WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press

Bobby Kolade is the designer behind Ugandan fashion label Buzigahill - which puts the politics of upcycling and waste colonialism at its core with the brilliant, provocative concept: Return to Sender.

Buzigahill's collections are made from items of secondhand clothing donated in the global north, and increasingly being dumped on the global south in unsustainable numbers. Why “return to sender”? Because much of Buzigahill’s clien...

What do your clothes say about you? Dear listener, I bet you've thought about this before. Fashion is a language in itself. But, what about the language we use to describe - and by extension to include, or to exclude - the people who wear it? Or don't get to wear it? The people we're marketing it to, or employing.

Fashion communication isn't just about the clothes. It's about how we talk to each other.

Meet Lou Croff Blak...

Can fashion lift its inclusivity game? When 28-year-old British model Junior Bishop - who just so happens to be a wheelchair user - spoke at the Houses of Parliament recently, she called on the fashion industry to do more to tackle its disability access issues. Levelling the playing field is integral to the wellbeing economy - what’s the point of only some of us get to have our wellbeing considered?

“When looking at fashion and ...

Rich, white and privileged - the creative arts sector has a class problem. Particularly in class-obsessed Britain, where middle-class people are twice as likely to work in creative jobs than their working class contemporaries. According to the Evening Standard, "the worlds of TV, film, music and the arts are dominated by straight, able-bodied white men living in London, despite them only accounting for 3.5% of the [UK] population."

We all know clothes have meaning, beyond just looking nice. We’ve often talked on this podcast about the importance of how they are made. This week, we’re considering how fashion’s meaning stretches beyond supply chains and our wardrobes, to shape our culture and the way we see ourselves collectively. How does fashion see itself when it comes to race and privilege? How about the male gaze?

Clare sits down with Caryn Franklin, jo...

How much is enough? How can creatives incorporate the idea of sufficiency in their output? If you make physical objects, what does it really mean to be sustainable in your practice? And, how can you, as my guest this week, Richard Malone, puts it, "do your own thing and stick to it" in the context of fashion's relentless push for newness?

Also, where does class and privilege play into all this? Does Fashion with a capital ‘F’ ac...

Why does fashion have such a problem in accepting all bodies they way they are, and recognising the beauty in different shapes and sizes? I know, I know, we’ve heard it all before, yet depressingly little changes.

Our guest this week has had enough! Self-described as “that body morphing b*tch”, Michaela Starck is a super-talented London-based Aussie creative director/designer/dreamboat who’s beautiful work includes her own glori...

If you’re interested in natural dyes, or want to know more about hands-on textile techniques, this episode is a joy. It's also a great one if you are into ideas around seasonality and connection to Nature. Aren't we all?!

Continuing our Pacific theme (don’t miss last week’s Episode with Fiji Fashion Week’s Ellen Whippy-Knight) these two stories are also from Fiji, but a long way from its capital Suva. They’re both about differen...

When Anna Wintour was introduced to Ellen Whippy-Knight as the founder of Fiji Fashion Week, the Vogue editor-in-chief exclaimed, “Fiji has a fashion week?!” Sure does, Anna. It turned 16 last year, and is an established force in a small yet burgeoning Pacific fashion scene.

White sands and turquoise waters. Surf breaks. Rugby. Fiji is rightly famous for these things, it’s also an international garment-manufacturing country with...

Addicted to thrifting? Wondering where all your money’s gone? Feeling the fashion clutter feels? If you answered “yes” to any of the above, it might be time for a fashion detox.

From Slow Fashion Season to ReMake’s 90-day No New Clothes challenge to the Rule of 5, more of us are looking for ways to circuit-break bad fashion habits. There’s a real movement going on with conscious fashionistas sharing what’s worked for them when i...

CONTENT WARNING. A note from Clare: "While in this Episode, we talk about creativity and hope, baking and Strictly Ballroom, and address a wide range of things from the politics of climate action to biodiversity, we also discuss the details of going on a hunger strike. Personally, I would say that bit is not suitable for children, although I suspect Gregory would disagree. I'd also like to let you know there's mention of eating...

It's that time of year again, when world leaders (along with marketers from brands, oil and gas industry lobbyists, celebs on their private jets) head to the UN climate conference to discuss what to do about greenhouse gas pollution and our warming world. Extreme weather! Rising sea levels! Phasing out fossil fuels! Wait, actually, maybe tone that last one down because it's a bit hard, and our mates in the extractive energy industr...

“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 ...

Our guest for this Special Edition interview is JUNO GEMES, one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary photographers.

Born in Hungary, she moved to Australia as a child. In 1970, then a young artist, she spent six months living on Country with Aboriginal communities at Uluru. She went on to documents First Nations activism and the Civil Rights Movement in this country for five decades. Juno photographed many of the early pr...

In this mini pod, which is Part 1 of our Special Edition on the Voice, you will hear RACHEL PERKINS read you the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Rachel is an Australian filmmaker, a proud Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman and the co-chair of the YES23 campaign. She is also co-chair of Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, and is a signatory to the Statement from the Heart.

“As the largest consensus of First ...

It’s fashion month again and the big brands with the big budgets dominate our feeds. But amidst the commercial noise of the contemporary fashion circus, independent gems still exist. There are true artists who go their own way, and often set the future trend agenda (although they tend not to get the credit). Our guest this week is one of them. He’s been shaking up the London underground scene since the ‘90s. Meet Dr NOKI, the origi...

Woolmark's new ambassador Taylor Zakhar Perez is a rising Hollywood star known for his leading man roles. You might recognise him from a certain rom com that we're not mentioning here (in respect of the actors' strike), or his role in a royal drama based on a cult book (again, not going there). Maybe you know his Paris fashion week looks - snaps of him emerging shirtless from his car outside the Prada’s menswear show went viral in ...

Series 9 has landed! Our first guest is Cyrill Gutsch, the fascinating founder of Parley for the Oceans.

With his partner Lea Stepken, this NY-based designer and branding expert started his global environmental organisation in 2012, after bumping into Pamela Anderson at an art fair. Pammy was wearing a Sea Shepherd T-shirt, and when Cyrill asked her why, she told him Sea Shepherd’s activist-in-chief Paul Watson was in trouble -...

Danish designer Cecilie Bahnsen studied at RCA in London, and interned with John Galliano and Erdem before starting her own label in 2015. You’ve probably seen her voluminous dresses, or her recent sneaker collaboration with ASICs. Cecilie says she operates at the intersection of couture and ready-to-wear – it’s high craft, she creates her own textiles, and loves to use embroidery and smocking which lends her work a certain wh...