WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press

The race offshore hollowed out the fashion and textile industries in much of Europe, the US and Australia. But if you happen to live there, chances are you've got amazing fashion skills on your doorstep but you just don't realise. While much of the infrastructure has disappeared, the talent is still there. And still coming through. When Yoox-Net-A-Porter execs visited Dumfries House, Scotland to see how The Prince’s Foundation is working to inspire and upskill young people in the textiles area, they saw an opportunity: to support fashion graduates in luxury, small-batch production and produce a very special collection in the process. They called it the Modern Artisan project.This week, Clare sits down with Jacqueline Farrell, education director at Dumfries House, and three of the eight participants in this year's Modern Artisan programme - emerging designers Isabelle Pennignton-Edmead, Emma Atherton and Emily Dey.Who doesn’t love a royal connection? So yes, The Crown, but this is really an Episode about process - how do the clothes we buy get made? What goes into it?If you can sew, could you do it? This is a lovely listen if you are studying fashion or want to. Or if you’re teaching it. But everyone who sees designer gear only once it reaches the stores, should find this insightful.Love the show? We are proudly independent, and rely on our listeners to help us stick around. Can you share the episode on social media, or write us a glowing review in Apple podcasts?Find Clare on Instagram & Twitter. More on www.thewardrobecrisis.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back! Series 8 is here ... finally! We're kicking off with a fascinating conversation about greed, excess, imagination, innovation, education and redefining sustainability for fashion. Phew.More exclusive than Chanel - because they barely produce anything you can buy? An anti-establishment fashion duo that works with royalty? Why not? Vin + Omi rewrite all the rules. They call themselves ideologists. They're also fabric inventors, creative thinkers and system-challengers. Now also feature film-makers. Hear about their manifesto, and why it includes this: “We believe it is not enough to produce a new textile or product, artwork or designs; we can do more by thinking about the origins and surroundings of each project. In our fashion work, we have no interest in following the planet damaging ways most current fashion business models are run.” Be inspired! Be outraged! Tell us your feedback, we can't wait to hear from you.Thank you for listening. Can you help us spread the word? Find Clare on Instagram & Twitter. More on www.thewardrobecrisis.comFollow the brilliant Vin + Omi here and here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fancy wearing a dress coloured sunny yellow by daffodils or a shirt dyed blue with woad? This week we're talking natural dyes and the magic of textiles derived from plants for a special episode produced with Fashion Revolution and guest-hosted by Carry Somers.Carry's talking with garden designer Lottie Delamain and natural dyes expert Kate Turnbull. Together, they've created a garden for Chelsea Flower Show "to inspire visitors to re-imagine the link between what we can grow and what we wear, showcasing creative possibilities and innovative thinking around how we can use our resources to create more sustainable solutions." They say: "Throughout history plants have played a fundamental role in fashion – as dye, as fibre and floral motifs, connecting us to a place or culture. In our global world this connection has been lost. Today our clothing is likely to be created using fossil fuels and toxic chemicals, damaging human health and nature’s ecosystems."We say: we love the power of plants!Find out more about the garden here.Follow Carry on Instagram here, Lottie here, and Kate here.Don't forget to let us know what you think! As usual, further links are on www.thewardrobecrisis.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 What comes to mind when you hear the phase: power dressing? In the 1980s, it was big news in the corporate world - with woman in big-shouldered designer suits, showing the men who was boss. But using clothes to communicate your status goes back as far as fashion does. In Ancient Rome, it meant the right to wear purple. If you were a courtier at Versailles, it meant the finest brocades. Today, you might think that if you can afford it, you can have it, but as Kim Kardashian proved at the Met Gala last week - it’s still complicated. There remain many circumstances when other people try to tell us what we can and can’t wear, and what is appropriate. “There’s always been a way of using clothes as a powerful tool,” says this week’s guest, British costume designer Jessica Worrall. In her work costuming theatre and film productions, she uses clothes to signify what characters stand for and how they fit in to the storyline. Her latest project uses digital collage art to mash up Old Masters with high fashion runway. Have the power dynamics of fashion today changed since Elizabeth I of England’s sumptuary laws dictated how who wore what? You decide. Check out Jessica’s work here.Tell Clare what you think here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earth Day is not about buying eco-friendly stuff. This year, we challenge you to put your feet in the grass or the ocean, and your credit card away (unless you’re using it to donate to an environmental charity). Let’s make Earth Day about raising our voices for better government policies to protect biodiversity and act on the climate crisis. Let’s make it about communing with the birds, insects, animals and the trees.Start here! Meet Dr Greg Moore - a botanist and 'plant mechanic' at the University of Melbourne with a specific interest in arboriculture. His passion for trees is centred around understanding how they operate and cope with their environments, and appreciating the benefits trees provide in urban spaces. In this Episode, Clare and Greg take a walk in the park to talk about the genius of trees. And you’re invited.Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcastTell us what you think on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fashion Revolution Week 2022 begins April 18th. This year's theme is Money, Fashion, Power. Why? As Fash Rev's communications manager Ruth Macglip says in this Episode's intro: "The mainstream fashion industry is built on the exploitation of people and the planet, with wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few. Basically, it’s time to reimagine the values at the heart of the fashion system and scrutinise what it is we’re really paying for.”You probably already know that the fashion industry has problems! Issues for garment workers range from low pay and unsafe working conditions through gender discrimination, bullying and intimidation, to a lack of social security or social safety nets when things go wrong. As they did - spectacularly - for so many during the pandemic.What’s the answer? Improve transparency and uphold rights, pay a living wage and ensure workers have a seat at the table while all this is discussed. In this enlightening conversation, Clare and her guest Ineke Zeldunrust, Coordinator of Clean Clothes Campaign, unpack how this might happen - and why it must.Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcastTell us what you think on Instagram:@thewardrobecrisis @mrspress@fashionrevolution @goodclothesfairpay Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Can Fashion History Teach Us About Sustainability? Which fashion figures tower over the history books? Who’s fame stands the test of time, and who gets forgotten - and why? What can we learn from wartime rationing and the Make Do & Mend movement? How was life when home-sewing used to be the norm rather than exception? What new materials rocked the runways in the 1960s, and did disposable fashion originate with a faddish paper dress?This week, we take a look at some of the sustainability angles and moral dilemmas from fashion history’s archives, with American fashion historian Rachel Elspeth Gross. It’s a conversation is full of intriguing stories from fashion’s past, that might help make sense of the present – or encourage us to look at it in new ways.Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcastTell us what you think on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspressFind Rachel @rachel.elspeth.gross Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How one company is turning greenhouse gases into a plastic alternative that biodegrades.As Scientific American points out, "carbon is the giver of life - your skin and hair, blood and bone, muscle and sinews all depend on carbon. Bark, leaf, root and flower; fruit and nut; pollen and nectar; bee and butterfly; Doberman and dinosaur—all incorporate essential carbon. Every cell in your body—indeed, every part of every cell—relies on a sturdy backbone of carbon." Carbon isn't a monster - although it's sometimes painted that way. Carbon dioxide, however, is obviously causing us serious problems. We can't keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Reducing emissions and switching to renewables are the obvious first ports of call. But might we also be able to rethink unwanted greenhouse gases as a feedstock - something useful that we could turn into a product?That's what this week's guest is proposing. Meet Mark Herrema, co-founder and CEO of Newlight Technologies, the company behind Air Carbon. He’s hoping this bio-based material will revolutionise the plastics industry. And Nike agrees...Find all the links and further reading in the shownotes at thewardrobecrisis.com/podcastTell us what you think on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We love to talk about our 2030 goals, but climate change is not some future worry – it’s here today. It’s already bringing more frequent extreme weather events, as we’ve seen in Australia recently. In late February, early March, catastrophic floods hit northern NSW and southern Queensland, after intense rain fell over the eastern seaboard. Rivers burst their banks, sending houses, roads, farms, and public buildings underwater. People died. Communications were a struggle. It some cases, it took days for the emergency services to arrive, and people were left to fend for themselves, rescuing their neighbours in whatever floated, and organising their own-off road vehicles and even helicopters.Three weeks later, it isn’t over for the thousands of affected. Beyond the mind-boggling extent of the clean-up lies a housing crisis. But this is not a gloomy interview. Our theme is radical hope. Meet Northern Rivers local Zoe Gameau, who shares how her local community, and women in particular, sprang into action to help and organise on the ground. And, yes, there’s a fashion angle – clothes take on a special meaning when you’ve lost everything.Find links and more in the shownotes here. Follow Wardrobe Crisis on Instagram. Clare is @mrspress Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you bought digital garments for your avatar yet? Would you like to? You need to listen to this! Moin Roberts-Islam is the Technology Development Manager at the Fashion Innovation Agency, at the London College of Fashion, and he’s here to answer all our questions.In this riveting interview, you’re going to hear him explain pretty much every entry level thing you need to know about how digital fashion works, why it’s exploding, what brands are doing, how gaming is involved, who is buying digital garments and why, plus we discuss the Metaverse and NFTs, and how all this relates to sustainability.Let us know what you think. Follow Clare on Instagram @mrspress @thewardrobecrisiswww.thewardrobecrisis.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.