It's not every day you get to sit down with a proper fashion world icon and pick his brains for free! Dear listeners, you're in for a treat this week, as Clare meets the one and only Jimmy Choo. This magic name in shoe design is now professor - he runs his own fashion school, the Jimmy Choo Academy in London's Mayfair…
You might have noticed this idea gaining momentum. Ecocide refers to the mass damage and destruction of ecosystems – severe harm to nature which is widespread or long-term. The idea is to criminalise it. And it's happening! It's become national law in several countries with many more discussing it. In March, the EU passed a law that criminalises actions 'comparable to ecocide' - a revolutionary legal development; the first law of its kind to be adopted by a political entity with substantial global influence. In September, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa submitted a proposal to the International Criminal Court for recognition of ecocide as a crime.
What does all this mean for fashion? Listen to find out!
Okay, brace yourselves...
Brands love to set sustainability goals. But what if it's all nonsense? What if net zero, the obsession with carbon, and the idea that renewables are taking over from fossil fuels, are all part of a fake green fairy tale that we tell ourselves because the alternative is too difficult to imagine. Or that corporations tell us so that they can keep on with business as usual.
WTAF? We know. It's... a lot.
Is it true? You decide, after listening to this week's guest.
Carole Collet on the role of a fashion designer today. Thinking purely about gorgeous clothes is so last season. Gone are the days when designers could consider only a collection, how it will sell and what the customer might be looking for.
Forward-thinkers are already beginning to take more holistic view and adopt a living systems approach. They’re asking questions such as, Can we make like Nature makes? How might fashion create nutrients instead of waste? How can we use biomimicry in sustainable ways? Program living systems to produce bespoke products? And, how can we build a truly regenerative system in place of the current regenerative one?
Happy Secondhand September! Six years ago Oxfam UK came up with the idea of using September to encourage people to: "Shop second hand to take a stance against fast fashion and dress for a fairer world." They say it's a moment to come together “to choose a more planet-friendly way to shop, and dress for the world you want to see." This week, Clare sits down with model-thrifter-filmmaker-activist Eunice Olumide, ahead of her walking in Oxfam's LFW show.
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.
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?
