Welcome to the fourth series of Creative Conversations with Suzy Menkes where we are celebrating a year since I launched the first episode of my podcast: an interview with Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior.

In the first episode of this new season, I am joined by Orsola de Castro who spearheaded the global movement for change within the fashion industry and now heads Fashion Revolution.

For Orsola de Castro, all you need is love. Love for fashion, and love for all beautiful things - that last. Talking now, in 2021, to the passionate founder of Fashion Revolution, is a lesson about lasting. Or, as she puts it: “Re-wearing your clothes can be a revolutionary act.”

Loved Clothes Last is the title of her new book, published by Penguin Random House - and a passionate ode to the rebirth of old friends, lurking in closets and stuffed into drawers.

Up-cycling is so much more than a fashionable trend. For Orsola, it was born of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, where an eight story building, rammed with clothing workers, collapsed eight years ago in 2013, leaving a death toll of 1,134.

Instead of wringing her hands, like so many in the fashion business, Orsola asked herself WHY people demanded ever cheaper clothes - and what could be done to make a lasting difference.

It was then that Orsola founded fashion‘s largest global activism movement: 'Fashion Revolution’ . It was designed to change the way the industry works, and to bring cultural change in our attitude to clothes.

April 19th until 25th marks Fashion Revolution Week where over 100 countries will come together to take responsibility, remember the lives lost, and demand that no one should die for fashion.

In our conversation, Orsola’s urgent enthusiasm reminds us that we can all be fashion revolutionists. That our clothes deserve new lives, instead of being cast off and thrown away.

Her book is a mix of practical repair with thoughtful and passionate commitment to fabric and treatment that would prolong life.

The 8th Fashion Revolution week is happening across the world from the 19-25th April.

There are many ways in which you can participate, spread the word and educate yourself. Let’s believe that today’s fashion and textile industry CAN change, and evolve, and become more transparent.

Visit fashionrevolution.org to get involved.

Produced by Natasha Cowan @tashonfash

Edited by Tim Thornton @timwthornton

Music by @joergzuber

Graphics by Paul Wallis

To find Suzy's articles visit https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/suzy-menkes 

...find Suzy on Instagram @suzymenkes and Twitter @thesuzymenkes

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