I can't get enough of Clare Press and her hugely, likeable idiosyncratic approach to the issue of sustainable fashion. Self confessed fashion magazine junkie, she's been writing about fashion for twenty years and is the author of the book Wardrobe Crisis; How We Went From Sunday Best to Fast Fashion. Based in Australia, her podcast Wardrobe Crisis, introduces us to designers, activists and all manner of folk with a sustainable philosophy whom we may not otherwise come across.
She manages to tackle the issues in her book and through her podcast, with steely assertiveness and a lightness of touch making the prospect of actually doing something about it seem quite achievable. Clare Press has described how she has feet in both fashion camps and serves each with equal passion; she adores the world of fashion for all it's frippery and show, but has also become a respected advocate of Sustainable Fashion as well as an activist. Indeed, Australian Vogue are so impressed with how she flits between the two worlds that they created a role especially for her, Sustainability Editor-at-Large.
This podcast features English fashion designer Christopher Raeburn, tracing his time in art college when he first began de-constructing army surplus supplies to re-make into something contemporary and wearable, to his free repair service enabling people to prolong the life of their Christopher Raeburn clothing, to his community workshops in his London studios giving people the opportunity to get creative themselves, plus his use of organic cotton and PET recycled plastics.
Christopher talks about how people question what they can do as an individual, but for him 'that's the entire point. It's about what we can do ourself, but also as a collective'. And I love, as Clare Press points out, how he tells his stories and talks about the future of the planet in his own reasonable, sensible and ultimately relatable way.
Tamsin ✂️
