legesse to read yours and #bethechange
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A note from Clare:
Welcome to Series 5, Share the Podcast Mic. After everything that's happened this year, we wanted to shake things up and share the power of this beautiful platform with some of the BIPOC voices leading the conversation in sustainability and ethical fashion. So after this episode, I'll be passing the Wardrobe Crisis mic onto them. Each will interview a person of their choice.
Your guest hosts are some of the most exciting, dynamic, inspirational voices working in this space today - as are their guests. I couldn't be more grateful to them all for sharing their experiences with us, and being part of this project.
I'm excited to bring you this contextual episode with brilliant sustainable fashion writer, activist and stylist Aja Barber, before I pass the mic on to her as our very first guest host next week.
It's all up discussion today: from allyship (when brands get it wrong & how to get it right) to fashion billionaires; white fragility, the dreaded Karens, and coddling vs. discomfort. We talk about how the system is rigged but we have the power to change it. Aja's vision for a sustainable fashion future? Press play to find out.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/11/23/podcast-129-aja-barber-anti-racism-work-amp-sharing-the-mic to read yours and #bethechange
Aja's on Instagram here.
Follow her Patreon here.
Can you help us spread the word about this series? Use the hashtags #sharethepodcastmic #wardrobecrisisguesthosts
Insta @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress Twitter @mrspress
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For all the talk of inclusivity finally being taken seriously by fashion, the industry is way behind on many fronts. It basically ignores entire sections of the market, which makes no sense from a business perspective, and let alone a social one.
Adaptive fashion is both an opportunity and a necessity - as this week's brilliant guest, author Keah Brown says, disabled people love clothes too. And they're tired of having to alter things that don't work for them. Accessible, adaptive design is the future, and forward-looking brands are taking note.
Our chat covers everything from Keah's New York Fashion Week debut and how her hashtag #disabledandcute went viral to writing her first screen play and the finding joy in the everyday. This is an enlightening, bright interview full of inspiration. What a treat to have Keah on the podcast.
Let us know what you think. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
Keah's website is here.
Do you follow us at @thewardrobecrisis ? Remember, you can read our magazine at www.thewardrobecrisis.com, you can sign up for our bi-weekly newsletters there too.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/10/8/podcast-128-keah-brown-why-is-fashion-ignoring-disabled-customers and #bethechange
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.
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Philosophy! The Internet of Things! Irvin Penn! From not being Mozart to designing outfits for The Muppets, as a kid... It's all up for discussion in this week's ep with Levi's Vice President of Global Product Innovation, Paul Dillinger.
Paul drove Jacquard by Google, so of course we talk about that, and the future of tech innovation in fashion particularly around wearables. But fundamentally, this is a conversation about why we wear what we wear, what fashion means and how we've used it across time to craft our identities. Oh, and sustainability.
Basically, this is why we love to make podcasts. And Paul is the greatest. Enjoy!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/9/25/podcast-127-paul-dillinger-future-fashion-philosophy-amp-wearable-tech to read yours and #bethechange
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"You can't farm spiders!" says this week's guest, scientist David Breslauer.
You can keep more them in serious numbers spinning webs off hula-hoops suspended from your office ceiling though...
Enter Bolt Threads, the Californian biotech company behind Microsilk - a bioengineered sustainable fibre used by Stella McCartney. Find out how they did it, where the science is headed, and what's next (hint, it's involves mushrooms). Just don't call David Spider Man.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/9/17/podcast-126-david-breslauer-on-spiders-biotech-amp-bolt-threads to read yours and #bethechange
Love the show? Don't forget to hit subscribe. You can contact host Clare Press on Instagram here, and follow the show here.
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How did denim get so unsustainable? And did it all start with stone washing? Our guest this week accepts responsibility for the industry going so hard on that.
Francois Girbaud was there at the start, when, as he says “I was just a stupid guy” - and didn't know about the environmental impact of stone washing. After that, of course, came acid wash, sandblasting, all the rest of it.
So, yes, we discuss all the important environmental stuff, but this is an epic interview about Paris, the history of fashion, and the birth of cool - with a great many pinch-me stories!
Outspoken, unafraid, and a true original, Francois Girbaud is fashion pioneer.
Meet the man who brought denim to Paris in 1964 with his boutique Western House, who dressed Jimi Hendrix, counted Brigitte Bardot as a customer, and wanted to be a cowboy like John Wayne.
This is a rare chance to hang out with one of the great fashion characters. ENJOY!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/8/27/podcast-125-francois-girbaud-denim-legend to read yours and #bethechange
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What's in my clothes? If you're asking that question, you probably expect the answer to be about fabric content. Polyester? Cotton? Wool maybe, or silk. But what about chemicals? You won't find these listed on your typical garment label.
Last Series, Clare interviewed Greenpeace activist Kirsten Brodde, who led the Detox My Fashion campaign, launched in 2011, to force fashion to wake up to the toxic trail of textile production. So what's changed since then?
Chemistry in fashion is still not a mainstream topic, and most people have no idea about chemical use in clothing production. But the fashion industry has made headway.
The Greenpeace campaign succeeded in making fashion take action. Initially 6 brands got behind the formation of the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) programme, with the aim of removing hazardous chemicals from apparel and footwear supply chains by 2020. It's called Roadmap to Zero.
Discover how it works, learn about the wins and find out what's left to be done.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/8/6/podcast-124-chemicals-in-fashion-supply-chains to read yours and #bethechange
Talk to Clare in Instagram and Twitter.
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You know those people who are always ahead? The true originals no one can catch? Helen Storey is one of them. This British former runway designer and current Professor of Fashion & Science uses fashion as a trojan horse for big issues.
Ten years ago she collaborated with a chemist to make garments that filter pollution from the air. She's made dresses that dissolve to show how we destroy what's beautiful.
In 2015, in the run up to the COP15, she turned a decommissioned refugee tent, that had once housed a family in Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan, into a travelling fashion statement on climate change. She called it Dress For Our Time, and debuted it in a London railway station. That dress has since travelled to the UN in Geneva, the climate strikes, and even been on stage at Glastonbury. But it is Helen who has travelled the farthest.
Today she is the UN Refugee Agency's first ever designer-in-residence. Hear how she works in Za'atari, which is home to more than 75,000 displaced people.
Recorded in London before the coronavirus shutdowns, this fascinating interview challenges us to rethink everything we know about fashion as a tool for change, connection and finding meaning.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/7/18/podcast-123-helen-storeys-dress-for-our-time to read yours and #bethechange
Talk to Clare in Instagram and Twitter.
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“I don't give voice to anyone, but I have a really amazing tool and that's my camera. I use my camera to amplify the voices of people who feel unheard.”
Today photographer Giles Duley is the CEO and founder of the Legacy of War Foundation, and an activist for the rights of those living with disabilities caused by conflict. But he started out working in music and fashion, shooting for magazines like Vogue, GQ and Arena.
Since 2004, his portrait photography has taken him all over the world, from Iraq and Jordan to South Sudan and Angola, documenting human stories, often in post-conflict zones or crisis situations. In 2015 he was commissioned by UNHCR to document the refugee crisis across the middle east and Europe.
In 2011, while working as a photographer in Afghanistan, Giles himself was injured by an improvised explosive device (IED). He is now a triple-amputee. He was back taking photographs the following year.
The legacy of war is violent and harrowing. Be warned, some of the stories Giles tells are graphic. And yet, this interview is full of warmth, laughter and mostly importantly hope and humanity.
Have you listened to Part 1? Don't miss the related Episode 121 on Article 22 in Laos.
Find Legacy of War Foundation here.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/7/9/podcast-121-anti-war-photographer-giles-duley to read yours and #bethechange
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Can fashion really make a difference? Can artisans be agents of change? Could a humble bangle help make post-conflict land safe for the people who live there?
It sounds crazy to be talking about war and bombs in the same sentence as fashion and jewellery. But that's exactly what Article 22, a New York-jewellery brand and social enterprise that's handmade in Laos, seeks to do.
They upcycle shrapnel and scrap metal from The Secret War into jewellery, and they called their first collection Peace Bomb.
For every jewellery item they make, Article 22 donates to MAG, the Mines Advisory Group - an NGO that's on the ground clearing undetonated bombs so that local families can live and farm in peace.
Why are the bombs still there? From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions - equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years. Then acted like it never happened. It took 45 years for an American President (Obama, in 2016) to formally acknowledge the bombing campaign. Yet, Laos still lives with that legacy every day.
For this week's Episode, we travelled to Xiangkhouang province with Article 22 founders Elizabeth Suda and Camille Hautefort, to meet the artisans whose land is contaminated, and the NGO workers from MAG whose job it is to clear it. And along the way hear powerful stories of positive change.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/7/3/podcast-121-article-22-purpose-amp-peace-after-the-secret-war-in-laos to read yours and #bethechange
Talk to Clare in Instagram and Twitter.
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On World Oceans Day, we meet Australian big wave surfer Laura Enever.
Laura started surfing as a kid in Sydney. She spent 7 years surfing professionally on the Women's World Tour . Now she's decided to reinvent herself as a big wave surfer.
And we mean seriously big - these waves are scary, dangerous and remote, they break way out to sea, or on shallow rock ledges and only a few times a year.
What has the ocean taught Laura about resilience and conquering fear?
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/6/5/podcast-120-big-wave-surfer-laura-enever-on-world-oceans-day to read yours and #bethechange
Talk to Clare in Instagram and Twitter.
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This week, we're hanging out on the Copenhagen kitchen of the brilliant "insecure overachievers" behind GANNI.
Married couple Ditte and Nicolaj Reffstrup are the force behind the cult Copenhagen label and they've have made it, according to Vogue, a "stratospheric success" beloved of #GanniGirls all over Instagram. Just don't call it sustainable fashion.
"A brand might do one organic T-shirt and call themselves sustainable," says Nicolaj. "We just do what we do, and try to do better every day."
They say their "mission is simple: We fill a gap in the advanced contemporary market for effortless, easy-to-wear pieces that women instinctively reach for, day in, day out." But they're also mapping their carbon footprint and trialling rental while trying to leave their kids a healthy planet. Oh, an hoping the women will take over soon.
Love the show?
Please consider rating and reviewing, share on social media, and don't forget to hit subscribe!
Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/5/27/podcast-119-ganni-eco-evolution to read yours and #bethechange
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Friday May 22nd is the International Day for Biological Diversity. Actually this whole year was meant to be about that. The World Economic Forum named 2020 the Year for Nature Action. It was to culminate in a big conference about the UN convention on biological diversity in Kunming, China in October. But the coronavirus pause doesn't mean we get to hold off on action to protect Nature.
This week's guest is Helen Crowley, Kering's head of sustainable sourcing and innovation, where she works with brands like Gucci , Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. She lives in France, but she's an Aussie with a PhD in zoology. And this year, she's on sabbatical with Conservation International, and is an advisor to the World Economic Forum.
What is the New Nature Agenda? How can fashion take action to not just protect biodiversity, but help regenerate it? We cover all this and more in this episode.
Love the show?
Please consider rating and reviewing, share on social media, and don't forget to hit subscribe!
Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/5/21/podcast-118-fashion-amp-biodversity-helen-crowley to read yours and #bethechange
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Welcome to the second of our special reports about the fashion industry and COVID-19. This one is about how designers, makers and manufacturers are responding to the shortages of PPE - personal protective equipment - and scrubs for frontline workers, as well as masks for all.
What is PPE? Why are there shortages? How have fashion designers and industry leaders around the world stepped up to produce PPE for frontline workers?
Featuring Shibon Kennedy, founder of PPE Volunteer; Emergency Designer Network's Phoebe English and Holly Fulton; Jayna Zweiman of Masks for Humanity, fashion educator Timo Rissanen and Aleksandra Nedeljkovic from Australian social enterprise The Social Studio.
Love the show?
Please consider rating and reviewing, share on social media, and don't forget to hit subscribe!
Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/5/2/podcast-117-special-covid-19-report-how-fashion-is-rising-to-the-ppe-challenge to read yours and #bethechange
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You probably already know that industrialised farming is chemically intensive and a big greenhouse gas polluter - but how much do you really know about animal agriculture? About its enormous scale, the waste and the way we treat the animals that feed us, and provide leather for the fashion industry?
In this interview Philip Lymbery, CEO of Compassion in World Farming and author of Farmageddon, provides a powerful argument for a system reset.
Love the show?
Please consider rating and reviewing, share on social media, and don't forget to hit subscribe!
Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/4/29/podcast-116-animals-have-feelings-too-compassion-in-world-farmings-philip-lymbery to read yours and #bethechange
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If you've listened to Episode 115 on how garment workers are being impacted by COVID-19, try this one next. It's an edited version of a story we ran back in 2017, about living wages. Many of the women who make our clothes in countries like Bangladesh still fall far short of earning a living wage.
April 24th is the anniversary of the Rana Plaza garment factory disaster. Join Fashion Revolution, and keep asking #whomademyclothes?
Don't forget to subscribe to Wardrobe Crisis!
The shownotes are on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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Welcome to this special report on how garment workers around the world are being impacted by COVID-19.
Fashion is being severely impacted by the shutdowns. You might argue, the sustainable business is the one that survives this. But as usual, it is the worst off who bear the brunt, because they don't have safety nets to catch them.
How is coronavirus impacting garment workers around the world?
Why are activists calling for brands to #payup as factories reel under the strain of cancelled orders? And what's the outlook for a sustainable fashion industry long-term?
Featuring Remake's Ayesha Barenblat, journalist Elizabeth Cline, union and NGO leaders Kalpona Akter, Rubana Huq and William Conklin, and factory owner Mostafiz Uddin, as well as the first-hand experience of a garment worker who's been laid off, this episode is a call for brands to act responsibly.
Love the show?
Please consider rating and reviewing, share on social media, and don't forget to hit subscribe!
Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/4/15/podcast-115-payup-how-covid-19-is-impacting-garment-workers to read yours and #bethechange
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What kinds of products do we want to put out in the future? How can we rethink our design practices and material choices - and persuade the customer that it matters?
Once we get to the other side of the COVID-19 crisis, circular and regenerative systems are going to be even more important. But how do we do it case by case? This week's guest British accessories designer Anya Hindmarch has already started.
In 2007, Anya launched her famous "I'm not A Plastic Bag" to raise awareness of how much single-use plastic goes to landfill. Now she's back with a new version, and this one's recycled.
Find links and more info in our shownotes here.
Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis
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"We are at one of those pivotal moments when it feels like the world is coming undone," wrote David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific in a recent newsletter. "But the best of humanity comes out in moments of crisis. It's a phenomenon that we saw in the [recent Australian bush] fires, and which we are seeing again in the face of the pandemic."
Can we take this enforced pause to design a better way of relating to each other and the natural world? How can we use compassion in our activism? Where can we find solidarity in solitude?
This week's Episode is a must-listen and a balm for the soul at the increasingly bizarre time. Like it? Please consider rating and reviewing, share on social media, and don't forget to hit subscribe!
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Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/3/29/podcast-113-love-in-the-time-of-coronavirus-greenpeaces-david-ritter to read yours and #bethechange
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For 7 years, Fashion Revolution has been asking, #whomademyclothes? on a quest for greater transparency in fashion supply chains.
Now, they're asking #WhatsInMyClothes?, and say: "The answer is far more complicated than the composition label on the side seam. This is the starting point, but it doesn't account for the plastics lurking in our clothes, the trees cut down to transform wood into viscose, or the pesticides sprayed on fields of cotton, leaching into waterways."
Fashion Revolution's co-founder Carry Somers is focusing on the plastics issue, and has just returned from voyage of discovery to research microplastic pollution in the oceans. Meet the inspiring activist, fair trade fashion pioneer and now explorer!
Don't forget to check the shownotes for all links and further reading.
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Emily Penn is a British sailor and the co-founder of eXXpedition - a series of all-women voyages exploring the impacts of plastics and toxins in our oceans.
"The only way to reduce the potential impacts on human health and the environment is to reduce consumption," she says.
But where to begin?
For the next two years, a total of 300 women will sail around the world on eXXpedition's voyages of discovery, to look deep into what's going on with plastic in our oceans, and try to come up with solutions.
Why XX? Women are underrepresented in science and sailing - the XX in the title refers to the female sex chromosome. But it's the impacts these toxins might have on women that will blow your mind. Could plastic pollution be gender discriminatory? Could women suffer greater effects from it than men? Remember, pollution can bio-accumulate - the fish eat the plastic, and we eat the fish.
We know that, but there is much we remain in the dark about. Of the estimated 700 contaminants in our bodies, many have barely been researched.
Don't forget to check the shownotes for all links and further reading.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO WARDROBE CRISIS.
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Can you help us spread the word? We'd love you to rate & review in your favourite podcast app, and share this Episode on social media. Here's Clare on Instagram and Twitter. Get in touch via hello@clarepress.com
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What's driving the fashion's latest obsession with upcycling? And how far can it go? Might fashion stop using virgin materials completely one day?
Upcyling means taking something discarded, usually unloved and considered trash, and transforming into something new and of a higher quality.
It's become a major fashion buzz word, thanks to designers like Marine Serre in Paris, and even Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. But it's the next generation that's really pushing it. This week, you'll meet three of them: Londoners Maddie Williams and Helen Kirkum, and brilliant Dutch trouble maker Duran Lantink.
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The #metoo hashtag was a moment, sparked in when the actor Alyssa Milano used it on Twitter in October 2017 in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations. That tweet went viral. More than 19 million people around the world have since used the hashtag to share their stories of sexual harassment, abuse and violence.
But Me Too is a about more than social media. Me Too is a movement, founded by the American activist Tarana Burke in 2006 to help survivors of sexual violence, particularly Black women and girls, and other young women of colour from low wealth communities, find pathways to healing.
This is her story...
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO WARDROBE CRISIS. Don't forget to hit subscribe. Can you help us spread the word? We'd love you to rate & review in your favourite podcast app, and share this Episode on social media. Here's Clare on Instagram and Twitter. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/12/28/podcast-108-tarana-burke-on-me-too-amp-building-a-movement-for-change to read yours and #bethechange
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London stylist Bay Garnett has magic powers when it comes to finding fashion gems in charity shops. The former editor of Cheap Date magazine (all about thrifting) famously put Kate Moss in the pages of British Vogue wearing vintage. Want to get in her wardrobe?
Even better, learn her tips and tricks, hear how thrifting has changed over 20 years, and learn why giving garments multiple lives is more important than ever as a tool to reduce fashion's environmental impact.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/12/29/podcast-109-bay-garnetts-thrifted-fashion-superpowers to read yours and #bethechange
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Welcome to Series 4! Our first guest is American supermodel Amber Valletta -sustainable fashion's favourite face, using her platform to make positive change in the industry.
How did she move from celebrity covergirl (she had her own MTV show in the '90s, and in the 2000s did a Hollywood movie with Will Smith) to fashion's eco conscience? Today Amber is the model most closely associated with eco-fashion, she's fronted the last two Stella McCartney campaigns, and protested on behalf of climate action with Jane Fonda.
But can a career in high fashion be truly sustainable? How does she deal with the overwhelm about over-consumption? Could self-care be the answer?
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/1/9/podcast-107-amber-valletta to read yours and #bethechange
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Obsessed with Allbirds? Join the club. For the last Episode of Series 3, Clare visits the San Francisco HQ of the hottest comfy shoe brand on the planet, and unpicks what makes it work.
On the way, she discovers the secrets of algae as an eco ingredient, asks the hard questions about end-of-life and greenwashing, and decodes the complexity of carbon offsetting. Oh, and sits next to Matthew McConaughey on the plane… Alright, alright, alright!
“Phenomenal for customers, and also phenomenal for the planet… that's a big idea,” says Joey Zwillinger. But what does it look like in practice? How hard was it to make it happen?And where did they fall short?
Hear how Joey and co-founder Tim Brown set out to shake up the way sneakers get made and marketed, took on the big guys and won, and where their future challenges lie.
Now, that's a wrap for Series 3 - we're off to the beach. The perfect time to catch up on our monster back catalogue! Get ready for Series 4 - launches February.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/12/18/podcast-106-allbirds-how-to-make-and-sell-sustainability to read yours and #bethechange
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, CHANGEMAKERS!
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Is the Great Barrier Reef dead? Headlines to that effect zoomed around the world after two consecutive coral bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. But Australia's most famous World Heritage wonder is still very much with us - a vast eco-system, roughly the size of Germany, it teams with life.
Threats from climate change and other factors aren't going away though. Find out what is being done to build resilience on the reef. Meet the scientists and activists working together to protect it. Learn what makes coral tick - and how it makes love (seriously!)
This week's podcast invites you on an excellent adventure with Clare, Vogue Homme cover model Jarrod Scott and Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef to discover the full story. Also starring: Andy Ridely, Laura Wells, Professor David Suggett, researcher Katie Chartrand and dive guide Fiona Merida.
Don't miss the shownotes on clarepress.com
Got feedback? Connect with us on social media - find Clare on Instagram and Twitter. And please consider rating and reviewing the show in your favourite podcast app.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/12/8/podcast-105-saving-the-great-barrier-reef-science-meets-activism to read yours and #bethechange
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Are you into vintage shopping or second-hand style? Join the club. Whether you're glued to Depop, buying high end designer vintage or a committed charity shop trawler, secondhand has lost its stigma in fashion circles.
Recommerce is growing. According to Thredup preloved fashion is on track to eclipse fast fashion within a decade, while 64% of women have either bought or are open to buying used clothes. But... that doesn't mean the world isn't drowning in unwanted stuff.
This podcast goes live on Black Friday. On this holiday and sales frenzy last year, Americans spent $6.2 billion on Black Friday, up 23.6% on the previous year.
Much of this haul will end up on the bin. We're still discarding clothing and other unwanted items at a record rate. So what happens to all our stuff when we're done with it?
Meet the recycling obsessive who grew up on a junkyard and now works for Bloomberg. Adam Minter, author of Junkyard Planet, has a new book out. This one's called Secondhand - Travels in the New Global Garage Sale, and to write it he travelled all over the world talking to the people who deal in trash.
In this fascinating interview, we discuss everything from how metals get recycled to the politics of exporting our trash.
LOVE THE SHOW? Please share on social media and consider rating and reviewing in your favourite podcast app.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/11/25/podcast-104-adam-minter-reuse-recycle-amp-the-second-hand-economy to read yours and #bethechange
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What if our buildings weren't just a little bit more energy efficient or decorated with a few extra plants? What if they gave back to the environment instead of taking away from it? Biophilic design is a buzz word, and we're on board!
Meet the visionary Canadian architect Jason McLennan, founder of the Living Building Challenge and the Living Future Institute.
This Episode is all about how we can not just green our built environment but totally rethink it so that it's regenerative, and provides havens for other species too. How might we truly live in harmony with nature? And as Jason puts it: “Create places that are not only lovely but express the love we have for people, for animals and for the environment.”
Oh, and seriously, we need to fix the toilets!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/11/3/podcast-102-raj-patel-a-history-of-the to read yours and #bethechange
Happy listening!
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Why are the old white men still in charge? What's the system build from, and how might be change it? In A History of the World in 7 Cheap things, Raj Patel and his co-author Jason W. Moore argue that the modern world has been shaped by the exploitation of cheap nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives.
"Cheap is a strategy, a practice, a violence that mobilises all kinds of work - human, animal, botanical and geological - for as little compensation as possible.” And it goes back way further than the Industrial Revolution. Think about Columbus "conquering" new frontiers. Centuries later, we're still carrying on the same way - invade, exploit, move on.
Is it really easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism? Could we reform society along more equitable lines and create a brighter future for people and planet?
This week, Clare gets to hang out with Raj Patel, the US-based British writer, speaker, activist, academic and wearer of very nice ethically made jackets. He's got degrees from Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell. And he has worked for the World Bank and World Trade Organisation - but he has also protested against them. Fascinating, provocative and full of ideas and information, this Episode will make you question everything.
Enjoying the show? DON'T FORGET TO HIT SUBSCRIBE. Please consider rating and reviewing Wardrobe Crisis in your favourite podcast app.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/11/3/podcast-102-raj-patel-a-history-of-the to read yours and #bethechange
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Have you ever thought about the water footprint of beef or olive oil? Or how far your food has travelled before it reaches your dinner plate? And what has all this god to do with fashion?
Meet Gung-Ho designer Sophie Dunster, food writer and photographer Sara Kiyo Popowa, and chefs Lauren Lovatt and Abi Aspen Glencross. Whether they're vegan or just very excited about colourful vegetables; sure that what we eat can affect our mental health or just really keen on yummy food that doesn't cost the Earth - these four female foodies are combining fashion with activism to put change on the menu. Bon appetit!
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IT'S OUR BIRTHDAY! You are listening to the 100th Episode of Wardrobe Crisis - hurrah! Thank you for being part of it.
This week's guest is Sinéad Burke, the Irish fashion journalist, activist and inclusivity advocate. Maybe you've watched her TED talk, Why Design Should Include Everyone, or heard about reminding the World Economic Forum at Davos this year, to ask: "Who is not in the room?" Probably you saw her on the cover of the Duchess of Sussex-edited September issue of British Vogue.
This interview was recorded during London Fashion Week, so of course we talk clothes. These days, Sinéad sometimes gets about in custom-made Gucci, but that wasn't always the case. We discuss, what happens when clothes don't fit you? How do you navigate a world that is not designed for you? Is the fashion industry finally ready to embrace the opportunity to cater to more shapes and sizes, abilities and needs? Why does it so often exclude so many people, and how can we change that?
Let's get to it!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/10/27/podcast-100-sinead-burke-a-new-perspective to read yours and #bethechange
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Why do we need to "fix" fashion? Try because textile production contributes more to climate change than international aviation and shipping combined and consumes lake-sized volumes of fresh water. If current consumption levels continue the industry could account for 25% of the world's carbon budget.
Because our wardrobes are full of clothes we don't wear, yet we keep buying more and more garments, most of which are made from polyester and shed tiny plastic microfibres every time we wash them. Because we buy fashion to throw it away.
This Episode's guest is Mary Creagh, who at the time of recording was chair of the UK Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) and the Labour MP for Wakefield - the woman responsible for raising all these things with the British parliament in 2019.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/10/13/podcast-99-mp-mary-creagh-fixing-fashion-amp-the-environmental-audit-committee to read yours and #bethechange
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How are you doing with all this climate news? Is it getting you down? This Episode to the rescue! It's all about climate hope and how we can feel more courageous and positive about our activism.
Meet climate activist, Anna Rose. She started forming environmental groups when she was a school kid. By the time she was at university, she, and her friend Amanda McKenzie, cofounded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, which today has more than 150,000 members. She's been involved in leadership for Earth Hour, is on a bunch of important academic advisory boards and today works with an organisation called Farmers for Climate Action. But the reason you need to listen to her is that Anna has a long view on how to stay motivated with our activism . She talks about "hope as a strategic decision" and reminds us that we all have difference capacities that "it's only called impossible until it's done."
“Often I don't feel brave, but I have to do things that I know are important,” she says. "I see courage as a muscle we can build up over time."
In this upbeat, inspiring conversation, we discuss where to begin, why courage is important, how to foster it and how we can use it to change the world.
ENJOYING THE SHOW? Don't forget to subscribe. Please consider rating and reviewing us? Follow Clare on Instagram.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/9/4/podcast-97-courage-how-to-deal-with-climate-change-freakout-with-activist-anna-rose to read yours and #bethechange
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This Episode was recorded during London fashion week. Extinction Rebellion is a grass roots activism movement demanding radical action on the global climate crisis. The group formed in the UK in October 2018 on the premise that trying to be a bit more sustainable, tinkering around the edges of the system but essentially carrying on with business as usual, will not save us from climate breakdown.
They are calling on governments to declare a climate and ecological emergency, and to act immediately to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025.
You will hear from some of the Extinction Rebellion protestors who staged a 'funeral' for London Fashion Week in September, then sit down with activists: Clare Farrell, Sara Arnold and Will Skeaping to find out why they think civil disobedience is the way to go, what to do about the scary science, and where fashion fits in with all of this.
Do you value this show? Please help us spread the word by rating and reviewing in your favourite podcast app, and sharing about Wardrobe Crisis on social media.
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Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/9/29/podcast-97-extinction-rebellion-is-it-time-we-tore-the-whole-thing-down to read yours and #bethechange
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How does colonialism play out in fashion? And how can we encourage the fashion industry in general, and retail in particular, to be more inclusive? And when will fashion finally wake up to cultural appropriation and do better?
Join me and Sara Ali, a London-based luxury fashion consultant who focuses on Arabia and Africa, as we decode this sensitive subject and ask, Why don't more conversations focus on it?
Enjoying the show? Thank you for listening. Please help us spread the word. Rating and reviewing in iTunes can help others find us. Or share about the show on social media. Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
To see all the podcast info and shownotes, visit https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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Have you heard the one about denim factories turning rivers blue in China? Horrendous, right? But change is possible.
Kirsten Brodde is a former science journalist on a mission to clean up fashion. Meet the Greenpeace activist who led the Detox My Fashion campaign, which spurred an industry-wide commitment to phase out harmful chemicals from clothing production.
In this interview, we unpick what it takes to be an effective activist (think dogged persistence!) and passion but also a willingness to be unpopular.
The Detox campaign took time, major pressure and careful negotiation, but it actually worked. Kirsten describes what's happened as a result as “a paradigm shift,” and says there's no going back.
The message, activism matters. We need these dedicated, gusty individuals to rock the boat.
Enjoying the show? Thank you for listening. Please help us spread the word. Rating and reviewing can help others find us. Or share about the show on social media. Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2019/8/20/podcast-96-detoxing-fashion-with-greenpeaces-kirsten-brodde to read yours and #bethechange
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The New York Times calls him "the poster boy for zero waste living". He's a florist, artist, restaurateur, architect, inventor and revolutionary thinker. Meet the man on a mission to convince us we can grow all the food we need where we live.
In this riveting episode, we discuss everything from how wasteful the floristry industry is to the microbial power of healthy soil to boost serotonin (Yep, it can get you high apparently). What would happen if we reconnected with the natural world? How might eating seasonally change our health, happiness and impact? Could we really grow all the food we need on the roof and walls of our houses and apartment buildings? What's the future of green cities?
Enjoying the show? Thank you for listening. Please help us spread the word. Rating and reviewing in iTunes can help others find us. Or share about the show on social media. Find Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
To see all the podcast info and shownotes, visit https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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Do you have any idea how much it actually costs to make your clothes? Most brands would rather you didn't.
Meet the fashion disruptor who is happy to tell you exactly what it costs his company to make its products, and exactly how much profit they make on each style.
Michael Preysman founded Everlane on the concept of "radical transparency" and says: “We believe our customers have a right to know how much their clothes cost to make. We reveal the true costs behind all of our products—from materials to labor to transportation—then offer them to you, minus the traditional retail markup.”
Why is transparency important in the fashion industry? How does that idea apply when it comes to garment workers and factory supply chains? How did this Californian start up become a major global player, and what drives Michael Preysman? In this interview we discuss what it takes to succeed, the power of disruption, and being okay with not being perfect.
Check out the shownotes on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast for links and more info.
Enjoying Wardrobe Crisis? Get in touch with Clare on Instagram and Twitter (@mrspress) and let her know. Please consider rating and reviewing us in Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
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Did you know that handwork, or craft, is the second largest employer of women in emerging economies? Since a large proportion of them work from home, this is an often hidden and unregulated sector.
Post Rana Plaza, there's been more attention on garment factories, but how often do we consider outworkers - homeworkers - who are often contracted by third parties?
This week's guest is Rebecca van Bergen, founder of fab New York-based NGO, Nest. They are on a mission to “build a new handworker economy to increase global workforce inclusivity, improve women's wellbeing beyond factories, and preserve important cultural traditions around the world.”
In this interview, we discuss what it takes to make it as a social entrepreneur, the importance of practical plan as well as a big vision, the familiar story of women's work being values and what's being done about it.
Enjoying the show? Don't forget to hit subscribe, and please tell your friends! Connect with Clare on Instagram and Twitter, @mprsress
Head to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast for detailed shownotes.
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I'm sure you've heard that sustainable fashion is the thing right now. Searches on Lyst increased by 66% last year. Vogue has a sustainability editor. Slow fashion is so popular that even Zara is trying to convince us they're not a fast fashion brand.
But what does it take to make it as an independent designer working in this space? To cut through the noise to become a sustainable label people talk about? And buy?
Are hard work and dedication enough?
Nope, says Courtney Holm, the Australian designer behind buzzy independent fashion label A.BCH. She argues that new gen designers need to rethink the whole system. Holm is on a mission to revolutionise how we buy, wear and dispose of clothing.
In this interview we discuss the instinct to have a go yourself when you see something isn't being done, the importance of doing your homework and the usefulness of having a stubborn streak. And we bust the myth that size matters when it comes to being the change.
Enjoying the show? Let us know via https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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Denim is ubiquitous. Almost 2 billion pairs of jeans were sold around the world in 2017. That's a lot of jeans. It's also a lot of jeans waste.
According to The New Textiles Economy report, less than 1% of used clothing is recycled into new clothing. We're landfilling and incinerating more while at the same time decreasing clothing use over time. The new Jeans Redesign Guidelines from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation seek to solve this. Can they get everyone on board?
Enjoying the show? Let us know via https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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By 2030, we keep going as we are, the fashion industry will manufacture 102 million tons of clothes and shoes. For comparison, that's the weight equivalent of half million blue whales!
Growth is not something we like to question in the fashion industry (or indeed any industry). In our capitalist system, commercial success is measured by growth. But, how can we support infinite growth on a finite planet?
“If we could live within the limits of what we've already got, we could get a glimpse of what fashion might be like beyond consumerist obsessions,” says this week's guest, Kate Fletcher.
Kate is a professor at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion in London. She is a founding member of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion, and the author of a wonderful book called Craft of Use. In it she asks, what if we paid more attention to the tending and wearing of garments rather than their acquisition?
Enjoying the show? Let us know via https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast
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What drives us to consume, and what does over-consumption do to us and the planet?
Twenty-five-old British poet, filmmaker and activist Wilson Oryema describes himself as “a semi-retired fashion model”. He was scouted on his lunch break when he was working a London office job, and walked his first show for Margiela in Paris in 2015. He went on to appear in ads for Calvin Klein Underwear and Hugo Boss.
His first book of poetry, titled Wait, explores consumerism, contemporary culture and waste. It sprang from an art show he held in a London gallery, after he interned for his photographer friend Harley Weir.
Now, as well as writing, he's making short films about the fashion industry's impacts on the environment. Wilson says poetry is just another way to communicate his ideas to his audience, and that when he began it didn't worry him one bit that he hadn't read loads of poetry - he just gave it a go and it worked. This interview is about how we reach different people, how we story tell, and - ultimately - how we change the world.
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Cameron Saul is a British social entrepreneur and the co-founder of ethical accessories brand Bottletop. For his next trick, he's teamed up with the United Nations and Project Everyone on #TOGETHERBAND - which is all about spreading awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goals - (SDGs) - also known as the Global Goals.
“We want solutions, but what most of us don't realise is that there is a roadmap for a healthy planet, and that's the Global Goals. It's an extraordinary framework for action and for scaling solutions, and helping us achieve that healthy future for ourselves, our children and our children's children.” - Cameron Saul
Join us as we decode the Goals, and discuss where we're kicking them and where we've got a long way to go. This is an inspiring and info-packed episode - essential listening, sustainability warriors!
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Find all the links on the show-notes here.
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(Trigger warning: this interview contains a brief reference to suicide.)
This week's interview is with brilliant writer and activist Professor Jennifer Finney Boylan. Her memoir She's Not There, A Life in Two Genders is a must-read, as are her New York Times columns.
For many years, Jenny was the co-chair of GLAAD's board of directors. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender and Reproduction, and she advised and appeared on the TV series I Am Cait with Caitlin Jenner. But wait - there's more: Jennifer Boylan's big TV moment was on Oprah, and you're going to hear all about that.
We discuss the transgender experience, and the detail of Jennifer's journey. We talk about the role and limitations of clothes in communicating identity, how fashion represents status, the moral imagination, why Kris Jenner believes in the power of the stylist, and fighting bigotry in Trumpland.
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Don't miss the show-notes each week on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast - they're packed with links and extra info.
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Blue jeans were invented by Jacob Davis and Levis Strauss in the 1870s. They were worn by gold miners and cowboys, then James Dean, Marlon Brando, American teenagers and rock stars. If you want to talk about the history of cool, Levi's was there. From Debbie Harry and The Ramones to Jim Morrison - they all wore Levi's. And did you also know that Levi's introduced women's jeans in 1934, when skirts were the norm? The company has also been active raising money and awareness in the fight against AIDs since the '80s. So there's a lot to love about this brand.
But how sustainable is Levi's? This week, we hear from Levi's Vice-President of Sustainability, Michael Kobori. He started out in human rights, and joined Levi's in 1995. He's seen the conversation move from sweatshops and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to new gen materials, life cycle assessments, worker wellbeing and carbon emissions.
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Don't miss the show-notes each week on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast - they're packed with links and extra info.
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CHOOSE LIFE, EDUCATION NOT MISSILES, WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR BAN NOW, SAVE THE FUTURE, and more recently, CANCEL BREXIT...just a few of the iconic slogan T-shirts designed by this week's guest over the years.
Designer Katharine Hamnett is one of the pioneers of modern British fashion. She invented the much copied slogan T-shirt, was the first winner of the British Fashion Council's 'Designer of the Year' award (in 1984), and championed organic cotton long before it was trendy. This year marks her 40th in the industry.
In 1989, her research into fashion's environmental & social impact horrified her. She lobbied the industry to act for change, but with little success. She campaigned directly on issues such as the use of pesticides and the plight of cotton farmers, and badgered her licensees to reduce the environmental and social impact of her collections. But it was a war before its time. She took the decision to wind down her brand – ripping up licences – until production methods could meet her environmental criteria. Moving out of the mainstream industry, she concentrated on campaigning, political activism and collaborating with charities. Now the world has caught up with Katharine Hamnett - in 2017, she relaunched her business.
In this frank, intimate discussion, you get to hear it all from her glitzy early years as a designer to what motivates her to be change agent today. We talk fast fashion, climate change, her work with organic cotton, saving the bees, but also growing up in France and being comfortable with being a minority of one.
This Episode goes live on World Environment Day 2019, as Katharine Hamnett launches her latest tee. The Global Green New Deal Now T-shirt can be purchased at katharinehamnett.com and all proceeds go to support Greenpeace and their work on climate justice.
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Don't miss the show-notes each week on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast - they're packed with links and extra info.
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We don't talk very much about mindfulness in fashion, but it's not like the two are mutually exclusive. If the opposite of sustainable fashion is thoughtlessly buying more and more clothes and getting rid of them after just a few wears, then mindfulness surely has a place.
Fashion journalist Bandana Tewari is a former Vogue India editor who now writes for Business of Fashion, and speaks globally on India's rich tradition of fashion craftsmanship. This episode covers that but from a unique perspective: Bandana's been developing a theory around what we can learn from the great Indian activist Mohandas Gandhi (mahatma means high-souled in Sanskrit). It was Gandhi who lead the khadi movement, uniting Indians in opposition to British colonial rule around the issue of cotton production. How did he develop his sartorial integrity, and what can we learn from that in today's context of hyper-consumerism. As powerful argument as we ever heard in support of the idea that clothes do matter...
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Don't miss the show-notes each week on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast - they're packed with links and extra info.
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In 2011, Arizona Muse landed a Prada contract and a 14-page story in American Vogue, with Anna Wintour comparing her to Linda Evangelista and Natalia Vodianova. She's since become a familiar face on Vogue covers everywhere (including Vogue Paris, British vogue plus she's graced 3 Australian Vogue covers). But these days Arizona has new priorities.
Today she is using her platform to help the industry that she loves transition to a more sustainable future. She's been working with The Sustainable Angle, curating showcases of young sustainable designers with her friend Rebecca Corbin-Murray, and she plans to set up a consultancy.
This episode is about following your dreams, diving into new worlds, reinvention, and learning. It's the story of a woman we knew for one reason, her beauty, changing the conversation around her, to focus outward.
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Don't miss the show-notes each week on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast - they're packed with links and extra info.
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Meet the millennial behind cult New Zealand label Maggie Marilyn. We hear a lot about how the Gens Y and Z are more woke, more into sustainability and of course more worried about climate change and the environment - why wouldn't they be? These are the generations that are going to inherit the mess that's been made. They are already inheriting it.
Find out why designer Maggie Hewitt is determined to do fashion differently, how she sold her very first collection to Net-A-Porter and gets most excited about seeing her clothes worn by women she doesn't know in the street. Yep, even though Megan Markle, Kendall Jenner and Rose McGowan are fans.
The brand launched in 2016, and is Made in New Zealand. Big on pink, but never simply pretty, these clothes evoke a sense of feminine strength and speak to the designer's passion for sustainable production and materials. (BTW, who wants to move to New Zealand?!)
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Don't miss the show-notes each week on https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast - they're packed with links and extra info.
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The mainstream fashion production process is extremely wasteful. The whole system is built on over-ordering, taking a punt on how much will sell, and writing off over-production. This leads to shocking amounts of pre-consumer textiles and garments being landfilled or incinerated - according to some estimates, 1/3 of all the fashion ever produced it never sold.
Australian made-to-order T-shirt company Citizen Wolf is using big data and algorithmic power to disrupt this. And they plan to take on the world. Can it work? How did founders Zoltan Csaki and Eric Phu build it? This thought-provoking discussion looks into the fashion crystal ball to imagine a leaner, greener, more responsive manufacturing future.
For links and further reading, check out the show notes here.
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
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Fashion has a long association with craft, but what about fashion activism? Could we stitch out way to a better world?
Meet the author of How to be a Craftivist and founder of Craftivist Collective. Sarah Corbett believes, “If we want a world that is beautiful, kind and fair, shouldn't our activism be beautiful, kind and fair?”
This Episode is a call to arms for fashion change-makers, a demonstration of the persuasive nature of gentle activism, and the wonderful idea that together we might stitch a rebellion, sweep out the status quo and usher in a fairer world in fashion and beyond.
Happy Fashion Revolution Week!
For links and further reading, check out the show notes here.
Are you a craftivist? Would you like to be? We'd love to know what you think. Find Clare on Instagram & Twitter.
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As we gear up to Earth Day on April 22, we're thinking about living more lightly on the planet. This year's theme is Protect Our Species, and one of the quotes that inspired it is from Rachel Carson, who said, “In nature nothing exists alone.”
This week's podcast guest is proof of that. She is Natalie Isaacs, the super-inspiring Australian movement builder behind 1 Million Women. Natalie is one-woman powerhouse who decided to harness that power of other women - heck, the whole of womankind! - to start a lifestyle revolution to fight climate change.
We discuss connectivity, community and staying focused, plus the fact that the strangest routes can lead you to where you want to be. How did Natalie transition from cosmetics producer (and plastic polluter) to eco warrior? What kickstarted the process, and kept her going? How does she bring others along with her? And how can you?
“We as individuals and as citizens of the world have a) and obligation and b) the power," she says. "We have glorious power to act in our lives and rise above politics, because we cannot just wait for politicians and for governments to put in policies to fight climate change. We can't wait! We have to get on with it!"
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Who's up for stopping our wasteful ways and reimagining trash as a resource? This week's guest is proving fashion can be made from entirely from recycled materials.
He is Javier Goyeneche, president and founder of Ecoalf, the Spanish clothing company that pioneers high-tech new materials made from waste.
If you're a sustainability nerd, you've no doubt heard of Ecoalf. It was Spain's first B-corp and Gwyneth Paltrow is a fan - a few years back she did a collab with them for Goop.
They've developed fabrics from used coffee grounds, cotton waste from the cutting room floor, old fishing nets and car tyres and ocean plastic, and they've created a cult brand in the process, focused on timeless sporty pieces designed to last.
We've all heard of recycled poly made from discarded PET bottles, some even collected from our shorelines and beaches. But Javier set his sights on cleaning up the open ocean. The Ecoalf Foundation has partnered with thousands of fishermen in Spain and Thailand to fish for the ocean plastic that's turned into Ecoalf's Upcyle the Oceans yarn. “We're not a story-telling company, we're a story-doing company,” says Javier.
This inspiring episode is about what it takes to succeed, and how to harness big ideas. And it's a call to action: As the Ecoalf shirts say, “There is no Planet B."
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
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Have you heard that phrase: from seed to garment? Probably, right? Because most natural textiles are grown in the Earth. Around 24% of textiles are made from cotton, while hemp, linen and wool all depend on soil. But how often does fashion get its fingernails into the actual dirt?
Perhaps it ought to start, because according to the UN, globally, one third soil is degraded. If we carry on like this, we could lose all of our precious topsoil in 60 years. Fashion isn't entirely to blame, but it certainly has it's part to play.
Our guest this week is Swiss-born Londoner with a Masters degree in sustainable agriculture, who is now taking on the fashion world. Nina Marenzi runs The Sustainable Angle, which stages the Future Fabrics Expo. It's all about what she calls ‘diversifying the fibre basket' - or rethinking fashion materials.
The Expo showcases 1000s of fabrics that can help lighten fashion's environmental footprint, from organic and eco-friendly versions of our staples, to recycled synthetics right through to 3D printed seaweed and sustainable sequins.
Nina says we need to step up regenerative agriculture, organic and circular materials, and transition to textiles that have don't trash our soil, water and air, and don't pile up in landfills.
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
Links, further reading and lots more info in the shownotes. Find them here.
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Is sustainable fashion elitist? Does fashion contribute to poor body image and eating disorders by perpetuating a single, unattainable beauty ideal? What can we do about fashion's diversity problem? How do we, as consumers of fashion, navigate all this? "You can't do it all at the moment,” says this week's guest. “You have to make choices based on your values and those are your personal ethics.”
Sass Brown is an English designer, educator and the author of Eco Fashion. For many years, Sass taught at FIT in New York. She was the Founding Dean of the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI). She has purple hair, is a dedicated thrifter and has her shoes made by hand. But actually, this is not an interview about a life in fashion...
In this conversation, we focus on how fashion shapes our collective image, and how and why we allow it to dictate culture, and often get it so wrong.
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This episode is about purpose, co-creation and building a social enterprise with a friend. It's about fashion with a heart, and following your dreams. Rosario Dawson and Abrima Erwiah are Studio 189, a social enterprise fashion, lifestyle and media brand based between New York and Ghana, that won the CFDA Sustainable Fashion Initiative Award last year.
They work in countries with valuable skills but little infrastructure and limited access to markets, to help build the creative economy of the African fashion industry.
You no doubt know Rosario for her film work - she was discovered at 15 sitting on her New York stoop by Harmony Korine, who cast her in his cult hit, Kids. Since then she's been in major movies from Sin City to Men in Black to Rent. She's also an activist. In 2004 she co-founded Voto Latino, to encourage young Hispanic and Latino voters to become more politically involved. She sits on the board of Eve Ensler's V-Day's One Billion Rising, a global protest to end violence against women and promote gender equality.
Abrima studied business and her career background is in luxury - she used work for Bottega Veneta. A trip with Rosario to Eve Ensler's City of Joy in the Congo cemented her decision to work in social enterprise.
What does it take to build a business like this? How do you overcome the challenges of working in countries where the lights regularly go out, or a day off sick might mean malaria? Are we on the brink of a new era, one characterised by sharing, empathy, purpose? What sort of world do we want to shape for the next generation of women change-makers?
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
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You know it: Stella McCartney does the eco things first. Whether it's making all things green super-cool, proving non-leather accessories can compete with traditional animal leather in the luxury market, or bringing the circular fashion conversation mainstream, this fashion brand leads the way.
So who makes all this happen? There's McCartney herself, of course - the designer is a visionary greenie. But no woman is an island. Claire Bergkamp has her back.
Meet Stella McCartney's Worldwide Sustainability & Innovation Director. A self-confessed fibre nut, Claire started out as a costume designer in LA before switching lanes to study sustainability in London. There, she found her calling.
Six years ago Claire joined the Stella McCartney brand to head up sustainability; she was a team of one. Today she runs a team based in London and Italy. Her work is disruptive and tend-setting - from rethinking traditional supply chains to working with startups on new circular materials, Claire is changing the way fashion is produced. And she's lovely too.
Notebooks at the ready, there's so much to learn in this Episode.
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VOGUE once called him a “high-end scavenger”. Meet Dutch designer Ronald Van Der Kemp - the "sustainable couturier" behind RVDK. Fans include Lady Gaga and Kate Moss, Emma Watson and Lena Dunham.
While he was still in college, Ronald wrote a thesis on fashion and nature, and designed a collection using vintage materials. He then spent two decades working in luxury fashion for the likes of Barney's, Bill Blass, Guy Laroche and Celine.
Now he's come full circle. Today, brand RVDK - which shows at Paris couture week - focuses on sustainability, and uses reclaimed, vintage and archival fabric. Ronald describes his approach to couture as: “Dressing ageless strong personalities that expect exclusivity, originality and high quality.''
In this interview, recorded in his Amsterdam atelier ahead of his Spring ‘19 couture show, Clare and Ronald discuss the balancing ethics and integrity with glamour and fun. Yes, that is possible.
Check out our shownotes. Links, pics and further reading here.
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
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Meet London fashion star Amy Powney: an eco pioneer in polka dots and pearls, who grew up off-grid in a caravan and is simply not content to let fashion off the sustainability hook.
Amy is the creative director of Mother of Pearl , a British sustainable luxury womenswear brand that celebrates individuality and authenticity.
Known for its dark florals, satin bows, ruffles and outsized faux-pearl trims, you could never accuse Mother of Pearl of being homespun or beige. Amy's putting the glamour and fun into sustainable style. But she's also dead serious about making change and acting now to protect the planet.
Most brands don't talk about sustainability at all. Those that do, tend to stick to a few obvious, safe things. But Amy's all like, let's take over London Fashion Week, and convince BBC Earth to make a film about the environmental impacts of fast fashion. Let's talk seriously about the future of this planet of ours, about climate change, about water use and about what needs to happen to turn this mess around.
In this absorbing and inviting conversation, Amy and Clare discuss inclusivity, responsibility and traceability. They talk about 1970s sitcom The Good Life and how childhood shapes the adult you become. And they have a frank, honest discussion about how hard it can be to get the message across about the dire environmental situation we face, while also trying to do business and stay happy. Because happy matters.
Further reading & links - the shownotes are on the way!
Don't forget to subscribe! and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
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Fashion schools everywhere are full of eco warriors and bright, brilliant kids who are determined to do fashion differently. London is the leader. Long known for its fashion creativity, this is the capital that produces the most vibrant student shows and earth-shaking emerging designers. The big international and Paris-based design houses look to London fashion schools like Central St Martins and the London College of Fashion for their future stars - but will they be seduced?
Many in this new guard are questioning the validity of the exisiting fashion system, and asking if they want to be part of it at all. Now is a time of reinvention - young designers are redrawing fashion and re-imagining the way it might work in future.
In this Episode, we hear from 3 young London-based ones to watch: Bethany Williams, Matthew Needham and Patrick McDowell.
Find out why they care about sustainability and how they apply it to their work, what they're doing to combat fashion waste and redesign the whole system.
Further reading & links - the shownotes are here.
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
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Welcome to Series 3! This Episode is a treat! It features Orsola de Castro, is one of the warmest, most generous, most knowledgable people working in sustainable fashion today. You may know her as the cofounder, with Carry Somers, of Fashion Revolution. But did you also know that she is the queen upcycling?
In the that 1990s, after crocheting around the holes in a much-loved old jumper that she couldn't part with (although it was literally falling apart), she founded the fashion label From Somewhere. Her designs used only discarded, unloved, unwanted materials and turned them into the opposite: treasured, loved, wanted, and highly covetable.
From Somewhere was stocked in stores like Browns in London, and Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, Orsola and her man Fillipo, who was also her business partner, did collaborations with the likes of Topshop, Jigsaw and Tesco. Later, they ran Esthetica, London Fashion Week's hub for sustainable for fashion.
These days, Orsola teaches at Central St. Martins inspiring the next generation. She's an in-demand international speaker on ethical fashion, and is the Creative Director of Fashion Revolution. She is passionate about making, mending and loving clothes, and of course about upcycling, but also about treating workers with dignity, and about fashion justice.
In this conversation, we talk about it all - from seeing the world in colours, through inspiring designers, from how to reconnect with your clothes to what sort of fashion future we want to create for ourselves. Enjoy!
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.
And last, but most certainly not least, join the Fashion Revolution movement in your country. Thank you for listening.
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Livia Firth is the Creative Director of sustainability consultancy Eco-Age, and the founder of the Green Carpet Challenge and Green Carpet Fashion Awards. She is a UN Leader of Change, a founding member of Annie Lennox's women's advocacy group The Circle, and was a co-producer on Andrew Morgan's ethical fashion documentary, The True Cost. Livia is also a warm and wonderful advocate for ethical and sustainable fashion, and an absolute treat to interview. We are so grateful to Livia for kicking off this, our brand sparkling new series 3 of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast!
In Episode, Clare and Livia discuss what it means to be a fashion activist, and why the world needs more of us (yes, including you!). We cover the big stuff - garment worker dignity, living wages, social justice - and the glitzy stuff - influencers, social media and the power of fashion to change stories.
Livia shares about her childhood growing up in Italy in a pre-fast fashion world, being “a ballbreaker” and starting a business with her brother. She reveals how her eco fashion quest began: when her husband Colin Firth was up for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the Tom Ford movie A Single Man - dressing “eco” gave her a role to play. And she explains how that first challenge grew and flowered into something truly extraordinary that has seen Eco-Age become one of the biggest players in sustainable fashion. Want to change fashion for the better? This Episode is full of inspiration.
Don't miss our shownotes for links and further reading.
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From front row to front bench? Why not? It's time we stopped considering fashion as simply fluffy. The industry is a giant global employer with serious impacts on the environment, and yet it is not traditionally associated with being active in the political arena or central to government policy.
Our guest this week, on the final Episode of Series 2, is Londoner Tamara Cincik, founder of the British policy organisation Fashion Roundtable, who is derminted to change this. Her timing's pretty good.
In the UK in June, the Environmental Audit Committe (a select committee of the House of Commons) announced it would be looking in to fast fashion, inquiring into the carbon, resource use and water footprint of clothing throughout its lifecycle, and looking at how clothes can be recycled, and waste and pollution reduced.
Over the next few months, loads of industry insiders made submissions, and the mainstream headlines hummed with fashion and politics. It's about time, says Tamara, that fashion stepped up its engagement in this space, because things like Brexit and modern slavery legislation affect the industry. And, in the UK at least, MPs are currently very interested in what fashion is doing to clean up its supply chains and environmental impact.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter. Find more podcasts and the shownotes at https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/12/25/podcast-ep-67-tamara-cincik-fashion-amp-politics-brexit-amp-the-environmental-audit-committee
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“We truly believe in the power of fashion to present a pro-social message of inclusivity and positive identity." How's that for a vision statement? These are the words of Catherine Teatum and Rob Jones, AKA London fashion duo Teatum Jones.
Catherine Teatum and Rob Jones, are the London creative partners behind Teatum Jones - an inclusive, though-provoking label challenging fashion’s norms. What role can fashion play in empowering women and girls? How can we modernise fashion and make it way more inclusive? How do we smash the idea that you have to look and be a certain way to qualify as beautiful, stylish, in fashion? How come fashion ignores disability - and keeps on getting away with it? Why do designers have a responsibility in this area, and how can they maximise their positive impact?
How come fashion ignores disability - and keeps on getting away with it? Why do designers have a responsibility in this area, and how can they maximise their positive impact?
In this lively, thought-provoking Episode, we address these thorny issues and more, and have a laugh while we're at it.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter. Find more podcasts and the shownotes at https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/12/18/podcast-ep-66-teatum-jones
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Meet Indian designer Ruchika Sachdeva of Bodice Studio, the Delhi-based label that took out the 2017/18 International Woolmark Prize .
Join us as we discuss how to make it in fashion, and build a successful small business, sustainability, our need for connection and the importance of provenance and craft. We explore the rise of emerging Indian fashion talent (and no, it's not all Bollywood) and look at how can design offer solutions to fashion's waste crisis.
A recent British survey found that 25% of women have clothes lurking in their wardrobe that can't wear because they no longer fit. Extending the life of a garment by an extra nine months can reduce its environmental impact by 20 to 30%. Ruchika's collections often feature tie fastenings, and moveable pleats and buttons because she wants these clothes to last for years. She also sees designing classics as a way to mitigate against waste. “If they're too much, too loud or too trend-based, you're going to get bored of clothes more easily.”
Our shownotes are packed with links and extra information.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/12/2/podcast-ep-65-bodice-studios-ruckika-sachdevi-on-winning-the-woolmark-prize to read yours and #bethechange
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Paul van Zyl is a human rights lawyer and ethical fashion entrepreneur, who 2009 he founded Maiyet, a luxury fashion brand with a social impact purpose.
The idea was to “incorporate ancient traditions in non-traditional ways by partnering with artisans in developing economies and by sourcing material in ethical ways.” It's about creating opportunity, local entrepreneurship, prosperity, and dignity in, as Paul puts it, the places that need it most.
Maiyet partnered with Artisans in Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Sudan. They showed on the Paris fashion week schedule and they really helped shift the conversation about ethical fashion in the luxury space.
But Paul is not your obvious fashion man. His grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era, and served as the Executive Secretary of South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1995 to 1998.
In this interview we talk about what that was like and how it shaped him. We discuss the opportinities provided by the fashion industry to make positive social change, look at the rise and rise of business with purpose. Why are customers demanding more from brands? How are community values shaping fashion;'s future? And why is The Conduit the hottest private members club in London?
Our shownotes are packed with links and extra information.
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‘Single-use' was named the Word of the Year for 2018 by the Collins Dictionary. Now that we know the oceans are choking with plastics, disposable has become a dirty word. We also know, there is no away. Nothing that uses synthetic materials is ‘disposable' – it has to go somewhere. Out of site, out of mind is a total copout. But what about so-called "disposable fashion"?
Single-use fashion is perhaps a stretch – but we're not a million miles away. Clothing usability is declining. Stats vary, but according the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the average number of times a garment is worn before it ceases to be used has decreased by 36% compared to 15 years ago. In the US clothes are worn for around a quarter of the global average. The same pattern is emerging in China, where clothing utilisation has decreased by 70% over the last 15 years ago.
Do you know how much fashion we throw away?
Clothing production about doubled during that time; we now produce around 100 billion garments a year. Of the total fibre input used, 87% ends up landfilled or incinerated.
Why have we become so wasteful and how can we turn it around? This week's guest thinks we need to reconnect with fashion's soul. She is Christina Dean, fashionwaste warrior and the founder of Redress, a Hong Kong-based NGO that works to reduce fashion waste. A former journalist, Christina is also the co-author of Dress [with] Sense (a consumer guide for the conscious closet), and the hosts of documentary series, Frontline Fashion.
Our shownotes are packed with links and extra information.
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What was it like to pioneer ethical fashion before that was even a phrase? For 27 years, Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson ran the iconic Australian fashion label Easton Pearson, known for its exquisite artisanal fabrics and embellishments, colourful exuberance and sense of fun.
They are the subjects of an exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane, The Designers' Guide: Easton Pearson Archive - an invaluable resource for fashion students and fashion fans. It's also an important contribution to Australia's cultural history, which fashion absolutely should be considered a part of.
In this interview, we discuss why this Aussie icon, that sold at Browns in London and Bergdorf's in New York, was such a big deal. Pam and Lydia decode their design and making processes, and detail how they started out on the business of fashion, and kept at it for so long.
We talk about how they pioneered and centred slow fashion and ethical production in the Australian context, and also in India, where their main workshop was located. We also have a frank discussion about the challenges of running an independent, slow fashion business in a fast fashion world.
Our shownotes are packed with links and extra information.
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What does it take to break through as an emerging fashion designer today? Do sustainable designers have the edge? Who are the names to know, now?
Sara Maino is the deputy editor-in-chief of VOGUE ITALIA, and the fashion force behind VOGUE TALENTS, Vogue Green Talents and Who Is On Next?
As she told the New York Times: “You will rarely see me at the big shows, those blockbuster events with a starry front row. That is really not my scene.” Instead, Sara combs the globe meeting students, attending independent shows and scouting under-the-radar studios and showrooms.
In this Episode, recorded during Milan fashion week for Spring '19, Sara shares her insights on nurturing creativity and finding the next big thing. We discuss slow fashion, the pressures on young designers and the ways in which the industry can support new talent.
We also hear from 4 new gen talents, who are changing fashoin for good - whether by choosing recycled and eco-friendly fabrics, re-energising age-old crafts or embedding social justice and radical localism into their business models.
Meet Tiziano Guardini (winner of last year's Green Carpet Award for Best Emerging Designer), Shyma Shetty of Indian brand Huemn, denim upcycler Nathalie Ballout and print queen Sindiso Khumalo.
Check out our shownotes for masses of links and extra information - https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/11/8/podcast-ep-61-sara-maino-vogue-talents
Chat with Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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Welcome to our 60th episode! Can you believe it? This week's guest also have an anniversary to celebrate as the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion turns 10. You're going to meet its founder, academic, designer, educator and all-round sustainable fashion legend Dilys Williams.
This is a lively and thought-provoking discussion about how we might totally redesign the way the current fashion system works.
We talk about the role of the designer, the role of fashion in all our lives and how commerce fits in. We discuss the importance of being critical thinkers, fashion rebels and outspoken advocates for justice. We touch on DIY, Margaret Thatcher, The Clash, and finding your fashion identity, but also big stuff continuing the conversation that's been running through this series of the podcast about how we stand with nature, and what our obligations are to it. How do we define our struggle for sustainability?
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/10/27/podcast-ep60-dilys-williams-education-amp-the-centre-for-sustainable-fashion to read yours and #bethechange
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Meet legendary thinker, innovator, disruptor and Cradle to Cradle hero, William McDonough. Architect, designer, thought leader, and author – his vision for a future of abundance for all is helping companies and communities think differently. He was the inaugural chair of the World Economic Forum's Meta-Council on the Circular Economy and currently serves on the Forum's Global Future Council on the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security. For more than 40 years, he has defined the principles of the sustainability movement.
This interview is a must for anyone who is interested in the circular economy, or indeed just cares about the future of our planet.
We discuss why we should we view waste as a resource, and how we can transition to doing that. We talk about sustainable development, about look at how we measure society's success now, and how we might change that in future.
As Bill and his co-writer Michael Braungart write in Cradle to Cradle, “In the race for economic progress, social activity, ecological impact, cultural activity, and long-term effects can be overlooked.”
We also dig into emptiness vs. abundance. Unpick the idea of fashion as a verb. Look at how weaving and mathematics are linked. And talk about clothes and Diana Vreeland, beauty and the impotrtance of language. Bill can talk about any subject in a completely delightful way. Buckle up for a wild conversational ride.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/10/21/podcast-ep-59-william-mcdonough-fashion-is-a-verb to read yours and #bethechange
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Katrin Ley is the CEO of FASHION FOR GOOD, an Amersterdam-based organisation that was co-founded by Cradle-to-Cradle's William McDonough. They aim to bring together the entire fashion ecosystem with incentives, resources and tools for sustainability.
At Fashion For Good's core is McDonough's concept of the Five Goods, which, he says, “represent an aspirational framework we can all use to work towards a world in which we do not simply take, make, waste, but rather take, make, renew and restore.”
In interview Katrin and Clare discuss what good looks like when it comes to clothing production and circularity. Case study: the first Gold Cradle to Cradle Certified jeans and T-shirts.
There's a strong focus in this interview on innovation, new ideas and disruptors. We also explore this new age of sharing and helping each other, because, as Katrin says, if we want to change the fashion system, that's what it's going to take.
Is the fashion industry really ready for serious collaboration? What about you? How can you find your purpose? How can you align your work with your values?
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/10/6/podcast-ep-58-katrin-ley to read yours and #bethechange
Chat with Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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To say that Ellen MacArthur is a phenomenal woman is an understatement. In 2005, aged 28, she became the fastest person to sail solo, non-stop around the world. It took her 71 days, 14 hours and 18 minutes.
You're going to hear what that was like, how she stayed focused and what she learned from it. The importance of goal setting really comes through in this interview. Ellen is obviously an incredibly determined person but there's a take-away for us all here: it's about having a plan - by knowing which direction you want to go in, that's how you make stuff happen.
What's all this got to do with fashion? This is the story of how a world-record-breaking British sailor became an international advocate for the circular economy. How she created a platform, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, to encourage the global economy to transition to a system that designs out waste & pollution, keeps materials in use and regenerates natural systems. It's also the story of what that might look like, and how we can action it.
Ellen's lightbulb moment happened at sea. In parts of the Southern Ocean she was 3000 kilometres from land. If she ran out of teabags, there was no nipping to the shop to buy more. She wrote in her logs: "What I have on this boat is all I have.'” That's how it is with the Earth's finite resources too.
Last year, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched its Make Fashion Circular initiative at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit with Stella McCartney and a bunch of other big brands on board. The aim is to tackling fashion's polluting and wasteful ways and create a new system.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/9/28/podcast-ep-57-ellen-macarthur-making-fashion-circular to read yours and #bethechange
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Sometimes it can feel like sustainable fashion is a new thing, but pioneers laid the groundwork years ago. People like this week's guest, British fashion change-maker Tamsin Lejeune.
Back in 2006, Tamsin founded the Ethical Fashion Forum, a London-based industry body for sustainable fashion. Her team also brought us Source, one of the first platforms to list sustainable resources & suppliers in one place.
In the UK, it was Tamsin & her team who were running the sustainable fashion panel discussions and bringing the fledgling ethical fashion community together.
How much has changed since then? How far off is sustainable fashion from being the norm? What tools do we need TO DO FASHION BETTER?
Today, Tamsin leads a new project called Common Objective with that in mind. Think, a sustainable fashion matchmaking service, like a targeted Linkedin, or Tinder without the romance.
In this absorbing interview we discuss what's going on with fast fashion and why the model is broken. We decode the discomfort we feel when fast fashion giants launch eco capsule collections while still making most of their stuff the same old way. And we delve into the magic powers of fashion access over ownership, and the opportunities for the next generation of designers
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/9/26/podcast-ep-56-common-objectives-tamsin-lejeune-slowing-fast-fashion-amp-access-over-ownership to read yours and #bethechange
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How does an ordinary Aussie bloke go from motor-cross riding and working as a welder to setting up a social enterprise fashion business? You're going to meet James Bartle, founder of Outland Denim. This is a candid eye-opening interview about an extraordinary story.
We talk about the tough stuff: Who gets trafficked, and who does the trafficking and why? Is it possible to empathise with their desperation?
We talk about materials, and how organic and reduced waste is essential to the big picture. We talk about B Corps and value-driven business, the state of ethical fashion right now, & where the industry is improving and failing. Plus there's heaps of insights into how to set up, run and make a success of a sustainable, ethical fashion label.
This is the last of 3 shows on modern slavery. Don't miss the previous 2. We've managed to make them accessible and even inviting. No mean feat for such a tricky subject.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/9/10/podcast-ep-55-outland-denims-james-bartle-on-fighting-human-trafficking-creating-positive-opportunity to read yours and #bethechange
Chat with Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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If only all fashion was fair trade fashion. According to the Global Slavery Index 2018, fashion is one of 5 key industries implicated in modern slavery. In Australia, every year we import over $US4 billion worth of clothes and accessories at risk of being tainted by modern slavery. 40 million people globally are trapped in it, and 71 % are women.
In this Episode, we hear from ethical fashion pioneer Safia Minney, founder of People Tree and Real Sustainability, on fair trade, The True Cost, and fashion activism. Safia is very inspirational indeed.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/7/17/podcast-ep-49-safia-minney-fair-trade-fabulous to read yours and #bethechange
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According to the Global Slavery Index 2018, fashion is one of 5 key industries implicated in modern slavery. How does that happen? What can we do about it?
In this Episode, you're going to meet Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey, a British crossbench peer in the House of Lords who is active in the ethical fashion space and is working to amend the UK's Modern Slavery Act.
Modern slavery is, of course, a depressing issue but this episode is not depressing. No, no. It's got the power! It's all about unleashing your inner activist, understanding the issues and taking positive steps to do something about them - if you're an individual, they can be really small steps. If you're in business, they might be bigger ones.
Lola Young started out as an actor, went onto become a professor of cultural studies then the Head of Culture at the Greater London Authority. She's been a judge for the Orange Prize for Literature, and The Observer newspaper's Ethical Awards. In 2004 she was appointed an independent Crossbench member of the House of Lords. In 2009 she set up the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion, which she co-chairs.
What do you think about all this? Please get in touch with Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress to let us know.
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CHECK OUT OUR SHOWNOTES for all the links and more info.
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What is fashion week actually for? Is the old system tired and old-fashioned? Has it lost its purpose and reason for being? If so, what sorts events do we want to see take over? Do we need sustainable fashion weeks? Meet Evelyn Mora, the millennial change maker behind Helsinki Fashion Week.
Evelyn is on a mission to reinvent “traditional concepts of fashion week venues and the ways they present collections to buyers and press” while simultaneously “questioning the way we consume.”
She says her vision is for “circularity, sustainability and beauty” but it's also about getting rid of what's gone before. Evelyn is a change agent who likes to shake things up.
She wants fashion weeks to be super-inclusive, zero-waste, diverse, open to anyone who's interested, showcasing ONLY ethically produced and environmentally-aware collections; in short, totally different to how they used to be.
What do you think about all this? Please get in touch with Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress to let us know.
Don't forget to check the shownotes for further resources.
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How can fashion aristanship empower women? What does a fair work accessories factory look like, and how do the workers see value in the setup? How about in community hubs, where skilled artisans can work as collectives?
This is the second instalment of a 2-part series about the UN's Ethical Fashion Initiative, a flagship programme of the International Trade Centre. The EFI connects skilled artisans in places like Kenya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Afghanistan, to the international value chain of fashion, working with the likes of Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Adidas and the Australian accessories house MIMCO.
In this Episode - recorded on the ground in Nairobi, Kenya - we get to hear from the artisans themselves, and discover why Artisan Fashion now runs the organisation here as a social enterprise. And we learn how fair work can empower women - from the women themselves.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/8/18/podcast-ep-51-artisan-fashion-in-kenya to read yours and #bethechange
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Ciao Simone! Simone Cipriani is the founder of the UN's Ethical Fashion Initiative, a flagship programme of the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the UN and World Trade Organization.
The EFI connects skilled artisans in places like Kenya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Haiti and now Afghanistan, to the international value chain of fashion, working with the likes of Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Adidas and the Australian accessories house MIMCO.
Simone sees luxury fashion as a vehicle for development. He talks about ethics and aesthetics and says Sweatshops and workers trapped in an endless cycle of creating cheap fast-fashion is not true fashion. Simone believes responsibly produced fashion can help change the world for the better. Actually, he knows it can, because he started this endeavour in 2009, and nearly a decade later it's thriving and has seen thousands of people find fair and ongoing work opportunities.
This is part 1 of a 2-part series. Next week, we'll be bringing you the podcast Clare recorded in Nairobi, Kenya with the Ethical Fashion Initiative artisans.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/8/7/simone-cipriani-not-charity-work-the-un-the-ethical-fashion-initiative to read yours and #bethechange
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What to pack for an expedition to Antarctica? Or to keep yourself alive on a remote mountainside? In extreme conditions, clothes move way beyond fashion to become tools for survival.
In this Episode, you get to hang out with environmental scientist, polar explorer, author and adventurer Tim Jarvis, a man for whom pushing himself to the limits of his physical endurance is all in a day's work. But Tim doesn't undertake his incredible expeditions just to prove he's tough; he does it for a higher purpose - to spread the word about climate change, and show us how some of the remotest regions on Earth are being impacted by global warming.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/7/16/podcast-ep-50-tim-jarvis-on-climate-change-the-polar-explorers-wardrobe to read yours and #bethechange
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Can fast fashion turn circular? Can fast fashion ever be sustainable? Will circularity fundamentally change things? How about supply chain transparency, collaboration and pumping resources into textile innovation? Is all this eclipsed by the shadow of overproduction?
Swedish giant H&M is the second biggest clothing company in the world (the first is Zara.) The H&M Group comprises the H&M brand, but also COS, & Other Stories, jeans brand Cheap Monday, hyper-transparent newcomer Arket and a couple of others.
Clare caught up with Anna Gedda, Head of Sustainability at the H&M Group since 2015, at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit to ask about the company's approach to sustainability across its brands.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/7/13/podcast-ep-48-hms-head-of-sustainability-anna-gedda to read yours and #bethechange
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"Change isn't going to be easy, but there's no time to procrastinate or hope someone else is going to fix it…it's time to do something. YOU are the person you've been waiting for." — Tim Silverwood.
Australian oceans advocate Tim Silverwood is fighting plastic pollution. Why? Nearly one third of the plastic packaging we use escapes collection systems, which means that it ends up clogging our city streets and polluting our natural environment. Every year, up to 13 million tons of plastic leak into our oceans, where it smothers coral reefs and threatens vulnerable marine wildlife. The plastic that ends up in the oceans can circle the Earth four times in a single year, and it can persist for up to 1,000 years
Tim is an Australian environmentalist, surfer and plastic pollution campaigner. In Australia, you might have seen him on War on Waste, or if you have kids (or if you are one) you might have seen him at your school. He's given hundreds of talks to schools, communities and businesses on the ocean plastics issue.
This episode is all about what we can do to turn it around. Be warned: it's highly motivating!
Our interview was recorded live at the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/6/22/podcast-ep-47-ocean-plastic-warrior-tim-silverwood to read yours and #bethechange
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Lily Cole is a model turns eco-entrepreneur. She was the youngest model to appear on the cover of British Vogue, and was listed by French Vogue as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s. Her pictures, shot by some of photography's greatest names (think Tim Walker, Nick Knight, Steven Meisel) are some of the most memorable in the business, but these days Lily has other fish to fry.
An environmental advocate, actor, writer and social entrepreneur, she is the founder of Impossible.com, a B Corp that uses technology to solve social and environmental problems. It began as a platform for the gift economy and today, she says, is focused on "trying to use tech in a positive way, and doing that through collaborations."
Here, we discuss Lily's love for nature and the ways in which that informs the work she does today. We talk climate change and the power of positive messaging. We get into frameworks for business with purpose, the need to rethink how we measure success and encouraging more women to enter the tech world.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/6/23/podcast-ep-46-lily-cole to read yours and #bethechange
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You might know about ROLAND MOURET's famous "Galaxy" dress. Fitted, flattering, cap-sleeved and much-copied, it was a phenomenon in the 2000s, worn by everyone from Beyoncé and Scarlett Johansson to Demi Moore and Victoria Beckham. You might also know about another of his glamorous clients, the Duchess of Sussex who wore a chic navy Roland Mouret dress the day before her wedding to Prince Harry.
What is less well-know is the designer's strong interest in sustainability.
This is the first ever public interview with designer Roland Mouret focused on sustainability, recorded in 2018. Mouret, who is famous for his elevated, elegant womenswear, talks to Wardrobe Crisis about environmentalism, the impacts of over-consumption and the power of responsible fashion to communicate a message on climate. And how we can make sustainability hot—and not just hot right now.
We doubt there's anyone better placed to contextualise fashion's perpetuation of addictive desire than Roland Mouret. His design magic lies in making women feel amazing in his clothes. He says a dress doesn't come alive until a woman wears it.
This thought-provoking, winding conversation takes us through his life, from rural French butcher's son, to modelling for Jean Paul Gaultier and Yohji Yamamoto, to him tearing up the dance floor at legendary Paris fashion hangout Le Palace. These days, Mouret finds his balance by escaping to the country. Recorded at his head office in Mayfair, with Dave the dog in tow, we discuss change, reflection, maturing, and the idea that sustainability is now, as he puts it, “so present a problem that we have to face it.”
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/6/20/podcast-ep-45-roland-mouret to read yours and #bethechange
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London's Victoria & Albert Museum (“perhaps the world's best dressing-up box” with an archive of more than 75,000 items of clothing) takes on sustainable fashion.
The Fashioned From Nature exhibition includes amazing historical garments as well as contemporary fashion by the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Katherine Hamnett, Alexander McQueen, Christophers Kane and Raeburn, and Bruno Pieters. But most importantly, it looks at fashion's eco footprint, and the massive impacts of textile production on the planet, and asks: What can we learn from the past to design a better fashion industry for the future?
Meet curator Edwina Erhman, who specialises in 19th Century fashion and textiles, and the history of London fashion, & has worked for many years for both the V&A & the Museum of London.
This is a quote from Emma Watson, who wrote the foreword for the book of the exhibition: “Regardless of our social or economic status, we can all dress and shop more mindfully and sustainably. It is so important & timely that we now re-conceptualise what it means to wear and consume and what is fashionable.”
Everyone's talking about the 1860s muslin dress embroidered with Indian beetle wings and the earrings made from hummingbird heads (ugh)...there are items on show that to modern eyes are really macabre, but at the time were considered gorgeous and exotic. Today's human-made materials now use seem more benign, but are they?
You don't have to see the exhibition to think about these issues, to see how they play out in history and in our present, and to ask yourself, how do I want stand in nature? What do I believe nature is for? Am I part of it? If I'm inspired by it, how can I knowingly damage it for something - beautiful clothes - that's a luxury not a necessity? And what can we do to lessen fashion's impact on nature, even to make it a positive one?
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Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/6/9/podcast-ep-44-edwina-erhman-fashioned-from-nature-at-the-va to read yours and #bethechange
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Simon Collins is a creative director, educator, fashion consultant, and ex-dean of the fashion school at Parsons in New York. With his new platform Fashion Culture Design, Simon holds what he calls Unconferences where not-boring fashion people address topics such as, How do you solve a problem like fashion week? And, Can sustainability be sexy?
At an opening address of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, he famously said: "It's all your fault!" Is it? Is it down to us to make fashion more sustainable? And if so, how can we do it?
Why is fashion important? Why don't more people recognise it at such? What is fashion's power? What on Earth has all this got to do with Hemingway, or, for that matter, Britney Spears? Listen to find out, and to hear some very good stories about London style back in the day, and how fashion education has changed.
Simon was a mad fashion kid in Bournemouth and London in '80s, and we talk about what that was like, and style, and making your own outfits, dressing up to go to clubs like Taboo, & being obsessed with The Face magazine.
Our music is by Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
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Love the podcast? We have a Patreon page if you'd like to support us.
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Meet Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance. She is a campaigner for a fairer, more sustainable fashion industy in general and for the rights of models in particular.
This Episode was recorded during the Copenhagen Fashion Summit - Sara was there with model Edie Campbell and casting director James Scully to speak about the RESPECT Program. It launched with an open letter signed by more than 100 fashion models in the wake of Me Too, calling for fashion houses, media companies and model agencies to commit to “an orderly and fair process for addressing charges of abuse”, backed up with training and education initiatives.
The letter begins: “Over the past year, many courageous individuals have revealed the dark truth of sexual harassment in the fashion industry. These concerns have yet to be addressed in a meaningful and sustainable way. As models our images serve commercial purposes but our bodies remain ours.”
Proposals include stronger, enforceable workplace standards to protect underage models and ensure, for example, that they are never asked to pose nude without prior agreement; a confidential and secure complaints process; and a neutral body set up to investigate complaints. Sara says “one in five models is working in debt to her agency,” so this is not only an issue of sexual intimidation, misconduct and abuse, it's a power issue.
This is an important topic and one the industry urgently needs to address. What's being done about it? How is Sara trying to change the fashion world, and where does the urge to do that come from in her? How did she go from walking for Chanel and Alexander McQueen to being a voice for change? All this and more is in this show, and we can't wait to hear what you make of it.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/6/8/podcast-ep-37-sara-ziff-fashion-me-too-the-model-alliance to read yours and #bethechange
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She's a strong tailor, cuts a mean coat & has been a Woolmark Prize finalist. One of the most considered, creative, thoughtful designers working in Australia today, Bianca Spender also thinks deeply about sustainability & making positive impacts on people & planet with her work.
In this interview, recorded live at the recent SCCI Fashion Hub in Sydney, we discuss Bianca's approach to integrating sustainability into every aspect of her business. We talk about her use of dead stock, her design process and relationship to and obsession with nature, and what it was like to grow up in the fashion business - Bianca's mother is Carla Zampatti, who presented her first collection in Sydney in 1965.
Bianca's AW'18 collection is titled Letters to Nature and explores how we stand in Nature, literally in terms of the elements, but also existentially - what sort of world do we want to create for future generations, and how will the actions we take today impact on tomorrow? Check out her Instagram here.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/8/2/podcast-ep-41-bianca-spender-on-nature-process-creativity to read yours and #bethechange
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How can we begin to solve fashion's most pressing sustainability issues? We need collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and a willingness to look fearlessly at what's wrong as well as the opporunities for positive change. We need the movers and shakers to get involved, and stakeholders from all areas of the industry to join them. We need fresh ideas and points of view. Enter, the Copenhagen Fashion Summit.
Organisers liken the summit "the Davos of the fashion industry", and say: "it's a nexus for agenda-setting discussions on the most critical environmental, social and ethical issues facing our industry and planet.” So this is a table you want to be at! Which is why...
We are bringing you some special Episodes of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast from this year's event, starting with this one, with its very engaging CEO and president Eva Kruse.
Eva founded the summit in 2009 to coincide with United Nations summit on climate change that happened in Copenhagen that year. Very forward-thinking - at a time when it was rare for businesses to discuss sustainability in public, even if you were working away at it behind the scenes. And fashion really wasn't part of the climate change conversation.
Fast-forward nine years, and everyone wants a ticket - from designers like Stella McCartney to media leaders such as Graydon Carter, from circular economy leaders like Ellen McArthur and William McDonough, to the CEO's of the big fashion companies and the founders of small ones.
The daughter of activist parents, Eva Kruse attended a progressive Danish business school called Kaos Pilot. She fell into a TV career then went onto become a renowned magazine editor. She was instrumental in the creation of the Danish Fashion Institute and Copenhagen fashion week in 2005, and is much loved in the industry for her big ideas and, more importantly, her ability to make them happen.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/10/27/podcast-ep40-eva-kruse-copenhagen-fashion-summit to read yours and #bethechange
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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Happy listening!
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It's Met Gala time, which means your social media feeds are going to be full of who wore what. This got us thinking about the huge influence of the red carpet on fashion and pop culture, and about how it works and who, apart from the designer, creates these looks - because make no mistake, celebrities do not dress themselves at these things...
What better time to share an Episode about styling? You're going to meet New York-based fashion editor Laura Jones, who is fast carving a niche for herself as sustainable fashion's go-to creative.
An ex-MTV stylist who used to work at W magazine, Laura has dressed the likes of Alicia keys, Rebecca Hall and Naomie Harris for red carpet events, and styled names like Katie Holmes and Uma Thurman for shoots. Now she's launched new sustainable fashion magazine The Frontlash .
This is a fascinating interview, about much more than frocking up for the red rug. We dig deep on fashion's #MeToo crisis and look at how we might apply ideas of health and wellbeing to the fashion industry. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of moving the needle on sustainability when it comes to high fashion and the business of dressing for events. We talk feminism, and the politics and power games of fashion, and of course, we decode what a stylist actually does.
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
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Are you a sneaker freak? How sustainable are your favourite sneakers? If they're by cult French brand, Veja, the answer is very.
In the sustainable fashion space, we often talk about reducing the negative impacts of production on people and planet, but Veja's Sébastien Kopp and François Morillion talk about having a positive impact on the environment and society. Not less harm but active good.
Is it possible? How do you choose eco-positive materials to make sneakers? Can you make money doing it? Veja sneakers cost 5 to 7 times more than conventional brands to produce because the raw materials are environmentally friendly and purchased according to fair trade principles, and because the sneakers are produced in fair factories. How do you balance the books? Hint: you give up advertising.
What are the challenges of working this way? And what are the rewards?
In this Episode, recorded in Veja's HQ in Paris, Clare speaks with Sébastien Kopp about these questions and more. We talk: vegan shoes, Made in Brazil, agro-ecological organic cotton and wild rubber. We cover the history of colonialism in the Amazon, the definitions of success and failure and how to reshape the economic system for the better. This is a fascinating conversation with a truly original fashion thinker. And of course, he loves sneakers...
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
Our podcasts and shownotes also live here.
Love the podcast? We have a Patreon page if you'd like to support us.
We're also, as always, super grateful if for ratings and reviews on Apple - it helps new listeners to find us.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Who made your clothes? Welcome to the last in our mini-series of four shows in celebration of Fashion Revolution Week, the global not-for-for profit campaign that was established on the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, to promote transparency in the fashion industry.
You're going to meet Fashion Revolution's Head of Policy, Sarah Ditty. Sarah is based in London, and has a wealth of insights the big issues around ethical and sustainable fashion today, from modern slavery to living wages to sustainable fabrics and fashion waste and extending the life of our clothes. Why do these things matter? What can you do to help? How far have we come and what sort of fashion industry would be like to create for our future?
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2018/4/14/episode-37-fashion-revolutions-head-of-policy-sarah-ditty to read yours and #bethechange
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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Where would we be without creative collaboration? This week's Episode is all about fashion community, its power to change the world, and the idea that together we are stronger.
You're going to meet the inspiring change-maker Jackie Ruddock, CEO of The Social Outfit, a Sydney-based social enterprise and fashion brand that works with refugees and new migrants to provide first Australian jobs in the fashion industry.
What it's like to come to a new country and to try to build a new life? How can fashion help? Community and giving back are central to this story. We discuss the challenges and joys of running a social enterprise, the magic powers of sewing, and our common humanity.
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
Follow The Social Outfit
Our podcasts and shownotes also live here. Clare is on deadline for her next book, so please forgive a short delay in updating clarepress.com (All the new Eps will be updated by end of April.)
Love the podcast? We have a Patreon page if you'd like to support us. We're also, as always, super grateful if for ratings and reviews on Apple.
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This Episode is about the magical powers of the clothes swap. It's also about us having way too many clothes. And some of it is just about the charmed life of Patrick Duffy, New York's clothes swap king, and co-founder of Global Fashion Exchange.
Buy less choose well is great, but it's clearly it's not what everyone's doing. There are quite simply too many clothes in our wardrobes. Fashion resale is projected to be bigger than fast fashion within 10 years. Millennials are both the most sustainably minded and the biggest impulse buyers - they typically discard items after 1 to 5 wears. What we are seeing here is a picture of excess.
So now it's time to consider some of the more creative ways we can tackle our clothing mountains and also our appetites for fashion.
What's the haulternative?
The simplest way to extend the life of your clothes is by giving them a new owner. And the greenest way to get a mad fashion fix is to go to, or hold a fashion swap.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/5/29/podcast-35-patrick-duffy-amp-the-rise-of-the-clothes-swap to read yours and #bethechange
Music is by Montaigne.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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"By walking, we connect with the Earth" - Satish Kumar. Towards the end of 2016 two friends from Melbourne, Megan O'Malley and Gab Murphy went out for a walk. A year later, they made it home. Calling themselves Walk Sew Good they went on a epic adventure - walking 3,500 kilometres through Souh East Asia to collect and share stories from some of the people who make our clothes. They met with and interviewed more than 50 different people and organisations, made videos and wrote a blogs - and made friends. When they set out, Meg was a fashion fan, Gab not so much. How did they change, and what did they learn? And what's it really like to walk for 8-hours every day?
This show was recorded live at the Planet Talks at the WOMADelaide festival.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2020/6/28/podcast-34-walk-sew-good-discovering-positive-fashion-stories to read yours and #bethechange
Our music is by Montaigne. She's singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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We need to talk. And we need to listen. Fashion is supposed to be modern, cutting edge, leading the way. But is it? Or is it stuck in old-fashioned tropes that place white culture at its centre? Now is the time to shake things up and insist on representation and inclusivity, and we all have our parts to play. But what does diversity really mean? Are we headed in the right direction, and are we going there fast enough?
In this week's Episode, we meet Kim Jenkins, a New York-based writer, educator and authority on the intersections between fashion, race and culture. Kim teaches at both Parsons, The New School and the Pratt Institute. She also sits on the advisory board of the Model Alliance.
She specialises in the sociocultural and historical influences behind why we wear what we wear, specifically addressing how politics, psychology, race and gender shape the way we ‘fashion' our identity. Plus she's a massive vintage fan, and a serious fashion history buff.
At Parsons, Kim developed a class called Fashion & Race, which inspired this podcast. These are issues we need to be discussing more - from cultural appropriation vs. appreciation, to diversity on the runway and in imagery, through diversity and representation in all areas; not just race, but body type, age, sweeping away those old-fashioned beauty norms, all that.
This is an intriguing interview, and it's warm and beautiful and personal. You get to hear how Kim got to where she is today, what she loves and is inspired by. We talk about everything from what it was like for Kim to grow up black in a very white neighbourhood in Texas, how she found and formed her identity, why she fell in love with fashion TV, crazy Dallas style (oh the shoulder pads), and of course, where fashion has been and where it's headed. Enjoy!
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
Follow Kim Jenkins on Instagram @kimberlymjenkins
Our podcasts and shownotes also live here. Clare is on deadline for her next book, so please forgive a short delay in updating clarepress.com All the new Eps will be updated by mid-April.
Love the podcast? We have a Patreon page if you'd like to support us. We're also, as always, super grateful if for ratings and reviews on Apple.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Photographer and author Ari Seth Cohen is the creator of Advanced Style, a project devoted “to capturing the sartorial savvy of the senior set.” He says, “I feature people who live full creative lives. They live life to the fullest, age gracefully and continue to grow and challenge themselves.”
In this interview, you're going to hear all about how he began, who he met along the way, what he's learned and how he his work has helped to change the way the world looks at older women and advanced beauty. We discuss love and loss, and refusing to give up and go gently into elastic waisted pants, and of course we talk about the enduring, uplifiting power of style.
It's packed full of wisdom, but even better - it's packed full of Advanced Style ladies. From Ilona Royce Smithkin, who at 97 published a book on staying creative, to Jacquie Murdock, the former Apollo dancer who at 82 shot a Lanvin campaign, and so many more.
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
You can find all our podcasts and shownotes here.
Love the podcast? We have a Patreon page if you'd like to support us. We're also, as always, super grateful if for ratings and reviews on Apple.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
There used to be a stigma about old clothes. Whereas vintage was always cool for those in the know, until fairly recently plain second hand wasn't always so welcome. But this is changing: 30% of millennials have shopped second-hand in the last three months. Instagram is full of stylish people wearing second-hand gear. Fashion rental and resale sites are booming.
In this Episode, recorded in Paris, we meet Fanny Moizant, one of founders of Vestiaire Collective, the French ‘re-commerce' site that's seeing 30,000 designer items offered for sale each week by members of its 6 million-strong fashion community. Imagine a cross between Net-A-Porter and eBay with a bit of Instagram thrown in, so you can follow and like your favourite sellers.
This interview is a must for anyone who buys or sells secondhand anywhere. It's a ‘How to make it in fashion' episode, a tech disruptor episode, an inspirational woman episode. Fanny is a working mamma and she has heaps of great advice on female entrepreneurship. Not surprisingly, she also has fantastic style. Fanny is super chic.
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
You can find all our podcasts and shownotes here.
Love the podcast? We have a Patreon page if you'd like to support us. We're also, as always, super grateful if for ratings and reviews on Apple.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Her KITX label is a sustainable fashion standout, established to do good as well as look good.
Recorded at Kit's home in Sydney, this Episode offers a fascinating insight into what makes this revered creative tick. We cover everything from artisan craft, production hiccups, and authenticity and longevity in fashion to how trees talk to each other, and how to do your kids' slime stall sustainably. It's a joy, this one. Happy listening!
How fab is our music? THANK YOU Montaigne. She is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
You can find all our podcasts and shownotes here.
Love the podcast? We have a Patreon page if you'd like to support us. We're also, as always, super grateful if for ratings and reviews on Apple.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Meet British fashion's ruling King of Ucycling, and prepare to fall in love with his ideas.
He's a Fashion Revolution favourite who shows both mens and womenswear at London Fashion Week Men's. US Vogue says Christopher Raeburn "totally relevant" and WWD notes that right now he totally captures the Zeiteist. True that, but this is no sudden trend-driven thing. Raeburn has been creating collections sustainably since he started out a decade ago.
With his industry-leading Remade, Recycled and Reuse ethos, he is changing the way fashion works by using upcycled and deadstock textiles and repurposing army surplus materials. He's turned his studio into a place of learning, and loves a good repair, and baking bread, and watching Blue Planet, because, who doesn't?
"A collaborative, creative fashion studio where daily design meets painstaking production, alongside monthly events, discussions and workshops." That's how Christopher Raeburn describes his work world. And what an intriguing world it is.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspress
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Welcome back! We're excited to kick off Series 2 with this inspiring interview with Gosia Piatek, the fabulous force behind cult ethical fashion label Kowtow.
Decluttering, minimalism and the sustainable wardrobe are big themes in the ethical fashion conversation. But what does minimal design really mean? And what's it like to be an aesthetic minimalist with a partner who's a full-on maximalist?
In this Episode, we discuss how to build a sustainable fashion business, and the pressures of running one between London, where Gosia lives, and New Zealand, where Kowtow is based.
Gosia shares about her early life as a refugee from Poland, what it was like for her family to arrive in New Zealand knowing no one, and how she grew up a greenie.
The story of how she began her label is fascinating and unusual. Find out how she built it up, according to her values and her interests in art, architecture, craftsmanship, landscapes and travel. And how to make clothes while making a contribution to Mother Earth - enjoy!
THANK YOU for the music Montaigne. Montaigne is singing an acoustic version of Because I love You.
Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter, @mrspress
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London has Browns and Dover St Market, Milan has 10 Corso Como, New York has Jeffrey, and Paris had Collette. In Australia, the multi-brand designer fashion stores to know are Melbourne's Marais and in Sydney, Parlour X.
This Episode is about independent high fashion retail, how it works and what it does, what's happening with bricks and mortar stores, and why we need them. You're going to meet the brilliant buyer, style setter and retailer Eva Galambos, who is Parlour X's founder.
Eva is an expert on the business of fashion, and the changing landscape of retail. It's her job to partner with the brands she believes in to present their collections in store, and to choose the right stuff to stay ahead in a game that's been turned upside down in recent years by the growth of online and the rise of the flagship, where more brands are becoming vertical operations.
We talk about who decides what's on trend, the purpose of fashion shows, and what happens on a buying appointment and in the Paris showrooms. We cover the importance of longevity and timeless design, what the term ‘investment piece' really means, the pressures and opportunities of online retailing? What does luxury mean today and how is sale culture impacting it? This Episode is a must for anyone studying fashion, working in the business or just trying to figure out how it all works.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/12/4/podcast-ep-26-eva-galambos-true-luxury-the-art-of-retail to read yours and #bethechange
DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW CLARE ON INSTAGRAM FOR ALL THE WARDROBE CRISIS NEWS!
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On any given night in Australia 1 in 200 people don't have a roof over their heads. Nasir Sobhani A.K.A The Streets Barber skateboards around Melbourne giving free haircuts and shaves to homeless people as a part of his ‘Clean Cut Clean Start' movement.
Today, fashion and hairdressing live in the same world, along with makeup artistry, art direction, photography. The hair stylist on a shoot, for example, is just as important as the stylist, model or photographer. But the art of cutting hair is more fundamental, and more universally experienced, than those other disciplines.
Grooming is an animal urge and an ancient art. Razors have been found in Bronze Age and ancient Egyptian ruins. In the middle ages, barbers served as surgeons and dentists; they were literally engaged in wellness and healing.
These days it's more about counselling, though isn't it? You know the score. The intimacy of sitting in the hairdresser's or barber's chair, the human contact. Who hasn't told their hairdresser secrets?'
Okay, but this Episode is about way more than a good haircut. It's a story of addiction and redemption, the journey of an extradordinary man who, with this scissors by his side, found a vocation, changed his life and set himself to task to do some good in the world.
Nas calls the Street Barber Project, a “place where people who believe in the fundamental goodness of human beings can come to find stories, ideas, hope, community & inspiraiton in order to go out and serve in their own way.”
Check THE SHOWNOTES for links and resources from today's story.
https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/12/4/podcast-ep-25-the-streets-barber
DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW CLARE ON INSTAGRAM FOR ALL THE WARDROBE CRISIS NEWS!
Our incredible music is by Montaigne - it's an acoustic version of Because I Love You from their album Glorious Heights.
Like what you hear? Please review us in Apple, and share on social media.
Did you know we have a Patreon page ? We're so grateful to our supporters.
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Join ethical fashionista Clare Press as she asks, Do you suffer from affluenza? This week's guest, Australian economist Richard Denniss has the cure!
Richard is the author of a fascinating new book called Curing Affluenza, in which he argues that there's nothing inevitable about our current mode of consuming.
“The vast majority of humans who have ever lived (and the majority of humans alive today) would find the idea of using our scarce resources to produce things that are designed to be thrown away absolutely mad,” he writes.
We've lost sight of true value and true cost of many of the things we buy. In this Episode we explore what led us here, and how the future could be about experiences rather than stuff. We ask, what's the difference between materialism and consumerism? Do we need to reshape the economy? And, of course, what role does fashion have to play?
Check THE SHOWNOTES for links and resources from today's story.
https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/11/10/curing-affluenza
Like what you hear? Please review the show in your favourite podcast app and share on social media - find Clare here on INSTAGRAM.
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Join ethical fashionista Clare Press as she asks, What's it like to be a garment worker in Asia making clothes for high street brands in Australia and the global north?
This Episode explores one of the biggest issues around fast fashion and cheap clothing supply chains - low pay. Do we care? Do brands? And what's being done to campaign for a living wage and fair fashion?
Based on CEO pay levels of some of the big brands in Australia, it would take a Bangladeshi garment worker earning the minimum wage more than 4,000 years to earn the what CEOs get paid in just one year...
Check THE SHOWNOTES for links and resources from this ep, as well as how you can join the movement to make a difference.
Our incredible music is by Montaigne - it's an acoustic version of Because I Love You from ther album Glorious Heights.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/11/10/podcast-ep23-oxfams-what-she-makes to read yours and #bethechange
Like what you hear? Please consider reviewing the show sharing on social media.
FOLLOW CLARE ON INSTAGRAM FOR ALL THE WARDROBE CRISIS NEWS!
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Vincent Stanley is Patagonia's Director of Philosophy. (Yes, that's a thing). He has been with the outdoor gear company since 1973, when his uncle, Yvon Chouinard, gave him a job as a kid out of college.
Vincent is a deep thinker and passionate environmentalist, and a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management. He's also a poet, whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry.
With Yvon, he co-wrote the book THE RESPONSIBLE COMPANY, which is like a handbook for building a more sustainable business. Oh and hello! This is the guy who wrote the first copy for TheFootprint Chronicles - Patagonia's game-changing supply chain mapper - and along with Rick Ridgeway, worked on the much-talked-about "Don't Buy This Jacket" campaign that Patagonia ran in the New York Times in 2011.
This Episode is about the big, important issues facing our planet, and business, today: We discuss what's happening to our soils, loss of biodiversity, climate change, ocean acidification and water pollution, and the problems with over-consumption, population growth and the role of business in this challenging new world. But don't you worry, it's also fun. And awesome. And SUPER INSPIRING. Buckle up, this is a wild, challenging, and thought-provoking journey, and you're invited. Are you ready?
DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW CLARE ON INSTAGRAM FOR ALL THE WARDROBE CRISIS NEWS!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/11/6/podcast-ep-22-patagonias-vincent-stanley-on-the-big-stuff to read yours and #bethechange
Our incredible music is by Montaigne - it's an acoustic version of Because I Love You from their album Glorious Heights.
Like what you hear? Please review us in Apple, and share on social media.
Also, we're excited to announce our new Patreon page. We're so grateful to our supporters - welcome to the Wardrobe Crisis family.
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Have you got big ideas? Do you dream of starting a company that makes a difference in the world? Or working for one? Are you interested in how brands can create positive impacts in communities, beyond the boring, some would say broken, mainstream consumerism model? This Episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in social enterprises.
Blake Mycoskie is one of the most successful players in this space, and in this interview he shares the story of his company TOMS, how he built it, and what it takes to succeed.
Via its 'One for One' model, TOMS has given more than 75 million pairs of shoes to kids who need them, helped restore sight to more than 500,000 people, and supported safe birth services for more than 175,000 mothers.
This Episode is full of vital insights for changemakers who want to use their powers for social good. We discuss the essential ingredients for getting a venture like this off the ground and making it grow, what it takes to suck it up when things go wrong and the challenges and joys of building better business. Oh, and shoes. Of course we talk about shoes. This is a fashion podcast afterall...
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/10/29/podcast-ep-21-blake-mycoskie-tomss-chief-shoegiver-on-one-for-one to read yours and #bethechange
Our incredible music is by Montaigne - it's an acoustic version of Because I Love You from ther album Glorious Heights.
Like what you hear? Please review us in Apple, and share on social media.
Also, we're excited to announce our new Patreon page. We're so grateful to our supporters - welcome to the Wardrobe Crisis family!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
New Zealand designer Karen Walker is one of The Business of Fashion's 500. Her brand sells in 42 countries, in prestigious stores like Barneys New York, and Liberty of London. She is a New York fashion week veteran, with some very famous fans. Everyone from Beyoncé and Rihanna to Scarlet Johansson, Alexa Chung, Lorde, Lena Dunham, Toast the dog, oh look everyone, wears her sunglasses.
She also designs ready-to-wear, handbag, shoe and jewellery collections as well as homewares. Okay, Karen Walker is a hot brand...
But what does it take to be an ethical one too? How can successful designers incorporate sustainability and social responsibility into their business models? Karen says "ethical values of responsibility, uniqueness, quality and connection, are at the heart of what we do." What does that look like on a practical level?
Karen is engaging with all these issues.She is working with Baptist World Aid Australia on their Ethical Fashion Giude, for example, and has an ongoing collaboration with the Ethical Fashion Initiative. She is highly invested in the process of producing her products and the people who make them, but also in what it means to work as a creative in fashion today, from responsibilities around supply chains to the impacts of advertising and messaging. She also has a lot to say about the deep stuff: the purpose of design. Ultimately, what is fashion for?
We start off this interview talking about widening the lens on beauty and Advanced Style, we discuss beginnings - Karen started out by making a single men's floral shirt for a musician friend when she was 18-years-old - what's changed and what's remained the same. And we look to the future. How can fashion designers meet tomorrow's challenges?
Check out the shownotes here.
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
Enjoying the show? Please leave a review in Apple. It helps other people find us.
Also, we're excited to announce our new Patreon page. We're so grateful to our supporters.
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Yves Saint Laurent, Loulou de la Falaise, Pierre Cardin, Chanel, Givenchy, couture, prêt-à-porter and vintage shopping in the Paris flea markets, this week's Episode trés chic.
Meet Paris-based Australian-raised stylist and César-winning costume designer, Catherine Baba.Vogue calls her a “fashion eminence”. Vanity Fair? An “original”. Indeed that magazine just included her on its 2017 Best Dressed List.
She is also an accessories designer with her own line of sunglasses, a massive vintage fan and a walking fashion encyclopaedia with a particular fascination with the history of Paris fashion in the 1970s.
But best of all, she's a mad keen cycler. Could there be there a more glamorous eco-aware-transport influencer? Pas possible! Please do check the shownotes to see some delightful photos of her pedalling around Paris. Riding a bike to the fashion week shows wearing a vintage kimono, high heels or even couture? No problem, darling. “It creates an aero-dynamism to the look,” she says.
We recorded this interview at the Perth Fashion Festival soon after Yves Saint Laurent's partner Pierre Bergé died, and we drill deep into what makes Paris fashion tick and how it has changed.
This Episode is another insider's guide, a companion piece to Epsiodes 12, 13 & 14 with Simon Doonan, Stephen Jones and Linda Jackson. For anyone who loves the creativity and artistry that makes fashion tick, these shows are for you.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/10/2/podcast-ep-18-catherine-baba-cycling-in-heels to read yours and #bethechange
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
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Australia's GREAT BARRIER REEF is the largest living thing on earth. Visible from outer space, it's the size of 70 million football fields and is home to 400 different types of coral and more than 1500 species of toprical fish. It's a magical underwater garden. No wonder fashion is obsessed with its beauty.
But climate change is killing the reef, and fashion, being a major manufacturing industry, has its part to play. About 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the fashion sector.
This week we meet Tim Flannery, internationally acclaimed scientist, writer, explorer and conservationist. Actual proper legend.
Our interview was recorded at the Heron Island Research Centre 80 kilometres off the Queensland coast on an pristine part of the reef, undamaged by recent bleaching events.
It's a very special opportunity to hear from an expert on the front line of climate change science about how the whole thing works, and what can be done about it. We hope you will share the Episode with your friends and communities.
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/9/25/podcast-ep-17-tim-flannery-climate-change to check them out.
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
Enjoying the show? Please leave a review in Apple. It helps other people find us.
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This week's Episode is little different from normal. It was recorded in September at a live Q&A event at the Wheeler Centre for Books & Ideas in Melbourne, and moderated by Madeleine Morris, a reporter for ABC television's 7.30.
We touch on a whole lot of issues front and centre in an industry currently in overdrive, from slow fashion, overconsumption and waste, to what brands are doing about supply chain transparency, as well as Australia's move towards a Modern Slavery Act, the role of magazines in the fashion transparency conversation, and even how body mapping technology might reduce dead-stock.
For more on these issues, don't miss the shownotes here.
WHO'S TALKING?
Clare Press, yours truly, presenter of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast.
Clara Vuletich, a sustainable fashion consultant with a PhD in sustainable textiles, who has worked with clients such as H&M and Kering.
Rebecca Hard, CEO of Sussan. The Sussan Group is the Australian women's fashion retailer that owns retail brands Sportsgirl, Sussan and Suzanne Grae.
Jessica Perrin, one of the co-founders of Not My Style, a UK-based ethical shopping app that “tells you how much your favourite fashion brands share about how they treat the women and men who make our clothes.” The app launched after a successful Kickstarter campaign last year.
Music is by Montaigne
Enjoying the show? Clare would love to hear from you - Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/9/25/podcast-ep-16-fast-fashion-question-time to read yours and #bethechange
Please consider leaving a review in Apple. It helps other people find us!
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We live in a our throwaway society. "Landfill fashion" has become a phrase - we literally buy clothes to throw them away. With fast fashion brands dropping new stock into store sometimes as often as every week, we're consuming new clothes like never before. The average woman wears just 40 % of what's in her wardrobe, meanwhile it's cool to declutter. Or is it? Have you considered where all that "clutter" ends up when you remove it from your house?
In this Episode, fashion model and Heart People frontwoman Rachel Rutt makes the case for making mending great again! Rachel is a mad-keen mender, weaver, knitter and sewing person. She is especially excited about patching up old denim, and wants to make that a craze - why buy pre-ripped jeans? "If you wear them enough, they will get there." Authentically aged denim is much more satisfying. By mending your clothes, you deepen your connection to them, argues Rachel.
Listen to Rachel's story of being home-schooled, shaving her head as a kid, finding herself in modelling and learning to harness the creativity within. Can fashion be a beautiful, supportive place to be? It can!
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
Enjoying the show? Clare would love to hear from you - get in touch https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/9/15/podcast-ep-15-rachel-rutt-making-mending-cool
Please consider leaving a review in Apple. It helps other people find us!
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Linda Jackson is an iconic designer who, with Jenny Kee, created a new visual language for contemporary Australian fashion in the 1970s, inspired by Australia's flora, fauna and landscapes.
Until then, the Australian fashion industry had mostly looked outward, copying what Europe did. But Linda and Jenny shook that whole thing up, and the world took notice. In Sydney they engergised the fashion scene, collaborating with creative friends like Peter Tully and David McDairmid, who went on to become leading lights of the Mardis Gras movement. In Milan and Paris, they were photographed by Italian Vogue and made a big splash. In the US, they were key to Neiman Marcus's Australian Fortnight in 1986 and in London, three years later, to the V&A show Australian Fashion: The Contemporary Art.
Linda opened her Bush Couture studio in 1982 and began collaborating with Indigenous women batik artists at Utopia Station.
This Episode is about culture and respect, and valuing originality. It's also, broadly, about craft and technique and the hands-on practice of making clothes. And it's a window into another era via the story of how an arty kid from Melbourne grew up to be one of the wildest style voices of her generation.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/8/21/podcast-ep-13-linda-jackson-inventing-australian-fashion to read yours and #bethechange
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
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Stephen Jones is the most extraordinary, the most famous, and the most marvellous milliner working in fashion today.
This interview took place at the National Gallery of Victoria on the eve of the opening of the exhibition, THE HOUSE OF DIOR: SEVENTY YEARS OF HAUTE COUTURE.
During John Galliano's tenure at Dior in particular, from 1996 to 2011, Stephen made some of the house's most jaw-droppingly fabulous hats.
Stephen also designed hats and headpieces for the designers who came after Galliano at Dior: for Raf Simons and now for Maria Grazia Chiuri. He's collaborated with pretty much every other iconic fashion you can think of too, from Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo to Jean Paul Gaultier and Louis Vuitton. He's made hats for Lady Gaga and Rihanna, curated exhibitions of hats and written books on them.
In terms of the sustainable and ethical fashion conversation, this story is all about fashion as high art and the celebration of the hand-made. No mass production here.
But it's not just his own hats that fascinate Stephen Jones. He's a font of knowledge on the history of millinery, and its role in fashion and culture.
In this Episode, we touch on those things, and so much more. We talk the importance of Christian Dior and his New Look, and of the London club scene and the New Romantics that were so integral to forming Stephen's taste.
And we talk about Marie Antoinette, Anna Piaggi and Princess Di, because they were all major hats fans. And you will be too after listening to this!
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. And there are some amazing pics this week. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/9/4/podcast-ep-13-stephen-jones-hats-off-to-christian-dior to check it out.
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
Enjoying the show? Please leave a review in Apple. It helps other people find us.
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Before ecommerce changed the world, designers knew they'd made it when their collections were stocked by Saks, Bergdorf's or Barneys.
The iconic New York department stores hold a special allure, even when you live elsewhere.
But retail, globally, is in a state of flux. Will there even be physical stores in 10 or 20 years' time? As customers continue to head online, it seems like every week there's news of another “bricks and mortar” closure. In the US, analysts predict 25 % of malls could shutter within the next five years. Will we ditch consumerism on mass, as the anti-shopping / buy nothing movements expand? Will renting fashion and clothing libraries become major trends? Or is it still all about experiences?
The latter is where Simon Doonan comes in. He calls himself a carnival type, likens his celebrated window displays for Barneys New York to something out of Coney Island – and indeed he has put some very unusual objects in shop windows in his time.
Creative director, writer, fashion commentator and OTT window dresser extraordinaire, Simon Doonan is an actual proper fashion legend.
Wait till you hear how he got into it. Growing up gay and dreaming of glamour in 1960s Reading, he moved to Manchester then London in search of “the beautiful people”, cadging window dressing jobs off the likes Tommy Nutter (tailor to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones) and cult filmmaker Ken Russell's wife.
Simon was a Blitz Kid (part of the famed London party set) then moved to LA, where he did windows for luxury boutique Maxfield. In mid-80s Manhattan, he worked for Diana Vreeland at the Met, before joining Barneys, where, you know, he was JUST CASUALLY FRIENDS WITH JOAN RIVERS. And nearly starred in The Devil Wears Prada.
Simon's story is both extraordinary, and, in a weird way ordinary – in that Fashion Land has long been a place where eccentric, creative kids from small, unremarkable towns can find a home and thrive.
In this Episode we talk about his professional path, and how today's new generation of designers and dream weavers can navigate the changed fashion landscape. We discuss Simon's unwavering belief in the value of originality - ("Conformity is the only real fashion crime," he says) and some of the fashion geniuses he's encountered. And of course we talk shop.
The show notes are here:
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The ethical fashion movement is gathering momentum. Not so long ago sustainable, ethical, eco-fashion (whatever you want to call it) was a too easily dismissed as some way-out, niche concern. Something kooky, and very possibly hairy and hemp-y, that belonged on the lunatic fringe. Well, no longer. Today sustainability is a buzz word. Everyone wants a piece of the activism action. We're in the middle of a Fashion Revolution, where the coolest, smartest most creative fashion fans are starting to ask more questions about who made their clothes, where how and from what.
Podcaster Kestrel Jenkins is a pioneer in this space. She's been asking these questions since she was in college, became fascinated by fair trade, then went to intern at People Tree in London. In 2016, she launched Conscious Chatter
“I always have wanted to learn the stories behind things,” says Kestrel. Her favourite word? "Curious."
In this Episode Clare and Kestrel discuss the power of the podcast as a medium, who we think is listening and why, and how we keep them tuned in.
They share their perspectives on ethical and sustainable fashion, discuss how the conversation has changed since they both first joined it, and where they see it heading.
Read the show notes here:
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Beauty is one of the major motivators for people who work in creative industries – they want to make beautiful things, whether it's a garment, textile, show or picture. They want, as Megan Morton puts it in this Episode, to chase down true beauty wherever they see it. Not to push the beautiful lie but to try to capture and understand it.
Megan is a stylist, author and “house whisperer” with a life-long love for vintage and the stories behind old things. She grew up on a banana farm in Queensland, where her mum subscribed to 1970s back-to-the-land magazine, Grass Roots. Megan grew up seeing the beauty in nature, while figuring out how to make stuff.
Today her styling work is focused on houses and interiors, but she turns her eye for beauty on everything from her wardrobe, to teaching to travel to Instagram. She's worked for magazines like Vogue Living and Elle Decoration, and is the author of four books. The latest? It's Beautiful Here (Thames & Hudson).
In this Episode we go off on a lot of beautiful tangents about managing stress in the creative industries, the heart and soul of getting dressed, the value of vintage and the importance of the handmade. We try and pin down beauty, what it means and why we seek it, and discuss the beauty of provenance, generosity and sharing.
“Being flush and doing well affects everybody in your circle and the only way to keep that going is to be generous with your knowledge. The more you give away, the more free you are.” says Megan.
For the show notes, go to:
https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/8/6/podcast-ep-10-megan-morton-chasing-beauty
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What do you think is possible? How about impossible? Kim Pearce and Katherine Davis are living proof of the old adage: where there's a will there's a way. The Possibility Project, which they cofounded after meeting on the school run, “delivers social justice programs through the mindset of social entrepreneurship”.
What does that look like on the ground? Try their womenswear label Slumwear 108, and made in the slums of Jaipur in partnership with the NGO i-India. The number 108, in case you're wondering, is considered sacred in may eastern religions and traditions. Ask Kim what it means to her and she says, “It's all about spiritual completion.”
But these clothes and accessories aren't some mystical idea – they are real. Whether it's a jacket made from upcycled old saris or a string of silk covered beads, they offer measureable benefits to the people who make them, and to their communities.
How do you begin to set up a social enterprise? How do you keep it going? What qualities and resources do you need? These two demonstrate that it can be as simple as giving it, as we say in Australia, a red hot go. They insist that they are two ordinary mums, but their spirit and energy is obviously EXTRAORDINARY.
In this Episode, we discuss the politics of happiness, the practicalities of rethinking what's conventionally deemed possible and how fashion can be a fabulous way to build bridges. Listen up, and you'll come away thinking anything is possible.
Make sure you visit clarerepress.com for the shownotes which include a bunch of links and further reading. By the way if you're enjoying the podcast I love it you to review it in iTunes
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. Way more than just links, it's like a mini magazine!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/7/31/podcast-ep-8-the-story-of-slumwear-the-possibility-project to read yours and #bethechange
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
Enjoying the show? Please leave a review in Apple. It helps other people find us.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hands up who's over the narrow view of beauty peddled by mainstream fashion brands and media! Elisa Goodkind wants us to take back our power from magazines, advertising and the money-driven global fashion business, so that getting dressed each day becomes an act of self-love.
With their platform StyleLikeU New Yorkers Elisa and her daughter Lily Mandelbaum are breaking down the fake stereotypes about what's beautiful, and what's supposedly not.
They've published a new booked called True Style is What's Underneath: The Self-Acceptance Revolution. They take their message on the road, holding open castings and talks around the world. And they make intimate documentary-style video portraits that “explore how style is not about trends, money or presenting a façade of photoshopped perfection”.
No wonder these videos have gone viral – with over 35 million views. What comes across more than anything when you watch them is how we are all the same in our difference.
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. Way more than just links, it's like a mini magazine!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/7/22/podcast-ep-8-stylelikeus-elisa-goodkind-redefining-beauty read yours and #bethechange
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
Enjoying the show? Please leave a review in Apple. It helps other people find us.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In our final Episode for Plastic Free July, Clare interviews American visual artist Marina DeBris. Marina calls herself a “trashion” designer, as well as an environmental activist, and anti-plastics campaigner. She makes her "Beach Couture" collections from rubbish she finds washed up on beaches.
There's a history of fashion designers referencing refuse. John Galliano's controversial Couture 2000 collection for Christian Dior featured newspaper prints inspired by homeless people's makeshift blankets. Vivienne Westwood has also dabbled in derelicte chic (like Mugatu in Zoolander). Jean Paul Gaultier once made a frock out of a bin liner – he named it his “rubbish bag dress” (in French). Jeremy Scott's Autumn '17 Moschino collection was inspired by cardboard packaging. But these designers used luxurious fabrics to render the garbage theme gorgeous.
Marina comes from a very different place. She doesn't want her work to be considered chic, fabulous or fashionable. She wants it to shock you.
So there's a bustier embellished with discarded plastic utensils. A gown fashioned from the flimsy, floaty remnants of old white plastic carrier bags. She's made dresses from polystyrene containers, old nappies, bed springs, even dead bird's wings.
In this Episode we talk about why she makes her work, how she does it, and what sort of reactions she gets. Fashion can be a conduit for cultural conversation, so why not hijack it and use as a frame of reference for political art? That's what Marina does with her provocative, confronting project trashion. Can you wear it? IF YOU DARE!
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. Way more than just links, it's like a mini magazine!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/7/15/x5to0hvo3qp62hxjqrp7gw9xpb32pk to read yours and #bethechange
Music is by Montaigne http://www.montaignemusic.com.au/
Enjoying the show? Please leave a review in Apple. It helps other people find us.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Kalpona Akter is Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity. An inspirational and influential figure in the country's union movement, she is a former child labourer who began working in a garment factory at age 12.
By 17, she'd been fired for standing up for her own rights, and those of her colleagues. ‘The day they fired this noisy woman, was the day they made a big mistake,' she says.
Eighty per cent of garment workers are women, most aged between 18 and 25. Most have children and aren't paid nearly enough for their toils. The minimum wage in Bangladesh is about AUD $67 per month...
In this powerful Episode, Kalpona tells her story, explains what it's really like for the 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh, and shares her thinking on Made in Bangladesh.
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/7/11/podcast-ep-5-kalpona-akter-beyond-rana-plaza to read yours and #bethechange
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TOME is a New York-based fashion label. Designers Ramon Martin & Ryan Lobo are known for collaborating with, and taking inspiration from, female artists. This season they looked to the Guerrilla Girls for a show inspired by the Women's Marches and the Trump administration's attacks on Planned Parenthood. How can high fashion combine the pursuit of gorgeousness with serious messages about diversity and equality? What role does the runway have to play? ‘We underestimate the power of beauty and humour to help us connect,' says Ramon.
In this Episode, we discuss fashion activism, sustainability, TOME's White Shirt Project and winning fans like Amal Clooney and Sarah Jessica Parker. Getting dressed every morning is a political act. What you wear makes a statement about who you want to be and how you wish to communicate with the world around you. What's your wardrobe saying?
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. Way more than just links, it's like a mini magazine!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/6/25/podcast-ep-4-tome-designer-ramon-martin-fashion-feminism to read yours and #bethechange
Finally, if you enjoyed the show, we'd love you to leave a review on Apple.
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Dr. Jennifer Lavers sees seabirds as sentinels of marine health. Are we listening to what they're telling us? Her work as a scientist attached to the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies focuses on birdlife, but recently she's been looking to art and fashion to help get the message out too.
Jennifer appears in the new film Blue about the state of our seas. And she's working with her friend Marina De Bris, who shows her ‘trashion' concept (fashion garments made entirely from ocean plastic rubbish) on the runway.
In this Episode, Jennifer tells the story of her research on remote Henderson Island in the South Pacific and its debris-littered beaches. What happens to plastic when it enters our waters? What's the deal with bioaccumulation? Why are microplastics linked to the fashion industry? How can we turn the story of ocean plastic around?
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/6/27/podcast-ep-3-jennifer-lavers-plastic-free-july to read yours and #bethechange
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Timo Rissanen is former Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Sustainability at Parsons The New School for Design, New York. Today he is associate professor at University Technology, Sydney.
He is an expert in zero-waste fashion design, as well as a cross-stitch artist currently stitching a letter to humanity to be read 100 years from now. Oh, and he's a birdwatcher…
Timo teaches his students to rethink traditional ways of approaching design to consider the entire lifecycle of a garment, and factor in reducing waste from the outset. But it's not just about cutting waste from initial design...Of approximately 80 billion garments produced every year, about 1/3 are sold full price, 1/3 on sale, and 1/3 are never sold. Much of this surplus is destroyed.
In this Episode, Timo argues that we must conquer our cynicism and use our creativity to find solutions. The fashion industry, which he describes a ‘seemingly grotesque, wasteful, deadly', is also a source of endless possibility.
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/6/20/podcast-ep-2-timo-rissanen-design-can-save-us to read yours and #bethechange
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Ocean plastic pollution kills marine life and threatens us too - the fish eat the plastic, and we eat the fish! The UN warns that 8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year, and plastic has been detected on shorelines of all the continents. Our very first podcast guest unpacks this topic, and helps us think about solutions. And of course, there's a fashion element too...
Laura Wells is an Australian marine biologist and body positive model. She is a eco-warrior who divides her time between advocating for our imperilled oceans and modelling clothes. Why did a woman with two degrees, who thought modelling was a waste of time, decide to embrace life in front of the lens? What's the deal with the ‘plus-size' label? Why should we all get out more and embrace our wild spaces?
You're going to love listening to Laura explain her journey from ‘animal-not-loving' Sydney kid to butt-kicking saviour of our seas. You're going to love Laura full stop. Unless you've got a single-use plastics habit. Do not let Laura see you sucking on a so-called disposable coffee cup...
The WARDROBE CRISIS show notes unpack the issues addressed in each Episode. Way more than just links, it's like a mini magazine!
Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2017/6/11/podcast-episode-1-laura-wells-plastic-sucks to read yours and #bethechange
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WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press is the sustainable fashion podcast you've been waiting for.
Join ex-Vogue sustainability editor Clare and her fascinating roster of international guests as they investigate fashion's impacts on people and planet.
Who can you expect to hear from? From couture designers to scientists, economists to activists, models, influencers and inventors of new materials - if they've got a fascinating story to tell about reshaping the fashion conversation, they're here.
This podcast unzips the real issues that face the industry today, with a focus on ethics, sustainability, consumerism, activism, identity and creativity.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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