Front Row To Front Bench Podcast

Our eighth #FRBookClub, between Meg Pirie and Tansy Hoskins, on Charity Shop World. Tansy spent time volunteering in a London charity shop and sorting through what people donate, including the things that never make it onto the shop floor. Her book blends diary-style notes with investigation into where our unwanted clothes actually go, who profits from them, and what that says about the UK's relationship with consumption, austerity and class.

Three things that stayed with us after the live discussion:

• Charity shops are often the first sorting point in a global waste stream, and they're paid very little for the bulk of what they receive.
• Clothing poverty is still a real issue in the UK, and the "guilt and shame" narrative around consumption rarely accounts for who can afford to donate and who needs to buy secondhand.
• Changing consumption means looking at the wider model of society and the policies that shape it, including Extended Producer Responsibility and better design standards.

Buy the book: https://www.hive.co.uk/product/tansy-e-hoskins/charity-shop-world--an-investigation-into-community-consumption-and-waste/33038616

We also discussed Fashion Roundtable's Creative Wellbeing Economy Framework: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a1431a1e5dd5b754be2e0e9/t/68223b1989ad7a29031f1c83/1747073825611/Creative+Wellbeing+Economy_Report_2025_V2AC_Revised.docx.pdf

Watch the live back: https://fashionroundtable.substack.com/p/book-club-7-meg-pirie-in-conversation

In the seventh Front Row to Front Bench book club from Fashion Roundtable, Meg Pirie talks with Professor Kate Fletcher about Fletcher's Almanac Volume 2, a pocket-sized book of short vignettes that moves through the seasons, between England, Ireland, Wales and Norway. The perfect companion to Volume 1.

Professor Kate Fletcher's work on slow-fashion, degrowth, nature and systems change has had an effect on how many of us, including Meg, think about the fashion industry.

After more than 30 years working in fashion and sustainability, Kate has turned towards storytelling, arguing that what we need is a shift in perceptual consciousness. As she puts it: "You can't unstir the coffee from the cream. You put it all in together, you can't take it back. And yet we're sort of pretending like we can."

In this episode:

• Fashion media often reinforces the illusion that clothes exist apart from ecology. What might change if every fashion story had to carry its landscape with it through a mandatory ratio of nature words
• The UK's own fibres, from wool and flax to hemp and nettles, and how to look out of the window to see what naturally suits your climate. For Meg in Wales it was nettles and wool!
• Seeing our wardrobes as a "hanging rail of capabilities."
• The need for individual work and a shift in not only perceptual consciousness but also literacy in what clothes are when they are not sponsored by an industry view of what fashion should be.

And two policy proposals worth debating:

• Mandatory month-and-year production date stamps on all clothing, to track the churn and time spent on resale platforms such as Vinted and Depop
• Recognising ecocide as a crime in international law under the Rome Statute

Kate's advice for anyone wanting to start is to begin with the clothes you already own.

Fletcher's Almanac Volume 2 is published by Quickthorn, will be released on the 1st October and is available to pre-order now. Illustrated by Stephen Fowler.

Front Row to Front Bench is the book club presented by Meg Pirie, for Fashion Roundtable, the leading fashion and textiles think tank and consultancy.

Buy the book here: https://quickthornbooks.com/products/fletchers-almanac-vol-ii?_pos=2&_sid=44e87ff16&_ss=r

Find out more about Kate's work and her other publications here: https://katefletcher.com/

In this episode, Meg Pirie sits down with House of Hackney co-founder Frieda Gormley to talk about her debut book, In the Company of Nature.

Part memoir, part manifesto, it's the extraordinary story of how a small British interiors brand became a radical case study in regenerative business, guided by nature's own blueprint for living systems.

"The old stories of unchecked growth, extraction and exploitation are beginning to crumble. In their place, new stories are emerging — stories of community, collaboration and connection." — Frieda Gormley

Buy the book here

Explore #FRBookClub here

Fashion Roundtable's 5th book club and it's a special one!

In this episode, Meg Pirie is joined by Patrick Grant from the hit BBC series The Sewing Bee - Season 12 of which aired last week! Patrick is the founder of campaigning clothing brand Community Clothing which supports local clothing and textile manufacturing across the UK. Patrick is also an outspoken advocate for radical change in the fashion industry and this comes across perfectly in his debut book, LESS, which was an instant Sunday Times bestseller – and that's what this episode centres around.

Patrick offers a hopeful vision for how rethinking our relationship with clothing could kickstart a thriving new local economy, bringing prosperity and hope back to places in our country that have lost out to globalisation – policy asks that, like Patrick, Fashion Roundtable is very hot on!

From Patrick's rescue mission of Cookson & Clegg and the ethos behind Community Clothing, to national economic policy, and back to a hand-wound watch, Patrick and Meg talk to the very shape of the book itself.

Resources mentioned in the podcast

More about Patrick's campaigning clothing brand Community Clothing

Buy the book.

Watch Season 12 of the Sewing Bee

Check out The Tin Shed Gallery on the Isle of Mull - for Patrick's famous mug reference!

Read Fashion Roundtable's Open Letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Public Procurement

Sign the letter

Today, Meg Pirie was joined by Eleanor Houghton an historian, writer, and illustrator specialising in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century dress, literature, and material culture. Eleanor has an interesting career trajectory, after reading English at Oxford, Eleanor went on to become a couture milliner, specialising in archival research. Eleanor holds a doctorate in History and is an historical costume consultant for film and television productions such as Emily and Gentleman Jack. Eleanor is the author and illustrator of 'Charlotte Brontë's Life Through Clothes', based on nine years of research into Charlotte Brontë's surviving wardrobe. In this live session, Eleanor argues that garments are primary sources that record Brontë's daily life, emotions, and identity, rather than just curiosities. In fact Charlotte Brontë's very clothes challenge the preexisting stereotypes of Charlotte as a "drab, sexless, saint-like" figure. From her corset, which is examined as a "shield" from criticism and an example of "hyper-femininity" used to navigate societal body ideals and class status, to the Industrial Revolution and resourcefulness during that time, these 150 items bore witness to Charlotte's incredible, and at times, very complex life. To find out more about Eleanor and her work, you can check out her website, Linked In, and instagram also! Buy the book here

Fashion Roundtable Book Club - Zakia Sewell, with Tamara Cincik and Meg Pirie

Today's conversation with Zakia Sewell took us from the sacred springs of Glastonbury to the history of 'Albion' as a place of refuge.

Buy the Book

'Finding Albion: Myth, folklore and the quest for a hidden Britain' by Zakia Sewell

Buy

Listen

My Albion (BBC Radio 4): The four-part series that sparked Zakia's quest

Listen

Dream Time (BBC Radio 6 Music): Catch Zakia's latest broadcasts exploring music and myth

Listen

Folklore & Activism

Right to Roam: Learn more about the campaign for land access in England and Wales

More

UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH): Read about Fashion Roundtable's work on ratifying the convention in our Creative Wellbeing Economy Framework

More

More on the writer Glennie Kindred

More

More on Our Land documentary

More

Welcome to Fashion Roundtable's second book club!

Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Network. Rob holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth, and is author of several books. Starting in lockdown Rob created the highly successful 'From What If to What Next' podcast, where he time travelled with guests to explore practical, imaginative solutions to the climate and ecological crisis.

The interview delves deeper into Rob's latest book, 'How to Fall in Love with the Future: A time traveller's guide to changing the world.'

Through the power of Rob's book, Meg Pirie and Rob Hopkins visit a 2030 resulting from our doing everything collectively that we could possibly have done. They explore how time travel and routing ourselves in the lived experience of the future help us map out a route to inspire change, the neuroscience behind this, the need to cultivate longing, the responsibilities governments and organisations have to include thinkers, dreamers and artists in decision-making, and Rob's policy wishlist.

You can watch the full interview here:

More on Rob's work here and to buy his book here

First Episode of The Fashion Roundtable Book Club featuring a Q & Q with Daisy Fancourt, author of "Art Cure - The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health" published by Penguin Books.

For this episode of the Front Row to Front Bench podcast, Alix Coombs speaks with Amelia Twine, Founder of Sustainable Fashion Week

Following a decade working in sustainability in food systems and hospitality, Amelia now works in campaigning for a just transition to an equitable, regenerative fashion industry. Amelia ran a sustainable womenswear platform before founding Sustainable Fashion Week (SFW) in 2020.

SFW works in creative community engagement to inspire consumer behaviour change, highlighting the different entry points to sustainability in fashion to make it more relevant and accessible to people from all backgrounds. SFW ignites community-led action to inspire, empower and upskill people - equipping them to change their fashion habits.

Amelia provides consultancy and project management for various organisations including The Good Clothes Show, South West England Fibreshed and is the co-chair for Fashion Roundtable's Sustainability & Social Justice Committee.

For this episode of the Front Row to Front Bench podcast, Harriet Flecther-Gilhuys speaks with Kate Turnbull from The Secret Dyery where they discuss the world of natural dyes and how they can be incorporated into supply chains and regenerative practices.

Kate Turnbull is natural dyeing practitioner, educator and advocate. She divides her time between Headington School, Oxford as Eco Lead and in her dye house in Oxfordshire, working either on her own projects or collaborations. Recent collaborations have included suspending naturally-dyed plant based fibres above the Chelsea Flower Show 'Dye Garden for Fashion Revolution', producing a unique range of naturally hand-dyed dresses for Anna Mason London and developing a natural, seasonal colour palette for a project at The Centre for Sustainability.

Kate has an MA in Fashion & Textiles from Central St Martins, is honored to be represented by The Guild of Master Craftsmen and is a member of The Society of Dyers and Colourists. In 2022 she was nominated for Teacher of the Year for designing and implementing the country's first eco A Level textiles course