WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press

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 th

“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

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 & @thewardrobecrisisSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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,

While you were distracted by the latest luxury It-whatever (and the shiny, ridiculously expensive global marketing behind it) slow local fashion makers were carefully, quietly crafting their wares regardless - on a fraction of the budgets of the big fashion names.It's time to take more notice of them! Because if we don't support the independents, how will they thrive? Can small local makers compete with the big guys today, and should they try? Or is it time to build new networks that create a totally different playing field?Meet one woman going her own way - and sharing what she's learned along it.Simone Agius is the Melbourne maker behind Simetrie - a disruptive, hand-crafted accessories brand that's challenging norms.Thank you for listening to our "pass the podcast mic" series. We've loved making it for you. If you can help us spread the word, please do (we're indie too). A nice rate & review in Apple goes down a treat.Links and all sorts on thewardrobecrisis.comFollow us on Instagram here and here.See

CALLING ALL TREE-HUGGERS! Nicole Rycroft founded Canopy Planet at her kitchen table in Vancouver with a small budget and a big idea - to protect the world's precious forests.20 years later, Canopy is one of the leading organisations fighting globally for last frontier forests and engaging business - including the fashion industry - to find alternatives to unsustainably sourced wood in their supply chains.Do we really use ancient trees to make trivial things? Try pizza boxes and party frocks. It's an outrage (and you'll hear Clare getting mad about it in this chat) but it's also an opportunity for change, and Canopy is doing something about it.This bonus Episode was produced in partnership with Fashion Revolution. The theme this year is Rights, Relationships and Revolution. Forests have rights too!Thank you for supporting our work. If you like this Episode, please share it - we appreciate your help in spreading the word.Find the shownotes & all things Wardrobe Crisis here.See omnystudio.com/listener f

How big is sustainable fashion in Iceland? You might be surprised to find out.We also nearly called this Episode: The Secret Lives Of Sweaters. Listen and you will see why!In this fascinating, surprising conversation about funny jumpers and changing the world, you will meet Ýr Jóhannsdóttir - a textile designer, artist/activist upcycler from Reykjavik.With her label Ýrúrarí (and her huge Instagram following) she is making a name for herself using creativity and humour to challenge fashion's unsustainable ways. People want to have fun with fashion, she says, and if we can use that to get a serious message across, that's a powerful thing. Also up for discussion: Iceland's craft and wool tradition, appreciating the local, resourcefulness, tool libraries and the future of fashion as sharing. This is part of our "pass the podcast" mic series - the (extended) finale! Where we're telling listener stories. Love it? Please help us spread the word. If you can rate &am

Vintage and second-hand fashion is in the news more than ever before. It's set to eclipse fast fashion within ten years. The designer re-commerce sector is booming. But as shopping pre-loved becomes more aspirational, are those who rely on thrifted clothes being locked out?What's not up for debate, however, is that the piles of discarded fashion and textiles keep growing. The excess is real. Where it ends up, who pays the price, what that price should be, what's selling, what's not, what should be ... in this week's episode we address all this and more as our listeners take a seat in the interviewee's chair. Welcome to Part 1 of our #sharethepodcastmic finale, featuring vintage rental store-owner Ali Dibley on clothes with personalities; dedicated thrifter Julia Browne on the evolution of opshopping and street style photographer Liisa Jokinen on preloved's digital revolution.Find the shownotes here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out in

Who else talks to their plants? This week's joyful episode is a love letter to what we grow - in gardens, allotments, veggie patches and pots on our windowsills the world over. But also what grows wild - in the woods, hedgerows, fields and scrub, the verges by the freeways, even the cracks in city pavements.Your guest host, musician and gardener Nidala Barker, talks with her friend and fellow green thumb, Kobi Bloom about connecting to Earth, respecting our Mother and the marvellous magic of plants.Up for discussion: How can learning more about plants and their wonder help us heal the planet? What exactly is a regenerative farmer or gardener (and how can you be be one)? What happens if we donʼt pull out the weeds? What can we do about food waste? And why is compost so often the answer to life's big questions?But first, here's Nidala singing good morning to her veggie patch... you could not make this up - but she does! Every day it's a new song. Ah, told you this one was a joy.Find Nidala on Instagram here.Fin

Welcome to another episode of series 5 - #sharethepodcastmicDon't forget to hit subscribe and if you value these conversations, please share them with your communities.Your guest host this week is Ayesha Barenblat, founder of ReMake, and she is in conversation with Nazma Akter, founder and Executive Director of the Awaj Foundation. Nazma has been fighting to improve workers' rights in Bangladesh's garment sector for 30 years - and she started out as a garment worker herself, aged just 11. Hers is a powerful, persuasive, brilliant voice from the workers' side. So why have't you heard it before?The answer is because fashion - yes, even sustainable fashion - operates with a power imbalance that too often shuts workers out. We rarely hear from the people who make our clothes, especially those in low-wage countries. Instead, we hear from brands talking about garment workers, or well meaning white people talking on their behalf. Mostly, we hear from those who make the decisions, rather than those who must live with

Everybody's talking about degrowth. Does this mean we've finally woken up to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse? Are we ready to challenge capitalism's obsession with GDP and  perpetual expansion? If so, what's the alternative? And how can we apply this to fashion, beyond simply "buy less"? How might we reimagine the whole system, and rethink how we measure success?This week's guest host Nina Gbor interviews Jason Hickel about his new book Less is More - How Degrowth Will Save the World.Jason is a rockstar economist (no grey suits here) focused on global inequality, political economy, post-development, and ecological economics. He teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London and serves on the Statistical Advisory Panel for the UN Human Development Report 2020, the advisory board of the Green New Deal for Europe and on the Harvard-Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.Follow him on Twitter here.Love the show? Get in touch in IG @mrspress & @thewardrobecrisisF

Meet Belinda Duarte, former athlete and educator, current inspirational leader, formidable female exec, proud First Nations Australian and the inspiration for Series 5 - #sharethepodcastmicJust in time for January 26th - a significant day in this country. It's time to #changethedateThere's so much up for discussion in this one - from Belinda's family story, to sustainability and Indigenous wisdom, raising strong young people, ethical leadership and how we can use sport and culture to move towards reconciliation.Find Culture is Life here.You can find extensive notes & links on what you hear at www.thewardrobecrisis/podcastEnjoyed the episode? Please share it! Tag us on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspress See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In March 2020, Grace Lillian Lee and Teagan Cowlishaw announced Australia's first ever Indigenous fashion council - First Nations Fashion & Design. In December, they held their first fashion show - Walking in Two Worlds. But don't expect just any old runway. This is a beautiful story about reframing the fashion discourse, connecting to country, and mentoring emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fashion talent.Grace is this week's #sharethepodcastmic guest host and she's in conversation with First Nations Fashion + Design ambassador - model Charlee Fraser. Charlee is a proud Awabakal woman and a beautiful spirt. She's also a Paris fashion week favourite with multiple magazine covers under her belt. Follow her on Instagram here.Find First Nations Fashion + Design here.You can find extensive notes & links on what you hear at www.thewardrobecrisis/podcastThank you to our sponsors Bendigo Art Gallery.  Enjoyed the episode? Please share it! Tag us on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspres

Welcome back to Series 5, #sharethepodcastmicWhy are all eyes are on Indigenous Australian fashion right now? Try 60,000 years of sustainability... "We're the original fashion industry in this country," says this week's guest host Yatu Widders-Hunt of the vibrant, continuously evolving First Nations fashion and design sector.In this Episode, we hear from curator Shonae Hobson about her Piinpi exhibition - the first major survey of contemporary Indigenous Australian fashion to be undertaken in this country. And from designers Julie Shaw of Maara Collective and Teagan Cowlishaw of Aarli.You can find extensive notes & links at www.thewardrobecrisis/podcastEnjoyed the episode? Please share it! Tag us on Instagram @thewardrobecrisis @mrspressSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Why does so much fashion still cling to strict men's and womenswear codes? Is the industry finally ready to shake off tired old binaries and embrace the trans and gender-nonconforming community? Or is Harry Styles' Vogue cover about as far as it goes?For this week's #sharethepodcastmic episode, sustainable fashion journalist Aditi Mayer is in charge.She's interviewing Alok Vaid-Menon about their new book, Beyond the Gender Binary. Alok is a gender-nonconforming poet, author, performance artist and designer.Up for discussion: everything from gender neutral fashion, to the limitations of  representation to what it means to truly redefine beauty. Also, fashion has been largely silent on the rising wave of transphobia, says Alok, yet continues to draw inspiration from gender-nonconforming people.This episode is a powerful call to designers "take it as an ethical imperative to de-gender their lines" and to "everyone, regardless of your gender, to make this an issue."It's time for all of us to start askin

For this week's #sharethepodcastmic episode, Aja Barber is in charge.She's interviewing her friend, Kalkidan Legesse, founder of Sancho's - a pioneering Black-owned sustainable fashion store in Exeter in the UK.Sancho's sells ethical and fair trade clothing, gifts and accessories from sustainable fashion brands like People Tree, Armedangels, Lefrik and Just Trade. They also really innovate with their pricing accessibility - and you'll hear all about that in this interview.What else gets unpacked? Kalkidan's Ethiopian roots and how returning to Addis Ababa as an adult sparked the idea for Sancho's. The million racist micro-aggressions people of colour face in the fashion industry (and everywhere else), who gets the power, and how to be an ethical leader.Here's Aja on IG.Here's Kalkidan's own website. Here's Sancho's on Instagram.www.sanchosstore.coFind all the notes www.thewardrobecrisis.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A note from Clare: Welcome to Series 5, Share the Podcast Mic. After everything that's happened this year, we wanted to shake things up and share the power of this beautiful platform with some of the BIPOC voices leading the conversation in sustainability and ethical fashion. So after this episode, I'll be passing the Wardrobe Crisis mic onto them. Each will interview a person of their choice. Your guest hosts are some of the most exciting, dynamic, inspirational voices working in this space today - as are their guests. I couldn't be more grateful to them all for sharing their experiences with us, and being part of this project. I'm excited to bring you this contextual episode with the brilliant sustainable fashion writer, activist and stylist Aja Barber, before I pass the mic on to her as our very first guest host next week.It's all up discussion today: from allyship (when brands get it wrong & how to get it right) to fashion billionaires; white fragility, the dreaded Karens, and coddling vs. d

For all the talk of inclusivity finally being taken seriously by fashion, the industry is way behind on many fronts. It basically ignores entire sections of the market, which makes no sense from a business perspective, and let alone a social one.Adaptive fashion is both an opportunity and a necessity - as this week's brilliant guest, author Keah Brown says, disabled people love clothes too. And they're tired of having to alter things that don't work for them. Accessible, adaptive design is the future, and forward-looking brands are taking note.Our chat covers everything from Keah's New York Fashion Week debut and how her hashtag #disabledandcute went viral to writing her first screen play and the finding joy in the everyday. This is an enlightening, bright interview full of inspiration. What a treat to have Keah on the podcast.Let us know what you think. You can find Clare on Instagram and Twitter.Keah's website is here.Do you follow us at @thewardrobecrisis ? Remember, you can read our magazine at www.thewar

Philosophy! The Internet of Things! Irvin Penn! From not being Mozart to designing outfits for The Muppets, as a kid... It's all up for discussion in this week's ep with Levi's Vice President of Global Product Innovation, Paul Dillinger. Paul drove Jacquard by Google, so of course we talk about that, and the future of tech innovation in fashion particularly around wearables. But fundamentally, this is a conversation about why we wear what we wear, what fashion means and how we've used it across time to craft our identities. Oh, and sustainability.Basically, this is why we love to make podcasts. And Paul is the greatest. Enjoy!Got feedback? Find us at www.thewardrobecrisis.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"You can't farm spiders!" says this week's guest, scientist David Breslauer.You can keep more them in serious numbers spinning webs off hula-hoops suspended from your office ceiling though...Enter Bolt Threads, the Californian biotech company behind Microsilk - a bioengineered sustainable fibre used by Stella McCartney. Find out how they did it, where the science is headed, and what's next (hint, it's involves mushrooms). Just don't call David Spider Man.Find our more at www.thewardrobecrisis.comLove the show? Don't forget to hit subscribe. You can contact host Clare Press on Instagram here, and follow the show here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.