WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press

CHECK OUT OUR SHOWNOTES for masses of extra goodness.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. The founder of People Tree is now heading up fair trade shoe brand Po-zu. She appears in The True Cost. She's an MBE, an activist, and has spoken more than once at the World Economic Forum's meetings in Davos. Safia is the author of 4 books, including her latest Slave to Fashion. Slave-free fashion is achievable, says Safia. Indeed fashion can be used to empower workers. We discuss how, the challenges and joys of working this way, how she started out - way before ethical fashion was *a thing and what makes her heart sing the

CHECK OUT OUR SHOWNOTES for masses of extra goodness.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. Don't forget to check the shownotes for further reading.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 Literatu

In 2018, what is fashion week actually for? Is the old system tired & 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? In this Episode, we meet Evelyn Mora, 26, the Finnish photographer-turned-event-producer behind Helsinki Fashion Week. This event, which happened in July in Finland's capital city, focuses on sustainability. Evelyn's 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-a

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.Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspressLove the podcast? We have a Patreon page - every little helps!We are al

Meet Simone Cipriani, 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 recor

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.Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspressEnjoy the show? Please consider rating & reviewing in Apple.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Can fast fashion ever be sustainable? Will circularity funadamentally change things? Or is it, practically speaking, too far off? 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. Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspressLove the podcast? We have a Patreon page - every little helps!We are always grateful for ratings and reviews on iTunes. You can find us on Spotify now too.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/priva

"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.Meet Tim Silverwood CEO of Take 3 for the Sea. 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. Thank you to the Australian documentary Blue for supporting this Episode.Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspressLove the podcast? We have a Patreon page - every little helps!We are always grateful for ratings and reviews on iTunes. You can fi

Lily Cole rose to fame as a model. 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 filmmaker, she is also a 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."In this lovely and intriguing Episode, 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 puropse, the need to rethink how we measure succ

You probably 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, Megan Markle, 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. He's thought deeply about this subject, and questioned everything around it, from how and why he makes things, and how that has evolved, to the impacts of over-consumption, the power of fashion to communicate a message 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 thou

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! Thw new 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. 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 sustai

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 Tab

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 p

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 ws 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.F

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 tim

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

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: v

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?Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter @mrspressFind us online www.thewardrobecrisis.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 @mrspressFollow The Social OutfitOur podcasts and shownotes also live here. Clare is on deadline for her next book, so please forgive a short delay in u

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.Music is by Montaigne. Follow Clare on Insta