More than half of all the textiles use today are polyester. You will definitely have poly in your wardrobe, even if you prefer natural fibres. Synthetics are lurking everywhere, whether as polyester, nylon, or blends mixed with cotton. Poly is cheap, ubiquitous and it's not going away any time soon. It's also made from fossil fuels, doesn't biodegrade and most of it ends up as waste.

Cyndi Rhoades believes recycled is the answer.

A UK-based, US-raised activist turned entrepreneur, she founded Worn Again Technologies (originally called Worn Again) in 2005 - determined to make a difference and create a business out of solving the challenge of textiles ending up in landfill or incineration.

Initially, she looked to upcycling. “It was really hard it make it work at scale, but also ultimately we weren’t solving the problem of textile waste," she says. "Once these second-life products were used, they would end up in landfill anyway. So we were only postponing textiles going to landfill. It made us realise that recycling at a molecular level was the solution.”

From her formative days in London's early 2000s sustainable fashion scene, to living on a barge off-the-grid today, Cyndi has a long view on how this space has evolved and what's coming next.

Ever wondered how virgin polyester is actually made? Did you know the recycled kind is almost always made from recycled plastic bottles, not textiles? How sustainable is it? How do we decide? It is greenwashing? Can we really make fashion circular? What would that look like? Why is it taking so damn long? This Episode is like a masterclass in material-to-material recycling.

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/10/16/ep-151-whats-the-story-with-recycled-polyester-cyndi-rhoades-from-worn-again-explains-all to read yours and #bethechange

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Are you unwittingly contributing to waste colonialism via your wardrobe choices? What happens to our unwanted clothes when we donate them? Overproducing and underusing clothes has far-reaching consequences, as this week's guest Liz Ricketts of The Or Foundation explains.

Each week, around 15 million pieces of secondhand clothing arrive in the Kantamanto second-hand clothing market in Accra, Ghana - and 40% goes to waste.

This is the story of how your old shirt or dress or pants might end up clogging drains in Accra. Or form part of a heavy rope of textiles in the ocean, or lurking under the sand like some dystopian synthetic sea monster. Or smouldering on a waste mountain in an informal dump that’s been on fire months.

It doesn’t have to be this way - maybe your old clothes will get fixed up and sold on to live another life. It’s complicated, as are the solutions.

What do you think? Let us know! We're on Instagram @mrspress and @thewardrobecrisis, and on Twitter @mrspress

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/9/29/ep-150-liz-ricketts-waste-colonialism-dead-white-mans-clothes to read yours and #bethechange

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Are you a special person? How self-obsessed are we, as a society? How and why do we compare ourselves to others? What makes us group-ish? Violent? Or community minded? How about narcissistic? And is that getting worse?

This week's guest is the British author Will Storr, who's latest book is Status Game: on social position and how we use it.

After reading one of his previous books - Selfie, How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us - Clare persuaded him to come on Wardrobe Crisis and share his ideas and research about what lies beneath our social media culture, power games, virtue signalling and obsession with getting ahead.

Will is also the author of a book, TED talk and creative writing class called The Science of Storytelling.

In this lively discussion, Will and Clare talk about everything from Ancient Greece to TIME magazine covers; the origins of the self-esteem movement to Instagram; narcissism, perfectionism, mental health and the origins of western individualism.

What do you think? Let us know! We're on Instagram @mrspress and @thewardrobecrisis, and on Twitter @mrspress

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/9/7/ep-149-status-self-obsession-mental-health-amp-whats-really-controlling-how-we-act-will-storr to read yours and #bethechange

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Everyone's talking about climate action and social change - but Fashion is still carrying on like it's 1999. The velvet rope! Exclusivity! Snobbery and barriers to entry that lock many young designers with new ideas, out. Fashion weeks alone are massive carbon emitters, before we've even considered production. Pre-pandemic, the carbon footprint of all the media, buyers, models and designers going to the big four fashion weeks (NY, London, Milan & Paris) over a 12-month period, was enough to light up Times Square in New York for 58 years!

And you're no doubt familiar with fashion's unfairness, murky supply chains and lack of diversity.

Change is due.

But the industry seems determined to get back to business as usual. This week's guest, London-based Kenyan fashion designer Anyango Mpinga has other ideas. Digital presentations could change the game, she says. But that's just one piece of the puzzle. Fashion must find its heart again.

In this inspiring conversation, Anyango and host Clare Press talk purpose, service and giving back - and how, in Anyango's case, coming from a family of strong African women has shaped her. The designer shares her advice for independents trying to be as sustainable as possible, and the broader industry that needs to do better on diversity and inclusion. Big Fashion - take notes!

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/8/16/ep-148-inspiring-fashion-anyango-mpinga to read yours and #bethechange

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Have you heard the one about throwing your clothes away being better for the planet than renting them?

In this Episode, we get the real story on the study out of Finland that spawned so many clickbait headlines, then ask a British retail legend about what's driving the fashion rental boom. We hear from a purpose-driven millennial founder about what her company is doing to ensure rental really is a greener fashion option than buying new clothes; and learn the secrets of eco-friendly dry cleaning (which... is actually wet - who knew?).

Featuring interviews with: Professor Jarkko Levänen of Lahti University of Technology; Jane Shepherdson, chair of My Wardrobe HQ; Victoria Prew, co-founder of HURR, and Dr Kyle Grant, founder of Oxwash.

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/8/13/how-eco-friendly-is-fashion-rental-really to read yours and #bethechange

Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Don't forget to hit subscribe!

Find us at wwww.thewardrobecrisis.com & on Instagram

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Who's Shaping Sustainable Fashion's Design Future? Each Wardrobe Crisis series we present a new generation talent episode, spotlighting emerging fashion designers who are pushing sustainability forward.

This time we’re talking with: a positive knitwear designer from Canada who’s ongoing collaboration with Post Carbon lab sees her creating living garments that photosynthesise as you wear them. A British fashion multi-tasker who works as a sustainable womenswear designer focused on deadstock materials, a freelance writer, model and stylist. And a community-driven womenswear designer from Brazil who is wowing with his artful, high-craft textile treatments - and challenging fashion’s obsession with youth while he’s at it.

Meet Olivia Rubens, Joshua James Small and Joao Maraschin.

This Episode is guest-host - Nina Van Volkinburg, fashion academic and co-founder of the Reture designer upcycling marketplace.

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/8/3/ep-146-whos-shaping-sustainable-fashions-future to read yours and #bethechange

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How do you feel about getting older? Maybe you’re so young it feels a world away? Or maybe you’re feeling it, and wondering where the time went?

This week’s guest fashion influencer Lyn Slater has no such worries - she reinvented her career in her 60s, going from college professor to Instagram star and being described as “one of fashion's finest-dressed people”. Since then she’s been written about a thousand times as a sort poster woman for growing older stylishly. But now, she’s examining further what it means to be old, and what we think about that word, from old people to old houses to old things.

In a recent post on her blog, Accidental Icon, she wrote: “I’m going to keep saying I’m old over and over until it drains all the pejorative connotations from the word and the exuberant proclamations like, ‘60 is the new 40’ which still seems to imply younger is better.”

Does old still have a stigma? How does it relate to slow, slowing down, slow fashion, appreciating things that have been around a bit. Are we on the brink of a new-old revolution? It's time to have a conversation about how to be old!

Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/7/27/ep-145-how-to-be-old-with-accidental-icons-lyn-slater to read yours and #bethechange

Don't forget to subscribe! And if you listen in Apple Podcasts, please consider rating & reviewing. Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis

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“The 21st century has brought a critical dilemma into sharp relief: we must stop shopping, and yet we can’t stop shopping.” - J.B MacKinnon

Have you noticed that stopping shopping is trending? It used to be a very unusual challenge to take on, but fashion detoxes are going mainstream as people begin to question hyper-consumerism and look for ways to resist it.

But what would happen if we all turned off the fashion tap tomorrow?

And not just fashion - consumer goods in general. What if everybody stopped shopping all at once? The wheels of the economy-as-we-know-it would grind to a halt. There’d be mass unemployment, and potentially chaos, the most marginalised people would be worst affected. And what about all those small business, including the ethical and sustainable ones? What about your job?

Could we find a balance between curbing our consumerist excesses while keeping afloat?

In this must-listen episode, Clare quizzes author J.B. MacKinnon about his riveting thought experiment. When he started thinking about his central dilemma - that the planet seems to need us to stop consuming so much, while the economy seems to require us to keep doing it - no one could have imagined what was around the corner. Covid made the thought experiment real...

Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/7/6/ep-144-the-day-the-world-stopped-shopping-jb-mackinnon to read yours and #bethechange

Don't forget to subscribe! And if you listen in Apple Podcasts, please consider rating & reviewing. Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis

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Lock up your linens! Emily Adams Bode has designs on your grandma's tablecloths. And her quilts. America's favourite emerging menswear talent made her fashion name upcycling characterful old domestic textiles and dusty deadstock - winning a CFDA award and a Woolmark Prize while she was at it. The result is menswear with meaning, designed to be passed down the generations.

This is a lovely quirky conversation about what inspires her as a maker and collector, the joys of upcycling and the layers of meaning in hand-worked and customised clothes. 

Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis. Find our website here.

Don't forget to subscribe! And if you listen in Apple Podcasts, please consider rating & reviewing. Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisis

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/7/3/ep-143 to read yours and #bethechange

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Welcome back! Series 6 is here!

The title of this episode asks you to leave your pre-conceptions at the door. There is no one way for a refugee to look, seem, dress and show up in the world. 

On World Refugee Day, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) asks us to honour refugees around the globe. To celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home countries to escape conflict or persecution. 

And so we are excited to bring you this extraordinary interview with Aminata Conteh-Biger. 

Aminata is an UNHCR ambassador in Australia. She's also an author, speaker and the founder of Aminata Maternal Foundation. We met when I hosted an event for her wonderful book, Rising Heart, at an organisation in Sydney that we both support called The Social Outfit.

Like everyone who has listened to her tell story, I was deeply affected by it, but also by Aminata's spirit. She has endured some terrible things, but if I had to think of words to describe her they'd be about love, joy, generosity, fun, glamour, the sisterhood and activism. Aminata is a fabulous fashion fan, mum, women's rights and maternal health advocate, and, yes, refugee.

She is the sum of her many parts - proof that we are not one story, even when that story is as big as hers.

In 1999, during the civil war in Sierra Leone, the then 18-year-old Aminata was a kidnapped by rebel soldiers. She was held captive for several months, and finally freed as part of a negotiated prisoner exchange. When she fled to Australia, with UNHCR's assistance, she had no idea what it would be like. She arrived here with nothing and to had to start again.

Trigger warning - this conversation includes reference to rape and details of violence. But ultimately this is an uplifting story about fleeing one home and finding another - and joy along the way. 

Thanks to Spell, this episode is proudly brought to you by The Climate Council.

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