Retail at all levels in a state of flux. What is the role of the curated fashion boutique today? In this episode recorded in 2017, Clare interviews Parlour X founder Eva Galambos.
They 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. And we talk about clothes because we both love them!
We also ask, what does luxury means today. How has oversupply and the oxymoronic concept of ‘masstige’ affected the way we view luxury fashion?
Eva says, “Luxury always meant something that you held onto forever, because of the quality, craftsmanship and the price tag. And because it was rare.” Are we losing sight of that?
This conversation is a must for anyone studying fashion, working in the business or just trying to figure out how it all works.
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?'
We're stuffocating! Too much, already. Do you suffer from affluenza? This week’s guest, has the cure.
Richard Denniss is an Australian economist and the author of Curing Affluenza, in which he argues that there’s nothing inevitable about our current mode of consuming and producing.
How does 39 cents an hour sound to you? In this SPECIAL REPORT on OXFAM AUSTRALIA'S 'WHAT SHE MAKES' CAMPAIGN, we explain a living vs. a minimum wage and tell a sobering story of garment worker exploitation.
As of January 2017, so much wealth was in the hands of so few people around the globe that just eight men held the same amount of riches as half of all humanity. Amancio Ortega is on that list. He is the founder of Inditex which owns ZARA. And of course, Zara has been in the news again for worker issues - I wrote my Sustainable Style column last week.
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, wait for it, 4,000 years to earn the what CEOs get paid in just one year.
Some of the biggest brands in Australia are enjoying enormous increases in revenue. Cotton On, for example, more than doubled its revenue between 2014 and 2016. Kmart’s revenue is also ballooning it jumped from from $4.21 billion in 2014 to $5.19 billion in the same period. And yet these profits are not trickling down to garment workers. On average, offshore workers receive about 4% of the retail price of a garment sold in Australia. What does that look like in terms of wages - we’re talking about a handful of coins. Just (AUD) 39 cents an hour.
Just, you know, poetry, economy, ecology & saving the planet… Vincent Stanley is Patagonia’s director of philosophy. He has been with Patagonia since 1973, when his uncle, Yvon Chouinard, gave him a job as a kid out of college.
He's a writer, a big reader, a deep thinker and passionate environmentalist, he's also a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management. And a poet whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry.
With Yvon, he co-wrote the book THE RESPONSIBLE COMPANY, which is like this handbook for building a more sustainable business. He is also the guy who wrote the initial text for The Footprint Chronicles - Patagonia’s game changing supply chain mapper.
Poetry, philosophy, environmentalism, population growth, cognitive dissonance activism, and the role of business in making a difference, this episode takes on THE BIG STUFF. We discuss what’s happening to our soils, loss of biodiversity, climate change, ocean acidification, water pollution. Overwhelming, yes, but what we need now is action. How do we want to live? What do we want our economy and indeed our world to look like?
Start something that matters. 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.
Not everyone is on board with the 'One for One' business model. You can read about why here, but I'd say, it's easy to criticise, isn't it? Much easier than building something ambitious and groundbreaking. Blake is the first to admit they're not perfect - in this interview, for example, he says TOMS has more work to do when it comes to its eco footprint. Eleven years on, the business is evolving. Today, it reaches goes beyond One for One (although that remains at its core) supporting things like clean water and eye health programs and working with a whole host of charity partners. I love the idea that our purchases can help make a positive difference.
Inspiring, eloquent, generous, 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, what it takes to succeed, and why he keeps going. "Our main mission is to use business to improve lives," he says.
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?
Paris Fashion 101. Catherine Barber is a stylist, fashion muse and one of the original street style stars. Vogue calls her a “fashion eminence”. Vanity Fair? An “original”. Indeed that magazine just included her on its 2017 Best Dressed List. Catherine always looks fascinating in her turbans, Louboutins and armfuls of bangles, perhaps with a 1920s robe and lamé harem pants, or a 1970s Halston jumpsuit.
She is also an accessories designer with her own line of sunglasses, a massive vintage fan and a walking fashion encyclopedia 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 a more glamorous of eco-aware-transport influencer? Pas possible! Riding a bike to the fashion week shows wearing a vintage kimono, high heels or even couture? No problem, darling. This conversation is an epic sweep through fashion history, served with a side of camp humour. Enjoy!
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 tropical 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. As a field zoologist he has discovered and named more than 30 new species of mammals (including two tree-kangaroos). His pioneering work in New Guinea prompted Sir David Attenborough to put him in the league of the world’s great explorers and the writer Redmond O’Hanlon to remark, “He’s discovered more new species than Charles Darwin.”
How fast is too fast? This week’s episode is a recording of a live panel discussion on the current state of fast fashion held at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.
Reconnect with your clothes, says model Rachel Rutt on this week’s episode. 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? Rachel makes the case for making mending great again!
Iconic Aussie fashion designer Linda Jackson, along with her friend Jenny Kee, invented a new language for modern Australian fashion in the 1970s, with their boutique Flamingo Park.
This Episode is about friendship, 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 about contemporary Australian fashion history, and some of the important creative voices that shared it.
SERIOUSLY HATTY. Stephen Jones is the most extraordinary, the most famous, and the most marvellous milliner working in fashion today. In this Episode, Clare catches up with the living legend about his decades-long working relationship with the house of Dior.
Be yourself, everybody else is taken. Growing up gay and dreaming of glamour in 1960s Reading, he moved to Manchester then London in search of what he calls “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 along the way. In La La Land, he did the windows for luxury boutique Maxfield. In mid-80s Manhattan, he worked for Diana Vreeland at the Met, before joining Barneys.
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") and some of the fashion geniuses he’s encountered. And of course we TALK SHOP…
By the power of the podcast. An insightful interview with Conscious Chatter founder Kestrel Jenkins, we discuss the power of the podcast as a medium, who we think is listening and why, and how we keep them tuned in.
We share our perspectives on ethical and sustainable fashion, discuss how the conversation has changed since we both first joined it, and where we see it heading.
We thought it was about time we talked about beauty. 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: to capture beauty, to try to 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 was raised to see 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.
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”.
This is a conversation about female friendship, social enterprise and fulfilling your potential.
STYLE LIKE U IS A PLATFORM CREATED TO CHALLENGE THE OUTDATED OLD RUBBISH ABOUT WHAT’S BEAUTIFUL AND WHAT’S NOT STILL SPRUIKED BY GLOSSY MAGS.
Founders Elisa Goodkind and her daughter Lily Mandelbaum want us to take back our power from mags, advertisers and the global fashion business, so that getting dressed each day becomes an act of self-love. Here's to a more inclusive future.
OCEAN PLASTIC IS A NIGHTMARE - BUT SOMEONE’S GOT TO SOLVE IT. MEET MARINA DEBRIS - TRASHION ACTIVIST. American visual artist Marina DeBris 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 the beaches of Los Angeles and Sydney.
There’s a history of fashion designers referencing rubbish. John Galliano's controversial Spring 2000 haute couture collection for Christian Dior featured newspaper prints inspired by the homeless people he used to jog past along the Seine river in Paris.
80 % of GARMENT WORKERS ARE WOMEN, most aged between 18 and 25. Most have children and aren't paid nearly enough for their toils. In this powerful Episode, Kalpona Akter - executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS), self-professed NOISY WOMAN, and former child labourer who began working in a garment factory at age 12 - tells her extraordinary story.
It includes dark tales of murder and danger as well as stories of resilience and hope. She explains what it’s really like for female garment workers in Bangladesh, and gives her first-hand account of the aftermath of RANA PLAZA. She shares her insights into what we, as consumers, can do. And it doesn't involve boycotting 'Made in Bangladesh'.
Getting dressed every morning is a political act says this weeks guest, fashion designer Ramon Martin. With Ryan Lobo, his label TOME is known for collaborating with, and taking inspiration from, female artists. Hear how 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? In this Episode, we discuss fashion activism, sustainability, TOME’s White Shirt Project and winning fans like Amal Clooney, EMMA WATSON 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?
THIS is what you need to know about our plastic problem. In this Episode, scientist Dr. Jennifer Lavers 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? What are MICROPLASTICS & why are they linked to the fashion industry? How can we turn the story of ocean plastic around?
You know those teachers who you never forget? The ones who ignite a passion for a particular subject in you that changes the course of your life? Timo is one of those. Former Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Sustainability at PARSONS NEW YORK, he is now associate professor and course director of Fashion and Textiles at UTS in 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 the BILLIONS of GARMENTS produced each year, up to one third 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.
Let's tackle ocean plastics, shall we? Marine biologist model Laura Wells is an ambassador for Greenpeace, 1 Million Women and Take 3 for the Sea, and divides her time between advocating for our imperilled oceans and working as one of Australia’s top body positive models.
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 and land-based natural environments. You’re going to love Laura full stop. Unless you’ve got a single-use plastics habit.
