This show was recorded live at the Planet Talks at the WOMADelaide festival.
EPISODE 34 FEATURES MEGAN O’MALLEY AND GAB MURPHY
"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 South 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?
“Speaking with talented designers, weavers, dyers, sewers and more, we discovered there is reason for hope and that the clothes we choose to wear matter more than we realise. Connecting with how your clothes are made and the humans that make them really can make all the difference.”
They were inspired to set off by the example of activist Satish Kumar.
NOTES
Megan O’Malley is a fashion researcher, writer and consultant. Formerly Head of Research at (the now defunct) Project Just, she has also worked as a sustainable supply chains consultant to a number of fashion brands in Australia, Cambodia and the Middle East.
Gab Murphy is an arts graduate, active refugee and asylum seeker rights advocacy. She worked on the Strategic Plan for the Sunraysia-Mallee Ethnic Communities Council in 2015.
HUMAN STORIES “We wanted to put a face to the people who are making our clothes,” Meg says of her aim with the project. To that end, they blogged about their journey at walksewgood.com
SATISH KUMAR A former monk and long-term peace and environment activist, Satish Kumar has been quietly setting the Global Agenda for change for over 50 years. He was just nine when he left his family home to join the wandering Jains and 18 when he decided he could achieve more back in the world, campaigning for land reform in India and working to turn Gandhi’s vision of a renewed India and a peaceful world into reality.
Inspired in his early 20s by the example of the British peace activist Bertrand Russell, Satish embarked on an 8,000-mile peace pilgrimage together with E.P. Menon. Carrying no money and depending on the kindness and hospitality of strangers, they walked from India to America, via Moscow, London and Paris, to deliver a humble packet of ‘peace tea’ to the then leaders of the world’s four nuclear powers. In 1973 Satish settled in the UK, taking up the post of editor of Resurgence magazine - a position he still holds. More here.
PROJECT JUST was a US-based platform to find and purchase environmentally-friendly and ethically made clothing. It closed in 2018.
DORSU is a brand that creates essentials from fabrics that have been leftover from large factory production in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Emily Penn
MUSIC is by Montaigne, who sang this special acoustic version of “Because I love You” from her album Glorious Heights, just for us.
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Clare & the Wardrobe Crisis team x