Encore: The Role of Activism in the Fashion Revolution with Elizabeth Cline

Apr 18, 2025

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This episode was originally published on April 23, 2021

For updates on Elizabeth Cline's advocacy and policy work since this episode was recorded, go to her website at www.elizabethclinebooks.com

Our guest this week is Elizabeth Cline, a New York-based author, journalist, and expert on consumer culture, fast fashion, sustainability and labor rights in the apparel industry. She is the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, which was published in 2012, and which laid the foundation for the modern global ethical and sustainable fashion movement. Her most recent book, The Conscious Closet, published in 2019, describes how consumers can transform the apparel industry and change the world for the better by making more informed decisions about what they wear every day. In this episode, Elizabeth inspires slow fashion enthusiasts to move beyond the response of merely modifying their purchasing decisions, to come together with other individuals in the wider community to impact policy change through social activism. Elizabeth discusses campaigns such as Pay Up Fashion for direct relief for garment workers that have not been paid by American companies during the pandemic, and the Garment Workers Protection Act that will provide minimum wage for garment workers in California. Elizabeth encourages consumers to embrace their civic right in bringing the malpractices and inequities of the fashion industry to light, holding brands accountable for their unethical practices and therefore affecting real change in this broken system.

1:30 - It’s Fashion Revolution week!

10:00 - Elizabeth introduces herself

11:00 - Has there been much change in the last two decades in the fashion industry?

20:00 - Why are corporations not paying their factories?

28:00 - The problems in your own closet

38:00 - The PayUp Campaign

42:00 - What does The Good Dirt mean to you?

50:00 - How Farmers in West Texas inspired Elizabeth

Things Mentioned:

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Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Fast Forward Production.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray