WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press - Fashion Revolution's Orsola de Castro - Upcycling Queen

Fashion Revolution's Orsola de Castro - Upcycling Queen

02/12/19 • 46 min

Welcome to Series 3! This Episode is a treat! It features Orsola de Castro, is one of the warmest, most generous, most knowledgable people working in sustainable fashion today. You may know her as the cofounder, with Carry Somers, of Fashion Revolution. But did you also know that she is the queen upcycling?

In the that 1990s, after crocheting around the holes in a much-loved old jumper that she couldn't part with (although it was literally falling apart), she founded the fashion label From Somewhere. Her designs used only discarded, unloved, unwanted materials and turned them into the opposite: treasured, loved, wanted, and highly covetable.

From Somewhere was stocked in stores like Browns in London, and Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, Orsola and her man Fillipo, who was also her business partner, did collaborations with the likes of Topshop, Jigsaw and Tesco. Later, they ran Esthetica, London Fashion Week's hub for sustainable for fashion.

These days, Orsola teaches at Central St. Martins inspiring the next generation. She's an in-demand international speaker on ethical fashion, and is the Creative Director of Fashion Revolution. She is passionate about making, mending and loving clothes, and of course about upcycling, but also about treating workers with dignity, and about fashion justice.

In this conversation, we talk about it all - from seeing the world in colours, through inspiring designers, from how to reconnect with your clothes to what sort of fashion future we want to create for ourselves. Enjoy!

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.

Follow Orsola here and here.

And last, but most certainly not least, join the Fashion Revolution movement in your country. Thank you for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.

Follow Orsola here and here.

And last, but most certainly not least, join the Fashion Revolution movement in your country. Thank you for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Livia Firth, Eco-Age & the Green Carpet

Livia Firth is the Creative Director of sustainability consultancy Eco-Age, and the founder of the Green Carpet Challenge and Green Carpet Fashion Awards. She is a UN Leader of Change, a founding member of Annie Lennox's women's advocacy group The Circle, and was a co-producer on Andrew Morgan's ethical fashion documentary, The True Cost. Livia is also a warm and wonderful advocate for ethical and sustainable fashion, and an absolute treat to interview. We are so grateful to Livia for kicking off this, our brand sparkling new series 3 of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast!

In Episode, Clare and Livia discuss what it means to be a fashion activist, and why the world needs more of us (yes, including you!). We cover the big stuff - garment worker dignity, living wages, social justice - and the glitzy stuff - influencers, social media and the power of fashion to change stories.

Livia shares about her childhood growing up in Italy in a pre-fast fashion world, being “a ballbreaker” and starting a business with her brother. She reveals how her eco fashion quest began: when her husband Colin Firth was up for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the Tom Ford movie A Single Man - dressing “eco” gave her a role to play. And she explains how that first challenge grew and flowered into something truly extraordinary that has seen Eco-Age become one of the biggest players in sustainable fashion. Want to change fashion for the better? This Episode is full of inspiration.

Don't miss our shownotes for links and further reading.

Follow Clare on Instagram and Twitter, and join the conversation.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

New Power Generation - London's Rising Fashion Stars

Fashion schools everywhere are full of eco warriors and bright, brilliant kids who are determined to do fashion differently. London is the leader. Long known for its fashion creativity, this is the capital that produces the most vibrant student shows and earth-shaking emerging designers. The big international and Paris-based design houses look to London fashion schools like Central St Martins and the London College of Fashion for their future stars - but will they be seduced?

Many in this new guard are questioning the validity of the exisiting fashion system, and asking if they want to be part of it at all. Now is a time of reinvention - young designers are redrawing fashion and re-imagining the way it might work in future.

In this Episode, we hear from 3 young London-based ones to watch: Bethany Williams, Matthew Needham and Patrick McDowell.

Find out why they care about sustainability and how they apply it to their work, what they're doing to combat fashion waste and redesign the whole system.

Further reading & links - the shownotes are here.

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast in Apple, and join the conversation on social media. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.