“When did we decide we couldn’t make stuff anymore?” asks this week’s guest, Meriel Chamberlin, the textile technologist behind Full Circle Fibres, an Australian startup producing “paddock to product” garments on-shore.
We know that the fashion industry’s climate impacts are significant, and that most of it comes down to the textile production stage. So how can we do things differently, close to home? Who needs to come together to make that happen, to share expertise, innovate, and also to fund it? How might fibre production tread more lightly on the land? Protect, or even enhance, biodiversity? These are some of the big questions driving the initiatives we’re talking about on this week’s show.
We've often covered the trouble with factories on this podcast; issues around garment worker injustice and unfair conditions. Very important stuff! But we hardly ever hear about the excellent factories. This is an Episode about the opportunities to make fashion more sustainable at the factory level, and the skills and capabilities that already exist. That might mean some re-shoring, but it’s also an encouragement to value what's already in our backyards.
Reports of the end of textile manufacturing in so-called consuming countries are exaggerated. We've still got it! Albeit on a smaller scale than when our parents were young. Wherever in the world you are listening, Meriel wants you to look around and recognise what you already have in terms of local skills, manufacturing & R&D capacity. Australia, for example, produces some of the world's best fibre, and there are still production facilities domestically for most stages of the supply chain. Find a gap? Might be worth working to close it.
Full Circle Fibres is a recipient of the Country Road Climate Fund. Discover here.
Check out the shownotes on wardrobecrisis.com
Can you help us spread the word about Series 9?
Wardrobe Crisis is an independent production.
We don't believe in barriers to entry and are determined to keep this content free.
If you value it, please help by sharing your favourite Episodes, and rating and reviewing us in Apple.
Thank you!
Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A Provocation: You Need to Support Small Sustainable Enterprises if you Don't Want to Sink into a Boring Big Brand World - Meet High Tea with Mrs Woo
This is the Real Circular Fashion Economy - Meet Roger, My Local Cobbler
Return to Sender: Buzigahill's Bobby Kolade on Fashion Waste Colonialism in Uganda
Lou Croff Blake Talks Pronouns, Fashion For Every Body and the Language of Belonging Beyond the Gender Binary
Access Some Areas? Model Junior Bishop on Fashion's Disability To-Do List
Are You Posh & White Enough for a Career in the Creative Arts? Rahemur Rahman on Strategies for System Change
Caryn Franklin, Beyond The Clothes Show - Fashion, Identity, Representation and Belonging
Irish Artist Richard Malone, Who Gets To Make It in Fashion?
Magnificent Michaela Stark - From Insta Bans to Victoria's Secret, Meet the Body-Morphing Couture Lingerie Maker
From Natural Dyes to Reading Nature's Signals, Re-Finding Knowledge Disrupted by Colonialism
Meet Fiji's Fashion Dynamo Ellen Whippy-Knight
Could You Buy No Clothes This Year? Jenna Flood's Wardrobe Freeze
Desperate Measures: Gregory Andrews' Climate Hunger Strike
Spotlight on COP28: Flora Vano - Now is the Time to Stand with Pacific Climate Activists
SPECIAL EDITION (Part 2) Ep 197, Juno Gemes on Photographing the Australian Civil Rights Movement
SPECIAL EDITION (Part 1) What You Need to Know About The Voice Referendum in Australia
London Fashion Renegade: Dr NOKI is the O.G. Upcycler - Just Don't Call Him That
Taylor Zakhar Perez on the Power of Influence
Parley for the Oceans' Cyrill Gutsch - Welcome to the Materials Revolution!
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
50 Tastes Of Gray
Dear Alice | Interior Design
Spider-Man Crawlspace Podcast
The War of the Worlds
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Magnus Archives
War Nerd Radio — Subscriber Feed