Conscious Style Podcast

For our first-ever Conscious Fashion Collective Membership panel discussion, we discussed a topic that is often taboo in the slow fashion space — money! We believe that financial sustainability is essential for creating a more just, and sustainable, fashion ecosystem with thriving businesses that care about people and the planet.

Financial sustainability is essential for creating a more just, and sustainable, fashion ecosystem with thriving businesses that care about people and the planet. But how do you go about actually making money in this space, especially when you care about not overproducing? Money-making is a topic that is all-too-often taboo in the slow fashion space, but our panelists Dani Des Roches, Mahdiyyah Muhammad, Jacqueline Schumann, and Aiste Zitnikaite are unpacking their experiences, transparently, in this episode!

How can fashion take action right now for a net positive future?

From climate and biodiversity to worker livelihoods and fair wages to overconsumption and textile waste, the gaps between where we need to be and where we are right now feel… vast.

But in this episode, we're discussing ways that fashion act right now — like tomorrow — on 5 key pillars that encompass both people and planet. These are areas where the research, and tools are readily available, even for implementing at a large scale.

Ahead you'll hear my conversation with Holly Syrett, the Impact Programmes and Sustainability Director at Global Fashion Agenda, a nonprofit organization that accelerates measurable impact in the fashion industry.

We have reached the 100th episode of the podcast! For the past 100 episodes, at the end of each episode we have asked our guests the same question: What would a better future for fashion look like, to you?

This question is important, because it sums up exactly why the podcast exists in the first place — to unpack exactly what it will take to cultivate a sustainable and equitable future for fashion.

To celebrate this 100 episode milestone, we decided to mark the occasion by sharing a montage of some of our favorite answers, from guests we have had on the show, over the years. Plus, we are sharing a few listener answers to this question too. And, right at the end, we’ll share our reflections on the topic as well.

Enjoy listening to these visionary — yet practical — answers. Hopefully they’ll give you some food for thought and reflection points for your own relationship with fashion. And thank you for tuning in to celebrate 100 episodes with us!

As you might have noticed, we are just one episode away from the 100th episode of the podcast! We're starting the celebrations early and changing up the usual format with this episode. Instead of interviewing a guest, this week we’re sharing 10 lessons we’ve learned from 100 episodes of the podcast that features interviews with some of the most inspiring changemakers in the fashion industry.

Is it green... or just greenwashing?

This week, we’re sharing a recap of a few Green or Greenwashing topics we covered this season! Green or Greenwashing is a segment on the podcast where we evaluate if a certain sustainability measure is more green or whether it veers into more of the greenwashing territory. These Green or Greenwashing segments were previously published at the end of some prior episodes.

The first segment we are resharing is whether third-party resale sites should ban fast fashion after a decision from Vestiaire Collective to do so. Then we will move into a recording where we discuss whether we really need "climate adaptive clothing". Finally, we evaluate if recycled polyester is truly circular.

Policy is an important lever in creating a better, more sustainable, and equitable fashion system. But if we only focus on policy that explicitly talks about the fashion industry and sustainability, we may be missing some opportunities.

In today's episode, Elizabeth speaks with fashion policy expert Kenya Wiley.

Kenya is sharing behind the scenes on the processes behind legislation and regulation — and even explaining the difference between the two terms — and some of the current policies in the works that could involve fashion that the fashion industry isn't talking about. These could be potential needle movers to cleaning up fashion, but aren't being taken advantage of right now.

Kenya is also discussing the much-anticipated Green Guides from the Federal Trade Commission to help reduce greenwashing, what recent US Supreme Court decisions mean for the fashion industry, a funding opportunity for sustainability-minded fashion organizations, and more.

After learning about climate emotions, and seeing climate doomism proliferated in the media, Stella knew she wanted to have Isaias on the show to unpack this and understand how it's connected to the fashion industry.

In this episode, Isaias Hernandez (who you might also know as @queerbrownvegan on social media) unpacks the complexity of climate emotions and the harms of climate doomism narratives, and discusses why “evidence-based hope” is essential for reorienting action and working towards equitable solutions for the fashion industry - and how we can all cultivate this hope in our own lives.

Hit play to dive in!

Carbon neutral. Net zero. Carbon positive. You may have been seeing more and more claims like these lately from companies, including fashion brands. But in today's Green or Greenwashing episode, we’re diving deeper, beyond the surface of these claims, to see if they really can be trusted. Many of these carbon neutrality claims are asserted based on the company purchasing carbon offsets.

This episode was inspired by the UK watchdog, Advertising Standards Authority, recently banning advertisements that claim products are carbon neutral through using offsets due to a growing concern that these claims are misleading consumers.

This isn’t just about the fashion industry, but in case you missed it: many fashion brands are using these sorts of claims, especially as global awareness grows around fashion's environmental impact, including its carbon emissions.

You may have seen various estimates of fashion's contribution to global carbon emissions ranging from 2 to 10 percent. The Apparel Impact Institute’s latest report puts that number at 1.8 percent.

The reality is that the majority of fashion brands do not disclose their full emissions. Fashion Revolution's 2023 Transparency Index found that less than half (43 percent) of brands publish their annual value chain carbon emissions. So we're at the basics here. Over half of brands aren't even telling us what their carbon emissions are.

When Fashion Revolution says “value chain”, they mean the full supply chain. So not just the corporate offices, but how these brands make their clothes.

Many factories involved with textile production and garment and footwear production are still reliant on fossil fuels, like coal. About two-thirds of textiles are fossil fuel-derived synthetics like polyester. Brands are reliant on polluting shipping methods, and some — especially fast fashion brands — use the speedy but very carbon-intensive shipping method of air freight.

So fashion should absolutely be talking about reaching carbon neutrality and decarbonization. But the question is: should their method of using carbon offsets be celebrated?

Let’s get into the episode!

How can we reimagine the traditional role of fashion designers in a world filled with fashion waste? And how can we rethink our primary role as consumers in a way that allows us to become contributors to collective wellbeing instead?

It’s no secret that we live in a world with far too much clothing. If we are to work towards a more sustainable fashion industry, we need to unpack the ways that fashion brands and designers can pivot away from the mainstream business model of take-make-waste and embrace alternative sustainable fashion business models that limit waste. And our mindset as consumers plays a pivotal role in this too.

In this episode, we hear from Mahdiyyah Muhammad who is a sustainable fashion designer, circular fashion strategist, and educator. We’re talking about the realities of designing, building a business, and engaging with fashion and style in our current fashion system where all we need is less — less resource extraction, less consumption, less clothing waste, less focus on passing trends, and less exclusivity.

But, as you will hear from Mahdiyyah, to make this happen, we need more community. Cultivating community is essential for sharing resources and ideas, and creating meaningful connections, as well as making the slow fashion movement more accessible and inclusive.

Hit play to dive in!