“When did we decide we couldn’t make stuff anymore?” asks this week’s guest, Meriel Chamberlin, the textile technologist behind Full Circle Fibres, an Australian startup producing “paddock to product” garments on-shore.

We know that the fashion industry’s climate impacts are significant, and that most of it comes down to the textile production stage. So how can we do things differently, close to home? Who needs to come together to make that happen, to share expertise, innovate, and also to fund it? How might fibre production tread more lightly on the land? Protect, or even enhance, biodiversity? These are some of the big questions driving the initiatives we’re talking about on this week’s show.

We've often covered the trouble with factories on this podcast; including issues around garment worker injustice and unfair conditions. Very important stuff! But we hardly ever hear about the excellent factories. This is an Episode about the opportunities to make fashion more sustainable at the factory level, and the skills and capabilities that already exist. That might mean some re-shoring, but it’s also an encouragement to value what's already in our backyards.

Reports of the end of textile manufacturing in so-called consuming countries are exaggerated. We've still got it! Wherever in the world you are listening, Meriel wants you to look around and recognise what you already have in terms of local skills, manufacturing & R&D capacity. Australia, for example, produces some of the world's best fibre, and there are still production facilities domestically for most stages of the supply chain. Find a gap? Might be worth working to close it before inventing a new one from scratch.

This Episode of Wardrobe Crisis is brought to you by Country Road.

COUNTRY ROAD CLIMATE FUND

The Country Road Climate Fund is a philanthropic grants program that aims to support projects that mitigate climate change, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (directly or indirectly)  and building climate resilience across four key pillars:

Biodiversity – Protecting or restoring nature (for example, a conservation project on a wool farm aimed at improving the state of biodiversity)
Circularity – Reimagining the textile life cycle from a take, make and dispose mindset to an avoid, reduce, reuse, and recycle model (for example, a project that enables garment renewal or on-shore textile recycling)
First Nations – Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led projects and partnerships (for example, a First Nations organisation working with local cotton farmers to implement traditional land management practices)
Innovation – Unique, disruptive, and game-changing technologies and ideas shifting the face of the fashion industry (for example, a technology that dramatically improves the carbon footprint of local manufacturing) .

The 2023 Climate Fund recipients were Trust for Nature, Landcare Australia and the Mud to Marle proiject led by Full Circle Fibres (scroll for the Mud to Marle story). Trust For Nature’s project involves working with woolgrowers to protect native grasslands in Northern Plains of Victoria, on the Country of the Djaara, Wemba Wemba, Yorta Yorta, Barapa Barapa, and Barengi Gadjin Peoples -which also happens to be home these little guys: critically endangered Plains-wanderers.

The major threat to the survival of the Plains-wanderer is the loss of sparse native grasslands and the condition of the grassland habitat that remains. They like it just right. If the grass cover becomes too thick or too sparse they abandon the site.

Landcare Australia’s winning project is a tool kit to help fibre farmers make informed decisions about carbon project opportunities, and accelerate their participation in the green economy. Discover more here.

Applications are now open for the 2024 Fund. Further information, including eligibility criteria, can be found here.

Interested applicants can register for updates via this link.

NOTES

FULL CIRCLE FIBRES is about “respecting the source, treading gently and creating ethical, transparent fibre & textile supply chains. We work with dedicated businesses at all stages of the supply chain to build a strong circular economy. We develop our own fibres and fabrics! We offer and supply high quality yarn and material with the full journey attached so you can create, design and provide with conscience.” They’re also a B Corp. Discover here.

Says Meriel: “Australia we have some amazing local fibre growers and textile millers but we don’t have the whole chain on shore anymore for apparel fabrics, we have to turn fibre into yarn overseas. For wool, it also needs to go overseas to be treated to be machine washable (easy care).

“Supporting our local growers and fabric mills is a thing many of us want to do. The mills that are here, are incredible, agile and always willing to give things a go, however they can’t do everything that may be on a designer’s wish list, or maybe they can do some but not all of the stages. Maybe the greige (undyed) woven or knitted cloth is bought in, ready to colour and finish it here on demand, or maybe they make some things locally and source some things with partners offshore too to offer more range to customers.” Via Circular Sourcing. More here.

MUD TO MARLE is an industry collaboration led by Full Circle Fibres, alongside Deakin University and local fibre producers including LoomTex (previously called Geelong Textiles); Ridgehaven, NSW (wool grower); and Australian Super Cotton, QLD (cotton grower).

The focus on turning lower value wool fibre into a high value product by combining it with premium cotton. The project will pilot and test proof of concept end-to-end on-shore manufacturing, including spinning, knitting, weaving and dyeing in Australia. Circularity and climate is central to this project, which in addition to using ‘lower value,’ wool fibres, will support local production and low impact production methods. The long-term aim of this project is to grow on-shore manufacturing capabilities and circular production systems within Australia.

CLIMATE IMPACTS Clare says “we know that the fashion industry’s climate impacts are significant – the low estimate is 4% of global emissions, but it could be up to 10 %. Some of that’s from shipping, some from how we wash and use our clothes, but most of it comes comes down to textile production, whether at the farm or factory level. This is also where fashion impacts biodiversity.” Where do these numbers come from? Try here.

BEYOND DESIGNER There are so many jobs in the fashion industry beyond being a designer. A FABRIC TECHNOLOGIST for example is a textile engineer - an expert in materials and manufacturing, helping organisations advance through research, innovation and quality control. Meriel gained her degree at UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), which is now part of the broader Manchester Uni.

MANCHESTER’S TEXTILE CONNECTION The industrial revolution began in Manchester at late C18ththrough importation of cotton, making it the centre of textile industry in Britain. The elevated topography and the humid climate in the east and north Manchester were ideal for establishing hydro-powered cotton mills. These cotton mills revolutionised the cloth spinning and weaving process tremendously, making Manchester the distribution centre of raw cotton, spinning yarn and finished textile goods. Gradually, Manchester became the biggest marketplace for cotton products in the world and was known as the Cottonopolis. Decline and fall? Read this. Rising again? Try this. And this from BBC.

SOCIETY OF DYERS AND COLOURISTS (SDC) Founded in 1884, this is the foremost provider of colour education, offering a range of internationally recognised coloration courses and qualifications, and the only organisation in the world able to award the Chartered Colourist status. Headquartered at Perkin House, Bradford. That’s named after William Perkin, who, as a student on his Easter break from the Royal College of Chemistry in 1856, discovered the first synthetic dyes. It was purple. And it was by accident, as these things usually are. Read his story here. Check out the SDC here.

The factory Meriel mentions in Devon that’s making TULLE for ages is Heathcoats. It was established as lacemaking factory in 1861.

Here’s an overview of the textile industry in MAURITIUS.

The MULTI-FIBRE AGREEMENT was an international trade agreement involving clothing and textiles. Established in 1974, it imposed quotas on the amount of clothing and textiles that producing countries could export to consuming ones… Meant as a temporary agreement, the MFA ended on Jan. 1, 1995, and was replaced by the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. The World Trade Organization (WTO) assumed responsibility for textile trade oversight in 2005. Anyway, what all this meant was the disappearance of many protectionist tariffs from the EU and US, cheaper clothing imports and the race offshore.

NO LOGO keeps cropping up. Dr Noki mentions it in Episode 196. Naomi Klein’s seminal book feel super relevant right now. Read it!

FARMING “Because of our fluctuating climate, lack of water in most suitable growing regions, and for various other reasons*, growing Organic Cotton in Australia currently appears to be commercially unfeasible,” notes organic Aussie brand Organature, which uses imported GOTS-certifed cotton in its clothing products. But the answer has more to do with the price of labour. Cotton Australia admits: “Organic cotton requires more intensive seasonal labour which is difficult to source and is much more expensive in Australia.” Anyway, the fact remains: we’re not producing the organic stuff domestically. So pick your battles. Here, best practice cotton is always going to be GMO.

Meriel mentions Episode 190, “Is Regenerative Farming the Answer?” with Sarah Langford. Listen here.

Meriel works with AUSTRALIAN SUPER COTTON, a Queensland farm run by Glenn Rogan and Rebecca Lindert. They use regeranative practices and are Ecobiz certified. Find them here.

FACTORIES have gotten a bad name in post-industrial countries. Writing in the Guardian UK in 2011, Aditya Chakrabortty noted: “In the past 30 years, the UK's manufacturing sector has shrunk by two-thirds, the greatest de-industrialisation of any major nation. It was done in the name of economic modernisation – but what has replaced it?“ The answer, not much. “Once the British had sold cars and ships to the rest of the world; now they could flog culture and tourism and Lara Croft.” Yet, there was a deep satisfaction about making things…

A sentiment Meriel echoes in her op ed: “Industrial Pride - we just know that 'making stuff' locally makes us feel good.” Read it here. What do you think? We’d love to hear.

In the C19th, MERTHYR TYDFIL “was one of the most important towns on the planet. Its ironworks were the biggest in the world, the smouldering, sweaty heartbeat of the industrial revolution. But when the demand for iron declined the workforce turned to coal, thousands of men clawing at the walls of South Wales’ underground corridors until one day, finally, it all came to a stop. Hopes turned to light industry. The Hoover plant in the town employed 5,000 at its peak, producing washing machines that every family for miles, including mine, was proud to own. When it shut its doors three years ago, many of the 400 remaining staff knew they would never work again.“ Via Chanel 4. More here.

JUST TRANSITION “In the 1990s, North American unions began developing the concept of just transition. Initially, trade unionists understood just transition as a program of support for workers who lost their jobs due to environmental protection policies. This is still how many outside the union movement see just transition – as focused only on softening job losses in sectors such as coal. Over time, however, just transition came to mean something much broader for unions and their partners: A deliberate effort to plan for and invest in a transition to environmentally and socially sustainable jobs, sectors and economies.” Read the OECD paper, “Just Transition, Key Concept & Principles” here

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