5 Episodes of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast to make you reconsider your fashion consumption
Congratulations to Clare Press on reaching 100 glorious episodes of Wardrobe Crisis. If you don’t already listen, subscribe now. Clare’s podcasts provide rare moments of good sense and clarity in the often murky world of fashion. Fashion Revolution salutes her relentless dedication, independent voice and commitment to giving a platform to the voices actively seeking to change in this industry. Happy 100th!
Why be a more conscious consumer? Clare Press has the following suggestions:
1. Because “the idea that the way to accumulate status in our society is to buy expensive stuff with money you don’t have and then throw it away, to impress other people” is completely bananas. “We throw out perfectly good functional material objects, be they shoes or pants or kitchen benchtops, because someone says they’re not fashionable anymore,” says economist Richard Deniss, in Episode #24 – Curing Affluenza. “When 8 billion people try and play that game the planet can’t cope.”
2. Because “we over-produce clothes, we underuse clothes,” says MP Mary Creagh in Episode #99. “In the UK, we buy more clothes than any other country in Europe – two suitcases per person, [or] 27 kilos a year. By comparison the Italians buy 15.”
3. Because now is the time for thoughtful fashion. “If the opposite of sustainable fashion is thoughtlessly buying more and more clothes and getting rid of them after just a few wears, then mindfulness surely has a place,” argues Indian fashion journalist Bandana Tewari in Episode 83. She quotes Gandhi, “The world has enough for everyone’s needs but not everyone’s greed,” and advocates for reconnecting with our clothes and the people who make them.
4. Because no there is no fashion on a dead planet. Trying to be a bit more sustainable, tinkering around the edges of the system but essentially carrying on with business as usual, will not save us from climate breakdown, argue Extinction Rebellion activists Sara Arnold, Will Skeaping and Clare Farrell in Episode #97
5. Because there’s a whole aspect to fashion we tend to ignore: how clothes live in our lives after we’ve acquired them. “If we could live within the limits of what we’ve already got, we could get a glimpse of what fashion might be like beyond consumerist obsessions,” argues British academic Kate Fletcher in Episode #89. She delights in the beauty of clothes as they are worn, adapted, repaired and passed down, and says: “Everyone always tries to reduce fashion to something we make and consume – I resist that!”
Clare crowdfunded the current Series 3 and series 4 is due to launch in February 2020. https://www.clarepress.com/podcast
