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
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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