This week's compelling interview is with manufacturer Shafiq Hassan, of the Echotex manufacturing facility in Gazipur, Bangladesh. Clare interviewed Shafiq in London, in September 2024, a little over month after peaceful students protests in Bangladesh toppled ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, then presiding over an increasingly corrupt and authoritarian regime.
So what's next?
“Key moments in our lives are charted by the textiles we bring close to our bodies," write curators Rebecca Evans the Leigh Robb in the catalogue to a major new exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia, RADICAL TEXTILES.
New York, London, Milan, Paris? So last season! It's time to spotlight less discussed design centres. This time, Dundee, Scotland, which is home the two emerging menswear designers you're about to meet - both recent graduates from the Jimmy Choo Academy…
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!
How is fashion connected to biodiversity loss? What is the New Nature Agenda? How can fashion take action to not just protect biodiversity, but help regenerate it?
This week’s guest Helen Crowley is Kering's head of sustainable sourcing and innovation, where she works with brands like Gucci , Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. She lives in France, but she’s an Aussie with a PhD in zoology. And this year, she’s on sabbatical with Conservation International, and is an advisor to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The WEF named 2020 the Year for Nature Action. It was to culminate in a big conference about the UN convention on biological diversity in Kunming, China in October. But the coronavirus pause doesn’t mean we get to hold off on action to protect Nature.
The second of our special COVID-19 reports looks at how fashion designers, makers and manufacturers are responding to shortages personal protective equipment, scrubs for frontline workers, and masks for all.
What is PPE? Why are there shortages? How have designers, insiders and activists around the world stepped up to produce it? Featuring British designers Phoebe English and Holly Fulton from the Emergency Designer Network, Jayna Zweiman of Masks for Humanity, PPE Volunteer, and more.
Should we all be vegan? Compassion plus regeneration is the future. You probably already know that industrialised farming is chemically intensive and a big greenhouse gas polluter - but how much do you really know about animal agriculture? About its enormous scale, the waste and the way we treat the animals that feed us, and provide leather for the fashion industry?
In this interview Philip Lymbery, CEO of Compassion in World Farming and author of Farmageddon, provides a powerful argument for a system reset.
Join ReMake asking brands to #payup! Welcome to this special report on how garment workers around the world are being impacted by COVID-19. Fashion is being severely impacted by the shutdowns. You might argue, the sustainable business is the one that survives this. But as usual, it is the worst off who bear the brunt, because they don’t have safety nets to catch them.
How is coronavirus impacting garment workers around the world? Why are activists calling for brands to #payup as factories reel under the strain of cancelled orders? And what's the outlook for a sustainable fashion industry long-term?
Featuring ReMake's Ayesha Barenblat, union and NGO leaders Kalpona Akter, Rubana Huq and William Conklin, and factory owner Mostafiz Uddin, as well as the first-hand experience of a garment worker who's been laid off, this episode is a call for brands to act responsibly.
Time to close the loop. British accessories designer Anya Hindmarch founded her eponymous label in 1987, when she was just 19. Since, then it’s grown into one of luxury fashion’s best loved labels, known for its sense of humour, joyous designs, irreverent shows and dedication to craftsmanship.
But lately Hindmarch has developed a new obsession - fighting plastic pollution. She’s a woman on a mission - to persuade people to rethink single-use plastic, and to embed circularity into her design thinking.
We won’t get through this alone. Climate change is rocking our world, but David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, has a surprising solution - love.
Can we take this enforced pause to design a better way of relating to each other and the natural world? How can we use compassion in our activism? Where can we find solidarity in solitude? This Episode is a must-listen and a balm for the soul in troubled times.
Now tackling microfibres! Fashion Revolution co-founder Carry Somers has a new mission - o get us thinking about the link between fashion and microplastic pollution.
Carry is a British fashion designer and social entrepreneur. She co-founded Fashion Revolution in 2013 in response to the Rana Plaza factory collapse. Her fair trade brand Pachacuti is known for its beautiful Panama hats. In February 2020, Carry set sail on the all-women eXXpedition from Galapagos to Easter Island to research ocean plastic pollution.
Emily Penn is a British sailor and the co-founder of eXXpedition - a series of all-women voyages exploring the impacts of plastics and toxins in our oceans. "The only way to reduce the potential impacts on human health and the environment is to reduce consumption," she says.
But where to begin? For the next two years, a total of 300 women will sail around the world on eXXpedition's voyages of discovery, to look deep into what's going on with plastic in our oceans, and try to come up with solutions.
Why XX? Women are underrepresented in science and sailing - the XX in the title refers to the female sex chromosome. Could plastic pollution be gender discriminatory? Could women suffer greater effects from it than men? Remember, pollution can bio-accumulate - the fish eat the plastic, and we eat the fish. Of the estimated 700 contaminants in our bodies, many have barely been researched.
FASHION’S NEW OBSESSION. What's driving the fashion's love affair with upcycling? And how far can it go? Might fashion stop using virgin materials completely one day? Upcyling means taking something that’s been discarded, is usually unloved and considered trash, and transforming it into something new, and of a higher quality.
It has become a major fashion buzz word, thanks to designers like Marine Serre in Paris, and even Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. But it’s the next generation that's really pushing it.
Meet three emerging designers leading the way: Londoners Maddie Williams and Helen Kirkum, and brilliant Dutch trouble maker Duran Lantink.
