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 sha...
Feb 08, 2023•45 min•Season 8Ep. 176
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 ...
Jan 25, 2023•45 min•Season 8Ep. 175
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...
Jan 18, 2023•51 min•Season 8Ep. 174
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...
Jan 11, 2023•49 min•Season 8Ep. 173
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 an...
Dec 21, 2022•53 min•Season 8Ep. 172
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. Wher...
Dec 14, 2022•41 min•Season 8Ep. 171
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 Midl...
Dec 07, 2022•50 min•Season 8Ep. 170
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...
Dec 01, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 8Ep. 169
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 featu...
Nov 23, 2022•49 min•Season 8Ep. 168
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 we...
May 25, 2022•50 min•Season 7Ep. 167
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...
May 12, 2022•48 min•Season 7Ep. 166
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 Univ...
Apr 20, 2022•59 min•Season 7Ep. 165
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 in...
Apr 13, 2022•47 min•Season 7Ep. 164
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 sustainabilit...
Apr 06, 2022•54 min•Season 7Ep. 163
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 ...
Mar 30, 2022•52 min•Season 7Ep. 162
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 d...
Mar 23, 2022•57 min•Season 7Ep. 161
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 di...
Mar 16, 2022•45 min•Season 7Ep. 160
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 Instag...
Mar 09, 2022•50 min•Season 7Ep. 159
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 w...
Mar 02, 2022•44 min•Season 7Ep. 158
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 Can...
Feb 23, 2022•41 min•Season 7Ep. 157
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 socia...
Feb 16, 2022•49 min•Season 7Ep. 156
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 dee...
Feb 09, 2022•45 min•Season 7Ep. 155
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 cance...
Feb 02, 2022•52 min•Season 7Ep. 154
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? ...
Jan 26, 2022•54 min•Season 7Ep. 153
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 ...
Dec 06, 2021•56 min•Season 6Ep. 152
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 Wo...
Oct 16, 2021•49 min•Season 6Ep. 151
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 clog...
Sep 29, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 6Ep. 150
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 a...
Sep 03, 2021•42 min•Season 6Ep. 149
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 ...
Aug 19, 2021•39 min•Season 6Ep. 148
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 ...
Aug 12, 2021•52 min•Season 6Ep. 147
