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🌱 Ep 21: Circular Fashion in Action: Insights From Luxury to Highstreet Brands with Laetitia Forst, Patrick McDowell and Philippa Grogan (x Fashion District)
145 Plays6 days ago
In this episode of No Ordinary Cloth, host Mili Tharakan is joined by three pioneering voices in sustainable fashion and textiles: Dr. Laetitia Forst (University of the Arts London), Patrick McDowell (designer and founder of Patrick McDowell), and Philippa “Philly” Grogan (Sustainability Manager at Nobody’s Child). Together, they break down the jargon around circular design, and circular business models-exploring why these concepts matter and how the fashion industry can shift from linear to circular ways of thinking and working.
What We Cover:
- What circular design really means in fashion and textiles, and the three core pillars of circularity
- How circular design is being implemented at different scales-from luxury, made-to-order brands to large high street labels
- The creative opportunities and technical challenges of designing for recycling, durability, and closed-loop systems
- How circular business models like rental, repair, and resale are changing the way we use and value clothing
- The importance of storytelling, emotional durability, and customer engagement in making circularity a behaviour change.
- The role of emerging technologies, policy, and regulation in accelerating circular innovation
⭐️ Fashion District Festival: 3rd - 8th June 2025, London, UK ⭐️
Check out these events and buy your tickets here:
- Launch and performance showcase
- Accelerating Regenerative Fashion
- Circular Design Practice - join our guests for this hands-on workshop
- Past and Future fabrics
💛 Support FLOCC:
Help transform Madras lace waste into valuable cotton flock fibre by supporting the FLOCC crowdfunding campaign. Your pledge helps scale sustainable material innovation and keeps textile waste out of landfill. FLOCC Crowdfunder Campaign
Resources & Further Reading:
- Circular Design with Next Gen Materials Guidebook – UAL Research Online (Laetitia Forst)
- Garment Lifecycle Map – Interactive Tool
- British Fashion Council’s Institute of Positive Fashion
- Future Fabrics Expo
- Centre for Circular Design
- Try your hand at sewing or repairing a garment-engage with your clothes in a new way!
Mili Tharakan: Linkedin I Instagram I Website I Buy me a coffee
Connect with me: mili@militharakan.com
Cover art: Photo by Siora, Photography on Unsplash
Music: Inspired Ambient, Orchestraman
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Exciting News
00:00:00
Speaker
Before we get started, i wanted to share some exciting news that came through after we recorded this episode. Huge congratulations to Patrick McDowell, who's one of our guests today.
00:00:10
Speaker
He's just been awarded the 2025 Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design. How brilliant is that? This prestigious honor recognizes Patrick's bold vision and unwavering commitment to circularity and sustainability in fashion. And that's what we're going to be talking about today as well.
00:00:29
Speaker
And it's an inspiring achievement and a testament to the impact of his work on shaping the industry's future. Cheering you on, Patrick. And now to drop back into the episode.
Podcast Overview: No Ordinary Cloth
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome to the No Ordinary Cloth podcast, where we explore innovations bubbling away at the intersection of textiles, emerging technology, sustainability and craft. I'm your host, Millie Therakin, a textile researcher and innovator.
00:01:01
Speaker
I'm bringing this episode to you in partnership with Fashion District London, a dynamic hub for fashion innovation in East London, supporting startups with innovation networks, affordable spaces, business guidance and investment opportunities.
00:01:15
Speaker
And in this episode, we're diving deep into circular design, a practice that has the potential to completely transform the fashion and textile industry. You'll hear how circular design challenges us to rethink every stage of a garment's life from the first sketch to end of life and how brands, both big and small, are experimenting with new materials, circular business models such as repair, reuse, recycling and creating a closed loop system.
00:01:43
Speaker
Our guests share practical insights today on implementing these principles and the opportunities as well as the challenges that they have faced and the innovations that are shaping a more sustainable, emotionally connected relationship with our clothing.
Introducing the Guests
00:01:58
Speaker
To help us unpack all of this, I'm joined by three pioneering guests. Patrick McDowell, a London-based designer and founder of the Patrick McDowell brand. Patrick is celebrated for reinventing luxury fashion with sustainability, circularity and craftsmanship at the heart of it.
00:02:15
Speaker
His collections include pieces that are crafted from reclaimed or deadstock fabric, as well as innovative materials such as mycelium leather and biosynthetic dyes. Each of his pieces are like a painting. They tell a story that connects you emotionally to these garments.
00:02:33
Speaker
He's of course the designer who has dressed the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, Lady Gaga and Keira Knightley. Then we have Philippa Grogan. ah She's the sustainability manager at Nobody's Child.
00:02:45
Speaker
Philippa brings the perspective of a leading high street brand here in the UK that has successfully integrated circular principles within their business and has managed to do this at scale.
00:02:56
Speaker
That's an incredible achievement. She has extensive experience across the global supply chain. Her curiosity about the impact of materials has taken her from rural textile producers in South Asia to major international manufacturers.
00:03:10
Speaker
She's passionate about shaping the future of sustainable fashion, both at business and policy and government levels. Then we have Letitia Frost. She's a textile designer and postdoc researcher at the University of the Arts London, working at the Centre for Circular Design.
00:03:26
Speaker
Her PhD explored how sustainability constraints can actually drive creative innovation in textile design. She's particularly interested in designing textiles for disassembly to improve recyclability and material recovery.
00:03:39
Speaker
She's also inspiring and educating a new generation of circular design thinkers through the courses she offers as well. I mean, we couldn't have picked a better lineup for this episode. You are going to learn so much from all of them.
00:03:53
Speaker
But before we dive
Fashion District Festival Announcement
00:03:54
Speaker
in... I wanted to give a big shout out to the Fashion District Festival happening from the 3rd to the 8th of June 2025 in Spittlesfield, East London.
00:04:04
Speaker
It's a vibrant celebration of sustainable and circular fashion packed. with pop-up stores, workshops by experts, an immersive fashion show you wouldn't want to miss, and a showcase of innovations from trailblazing designers and brands.
00:04:21
Speaker
There is something here for everyone, so bring your friends, your colleagues, your family to the event. It's the perfect place to make, learn, shop, and be inspired. If you'd like to meet the three guests from this episode in person, they will be running the Circular Design Practice Workshop on the 6th of June during the festival.
00:04:39
Speaker
So get your tickets ready now. I'm going to be there. i hope to see you there too. Please see the links below in the show notes for registration. Do stay with me till the end of this episode where I'll share an exciting opportunity to support Flock, an initiative transforming Madras lace waste into valuable cotton Flock fiber. A brilliant project reflecting the very theme of our episode today. We don't just want to talk about circular principles.
00:05:08
Speaker
We want to take action. So don't miss out this chance to get involved. Stay to the end to find out more. Okay, with all that information out of the way, let's go meet the guests.
Demystifying Circular Design
00:05:23
Speaker
Good morning, Letitia, Patrick, and Philippa. I think we'll be calling you Philly today, won't we? Great. It's such a pleasure and an honor to have you all on the No Ordinary Cloth podcast.
00:05:34
Speaker
Our show really explores innovations at the intersection of textiles, emerging technology, craft, and sustainability. And as I was preparing for our conversation, I realized your work, all three of you, it really sits perfectly at that intersection. So I feel like you're like the perfect panel of guests that I could ask for.
00:05:51
Speaker
and so a very warm welcome to each of you. Today, I'd love for us to break down some of the industry jargon that we have in the world of fashion, such as circularity, circular design, a circular business model, etc. for our listeners and dive deep into why circular design matters and how we can make the shift from linear to circular in fashion. And I'm especially excited because each of you brings such a unique perspective to this topic. And I know we're going to learn lots from your experience.
Circular Design Principles with Letitia Frost
00:06:19
Speaker
Circular design challenges us to rethink how we design, make, use and reuse our clothing. And it's a framework that's forcing the fashion industry to take a hard look at itself and imagine a completely ah new way forward.
00:06:33
Speaker
And I'm keen to lift the lid on how brands are actually putting these principles into practice, starting from the first sketch all the way to end of life. And I do believe we're still in the early days of sort of iterating with the idea of circularity but and learning what will work and won't work. And there's so much to learn from those who are leading the way and experimenting boldly. So thank you again, Literature, Patrick in Philly, for being those pioneers, boldly experimenting with these ideas and for sharing your journey with us.
00:07:03
Speaker
Now, before we dive into the topic itself, it would be great if each of you could give us a short little intro about yourself. Tell us your name, where you work and what you do and what you love most about your job.
00:07:14
Speaker
Let's start with Letitia. Great. Thank you. Thank you a lot for having me on this podcast. So my name is Letitia Forst and i am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Arts London.
00:07:27
Speaker
And my so specialism is in textile design for circularity. So I have a background in text in textile design as a maker, so I know how to knit and weave and print.
00:07:38
Speaker
But in my day-to-day work, I apply it to circular challenges and I work and really at the junction between like material science and like new developments in technology, whether that's looking at new materials or new ah recycling technology.
00:07:52
Speaker
and what ah needs to happen for it to go into industry. So working with brands from the very large to the very, very small. What do you love about your job? Ooh, a lot of things. i guess it's ah like the the variety of challenges that we face and the opportunity of being in academic research to really go deep with those questions and really embrace the uncertainty, ah sometimes slightly removed from like commercial reality, which is very much what the translation ah work then has to go into for it to work for industry. But we get to be in that sort of like really upstream research environment where
00:08:32
Speaker
We can be very speculative. we can yeah really try and understand the systems in quite a lot of of detail. Yeah, and I think that's one of the my favorite things about the work.
00:08:43
Speaker
Love it. Excellent.
Philly's Journey in Sustainability
00:08:44
Speaker
ah Philly, tell us about yourself. Hi, thanks having me on. It's great to see everyone. I'm Philly Sustainability Manager at Nobody's Child. I'm also from a design um background and did textiles at uni, and but went in a bit of a different direction and ended up doing consultancy for quite a few brands for a number of years.
00:09:04
Speaker
They were all at very different stages of their sustainability journey, all different shapes and sizes. And we ended up doing quite a lot of stuff to do with policy and sort of helping um advocate for kind of science-led and expert-led elements to emerging policies, especially at the EU.
00:09:21
Speaker
And then i left the world of consultancy and became um an in-house um sustainability manager at a fashion brand, which is really nice because it's like having one client where I focus all my time on and I have power to do stuff now.
00:09:36
Speaker
So instead of sort of just weighing in from the outside now I'm totally involved and so the CEO is fantastic and makes my job very easy all I do is say we need to do this we need to do x we need to do and she's like okay when when and then I have a really long do list but it's um part of my job just how easy it is to get sustainability into and such a cool growing brand amazing how about you Patrick ah Hi,
Patrick McDowell on Luxury and Sustainability
00:10:02
Speaker
everyone. I'm Patrick McDowell, and I work at my namesake label, Patrick McDowell, which is a fashion brand that I started about seven years ago now um with the dream of doing things in a different way. So creating a fashion business that worked in a kinder way to the planet and also the people that work.
00:10:21
Speaker
um with us. So it all started when I was a kid. I made a school bag from a pair of jeans when I was 13. And that then spurred kind of this real fascination with trying to turn old things into new things.
00:10:34
Speaker
I consequently went to Central St. Martins and interned at Burberry and Always had this this vision of working in a bit of a different way. So it kind of felt natural then when I started the brand all that time ago with Burberry material, actually, that we'd not only think about different materials that we could use, but also a different business model in which the clothes could live within.
00:10:56
Speaker
Amazing. Thank you. Right. So diving into circular design, Leticia, would you like to give us an overview of what circular design means in the context of fashion and textiles?
00:11:08
Speaker
And what are the core principles that brands and customers should know about? So there's a lot of different frameworks. There's a lot of noise around circular design. But if you look at the way that it's been interpreted across like different organizations and different brands, they basically converge towards the same idea that there are these three pillars to it. So to use an example, the UKFT, so the UK techile and Fashion Textiles Association,
00:11:34
Speaker
recently released a report called Circular Manufacturing Processes, and that has three segments to this circle of circular design. So they ah use reduced material impact, optimized product life, and closed loop as the three pillars of circularity.
00:11:51
Speaker
And we find that across a lot of different like guidebooks and organizations. I'm working with Professor Veronica Kipsali at the moment, who's developed a bio-inspired framework which follows similis with circularity principle.
00:12:06
Speaker
And she has three words for it for it, which are efficiency, longevity and recovery. So we see that that kind of matches the UKFT framework. So that's basically the idea. and We wanna be using safe and sustainable material inputs that includes recycled fibers from like textile waste.
00:12:24
Speaker
We wanna make sure that ah garments and textiles are made to last for as long as possible so they can stay in this cycle for many, many wares, reducing the overall impact while they circulate.
00:12:36
Speaker
And then finally, want them to be easily recoverable textile to textile recycling systems.
Challenges and Opportunities in Circular Design
00:12:42
Speaker
and So that means designing from the very start products and textiles that are free from contamination, that basically follow the recommendations of different recycling streams, whether that be mechanical recycling for cotton or for wool,
00:12:57
Speaker
or chemical recycling with like cellulosic materials or synthetic materials. And yeah, that's your your three key pillars. And can you tell us from your research, what are some of the biggest opportunities and challenges that you foresee for brands, both big and small, in adopting circular design into practice, into their businesses?
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah. So just to start with like the opportunity and like the sort of exciting parts. I mean, I was always super attracted to the idea of circularity because it felt like a really exciting challenge.
00:13:33
Speaker
And as designers, we're often trying to look for, you know, something that's going to like really make us like make something different. That's going to like a brief, that's going to be exciting. That's going like force us to jump through hopes and move mountains. And like that's what really drives us. So this idea of circularity going like, you have to make things for them to be recycled, became a really exciting like challenge. It means that when you start designing your garment, you can't just make anything.
00:14:02
Speaker
I completely overuse this quote Victor Papanek from The Green Imperative, which I think is a publication from like the eight t's I'm not going to say the exact dates without having it in front of me.
00:14:13
Speaker
and But so, you know, it harks back to quite a while ago. and he's talking at this transition between, you know, designers who were like all about just like making products for like mass consumption and ah planned obsolescence.
00:14:27
Speaker
And he's writing from an environmental perspective. And he talks about this age where Design will no longer be driven by pure ego and it will be all about how design follows sustainability. And that's the new design brief.
00:14:41
Speaker
So I guess that's the really exciting thing about, about circularity. It's that it really like forces us to be creative about the ways that we can create beautiful, usable, useful garments that still flow within the system.
00:14:57
Speaker
And when it comes to challenges, obviously, like it's kind of just the other side of the the coin. It does mean that it changes everything, like from the very beginning of the design process.
00:15:10
Speaker
You have to have this brief in mind. you have to be informed about everything. like where the garment is going to go at end of life, how the longevity strategies that you might be putting into place. So for instance, using fibers that like, you know, withstand washes better might actually work in contradiction to recyclability parameters.
00:15:34
Speaker
And it can often be quite, so quite complex because of like those multiple angles to the question. But yeah, I think those two things can both be seen as a challenge and an opportunity.
00:15:44
Speaker
And I'm sure we'll have Patrick and Felice share more about how they put this in practice as well. And I'll bring you guys in just a couple more questions for Letitia, though. Can you explain a little bit about circular business model and how are brands incorporating or experimenting with some of these new business models in their current operations?
00:16:02
Speaker
So the circular business models kind of fits within the longevity aspect most in the sense that it is about trying to like break open ownership as we know it and make sure that garments can actually sort of like circulate for as long as possible.
00:16:20
Speaker
And we know with fashion, it's really tricky because ah garment being used isn't necessarily just a question of its physical durability. People change, like their bodies change, their habits change, like they get tired of ah a specific garment.
00:16:35
Speaker
So circular business models like resale, rental, etc., really try and like fit into that gap and like help circulate garments between different people, help basically build value onto garments that are already made without having to go back to the whole like extraction manufacturing processes.
00:16:58
Speaker
So yeah, they are multiple. There's so much and like that exists out there from, you know, massive take back schemes with big brands.
00:17:10
Speaker
all the way to community practices around like repair and swapping and that kind of stuff. So like, it's a bit hard to classify and really sort of like break it down, but it is really just about making sure that any garment that is still wearable physically can continue to be wearied because this idea of longevity isn't just about you know, keeping ah garment in your wardrobe for 30 years.
Designing for Recycling
00:17:39
Speaker
Longevity is only worthwhile if it's actually replacing the need to buy new garments and the garment is actually in use. As you said, there are these three pillars and within these three pillars, there's various strategies that people can use.
00:17:51
Speaker
Which of these do you feel really has the biggest impact? where Where is the change that we can make that's really going to shift the dial on this conversation? I think they all have massive impacts.
00:18:05
Speaker
I'm going to speak from my own experience as a sort of material designer and someone who specializes in design for recycling and focus on like the recovery aspect, because I think that that's like the ultimate goal.
00:18:17
Speaker
All the other sort of like using recycled fibers in your input, which fits in these sort efficiency and low impact pillar, like that's super dependent on the fact that we should have actual material to recycle into a quality that it can then become a fibre. That's a real problem in the industry at the moment.
00:18:34
Speaker
It's that the garments that exist are actually quite difficult to recycle. They're made of blends of different materials and our recycling technology is much better at recycling a specific fibre.
00:18:47
Speaker
So we've got technology that can recycle cotton. We've got technology that can recycle polyester. As soon as you put the two things together, it gets more complicated. So there are some technological innovations that can sort like break things down, but they're still in development. They are more costly to run.
00:19:02
Speaker
um So effectively to make our recycling system work and for us to have access to good quality recycled fibers to displace the need to get virgin polyester, to get virgin cotton,
00:19:15
Speaker
then we really need to be designing our products in a way that means that they can flow through those recycling systems in an efficient way. So Yeah, I think that's the real game changer. And it's like what the whole industry should be like moving towards and what the design brief is about.
00:19:32
Speaker
i think that it's a great um answer to bring Patrick in because that is the design brief now. ah Patrick, for our international listeners, could you just briefly just introduce your brand? I know you've you've mentioned earlier, but give us a little bit of detail about the ethos within your brand.
00:19:49
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. So we're a circular fashion brand based in London. We show at London Fashion Week. So traditional in that sense. But the way we operate as a business isn't super traditional, although I'm always telling people it's actually a really old business model that we've kind of just brought back.
00:20:08
Speaker
um So we only make the pieces that people order. There's a limit on the amount of each piece that can be made, which is very low. And then after purchase, we can also repair or completely redesign the piece.
00:20:20
Speaker
to either fit you again or just change the design because, you know, like, um, the teacher just said, it no longer resonates with you, um as a person. And we also offer a service where clients can bring their own gowns and things. Um, and we remake those. So we're very much in the luxury space. We make very special pieces that people wear to events or, um, you know, occasions that they're not really the kind of clothes people are going to the supermarket in,
00:20:49
Speaker
and So we do occupy a very specific space, but yeah it was very important for me at the beginning that we were always showing that we could do this in a really refined and beautiful way. um Because we still see with customer behavior that ultimately it's the love of the piece that connects a sale um and not the fact that it's a circular garment. And we still see that. So it is really important that pieces really are beautiful and resonate and you know make people feel something. um and then I see it as my responsibility as a designer and a business owner to then have a back end, which is a bit kinder to the planet.
00:21:26
Speaker
So how has this influenced your creative process? Because there's a really clear stand that you've made as a brand. um How you then yeah implementing that in every stage of your ah creative process?
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i like I said, when I was a kid, i first the the first thing I made was this bag from jeans. And then I went on to continue working in that way. So even when I was selling those bags as a teenager, I was working with a store in Liverpool where I'm from that specializes in old, dead-stuck, end-of-roll damaged material. And I would buy all these different types of fabric and kind of cut around the floors or...
00:22:03
Speaker
Things like that, which actually added to what I was doing because it meant that everyone that bought the same bag had actually had something different because the fabrics changed. And so it was almost built in from the beginning. You know, I learned to sew on my grandma's Singer sewing machine from the nineteen fifty s of which she had made six identical dresses for my mom and her sisters because it was more, you know, cost effective and resourceful to use the same piece of fabric. So they all got the same dress. And then my mom had to wear all six of them because she was the youngest.
00:22:38
Speaker
Oh, bless her. I know. But so she in turn never touches a sewing machine because she's kind of scarred by it. But um it was a really incredible insight into a different world for me. um You know, my grandma was born in 1923. She grew up in Lancashire and they didn't have very much money. And so it was just really...
00:23:01
Speaker
fascinating for me as a kid to to listen to her stories and hear, you know, she would make, um in contrast to my mom being the youngest, she was one of the oldest in her family. So her younger sister would get identical versions of the dresses my grandma was making for herself, for her, because my grandma could use the offcuts to make a little dress for her sister. And so I guess in that way, it was kind of built in But it it was also very much part of my process from the beginning and in in a very, but very basic way, right? Using old material is a very basic way of being circular to an extent.
00:23:36
Speaker
um And obviously, it's a much more complicated issue than that. But I just think because it was part of my practice at the beginning, it was it was there out of necessity, not out of sustainability at that point. And so um it's something that I really just carried through. And then later in my final year at Sandra St. Martin's, there was a series called the Sustainability Lecture Series, which I'd started to go to.
00:23:57
Speaker
um and I was sitting in these lectures with these really amazing people and listening to them And I was thinking, wait, I think this is what I'm already doing. ah yeah And so, you know, it was a really interesting journey into kind of beginning a brand. Again, out of necessity, I was working with Burberry to use their old material because it was a way for me to have amazing materials and make clothes from them.
00:24:18
Speaker
And previously to that, wouldn't have had any materials at all. Right. So, Yeah, it was very much built in. and And now it's kind of really evolved to become a super interesting part of what we do. We work with lots of next generation materials as well now, as as well as still working with brands to use old materials. And like I said, changing the business model to try and make it a little bit better in terms of the volume of clothes and the services that we can offer around the clothes has been a real privilege and joy.
00:24:47
Speaker
Amazing. You talked a lot about sort of upcycling and and reusing materials that have been around. Can you share a specific example more recently in your collection where you have done that as part of your final work?
00:24:59
Speaker
Yes. So all ah the last runway that we did was in September 2024. chinese chinese so And we created a collection called Portraits of a Painter, which was inspired by the life and work of Glyn Philpott, who is a British artist from the early nineteen hundreds I was lucky enough to be able to track down his last living relative who worked with us on the collection and you know was really involved. We went to see Glyn's letters at the Tate and it came about that she still had her mother's wedding dress, which was Glyn's niece.
00:25:31
Speaker
He was really fond of his niece, would paint her often, and and she came up a lot in the letters too. So um at some point, she very kindly donated that dress to us. And for the closing look of that collection, we actually remade the dress into a new piece that was then featured at the end of the runway. so you know That's a really lovely example of how you can take a piece of clothing which has extreme emotional connection to somebody in a family and remake it into a new piece so then it can continue its life and be worn by you know celebrities in magazines and red carpets and things. And I think, again, it goes back to the point I made earlier where I think at this stage,
00:26:10
Speaker
what we do i think it's so important that we're always showing that we can do this in a really amazing way that it looks really incredible and that to the stylist picking the clothes that's using it because they love the dress they want it on at the shoot but the reality is that the story behind it and the emotional connection that it holds is is so much higher than another regular garment yeah And how do you balance that creative freedom that you have as an independent designer with the constraints and requirements of
Innovation Opportunities for New Designers
00:26:40
Speaker
circularity? I know you see that as ah as a inspiration probably and not as a you know constraint, but if you were talking to younger designers, upcoming designers, how would you sort of inspire them to look into the space?
00:26:53
Speaker
yeah I mean, I think it's an incredible opportunity to think about things differently. You know, I've always felt that maybe in the 90s, you know, the the real mavericks were the people that were redesigning the clothes in a really interesting way, doing really interesting shapes. We've got to a point of saturation now where we've seen almost everything. So I really feel like the new age of that independent thinker designer is the person that can redesign the business model that the clothes are within, as well as creating amazing products. So I think it's a great business opportunity. It's a great way to avoid the many pitfalls of the world right now. I've seen so many of my designer friends really struggle through different things like the wholesale collapse or supply chains falling apart all this kind of other stuff. And when you make all your pieces in the city that you live in and
00:27:42
Speaker
you only make what people or just so somehow you are able to kind of sidestep a lot of those issues. You know, i won't lie. It's not, you know, i think there's obviously opportunity to make an extreme amount of money in fashion. and And I don't think we're there yet with this, but it is growing all the time. And I think the crucial part is that the customer is on the journey and starting to adapt to it, which is really exciting. And,
00:28:10
Speaker
And I think the main thing is that we're seeing a general shift across all industries towards experiences over just purchasing. And that then opens up all these incredible business opportunities to offer different services as a fashion brand that allow people to engage with the brand, but also keep their photos in circulation.
00:28:27
Speaker
i I'm curious. So you do offer a repair and refit service. What has been the interest from the customer's side? ah Is there traction? Are they signing up? Are they bringing back things?
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah, so we we, you know, we'll happily repair things. And that's definitely happened because we've only been around for seven years. We haven't had so many people bring our pieces back to be remade yet or refit for their children, for example, mainly because they're very special things and they don't, they're not They're not really the kind of thing that someone's wearing like every day.
00:28:57
Speaker
But it is important to me that that's built in and that it's something that we do. And we we continue to showcase that through our shows. There's always pieces where we've remade something. And again, I just think proving that you can do it in a really special, well-finished, well-fitting way is a really important narrative shift in the in the minds of of the clients because...
00:29:17
Speaker
There is certain preconceptions about this kind of work and I am always very determined to show that it can look very beautiful. Yeah, you do highlight craftsmanship as something that you really focus on.
00:29:30
Speaker
Great to hear about how circular design practice is implemented in luxury brand. We will bring in Philly now to help us understand how you approach this for a bigger brand ah that's reaching a wider audience. So Philly, again, just a quick introduction to Nobody's Child and what your ethos is as a brand.
00:29:49
Speaker
Absolutely. We are on a mission to celebrate every woman. um So we are sort of bigger market um and growing. and We like effortless fits and timeless styles, and we want our pieces to be worn, reworn and kept in use and out of waste streams for as long as possible.
00:30:07
Speaker
We also value circularity and materials. We've got a huge focus on um the sort of environmental impact of our materials, which I'm sure I'll talk to you on later. And we're also dipping our proverbial toe in some circular business models, which is really exciting, actually.
00:30:22
Speaker
um We're seeing sort some new customers come through who are only using rental, for example, from us instead of buying new. It's a small number, but it it's there, which I think is really important.
00:30:33
Speaker
Could you tell us more practically how you have embedded some of these principles across the three pillars that Letitia mentioned? We have a materials matrix, which isn't uncommon in brands, obviously, and it sort of grades our fibers from best to worst and avoid.
00:30:49
Speaker
I've sort of done a big roll up of all of the materials that we use and currently the numbers are 93% of our um materials sourced in 2024 were from the top three categories, which is really good, but we're constantly trying to do better, constantly setting targets around those.
00:31:07
Speaker
We also, the matrix favors sort of recyclable, recycled and um materials that could biodegrade if um they were given the chance. And we've started doing a really, really nice denim collection called the Gene Code, which is like our new denim DNA.
00:31:25
Speaker
And that sort has a nice blend of pre and post consumer recycled cotton, It's got 10 cell in it so that it has a bit of softness and it's obviously then no synthetic in it at all.
00:31:36
Speaker
And it's got removable rivets, which is obviously designed for disassembly. Yeah, it's um that's really cool. And I'd love to see us sort of dial that up across all of our. ah denim. I think that we also do quite a lot of storytelling, which I think is really important for something like emotional durability, because emotional durability is such a weird sustainability metric. It's my favorite one because it just can't be quantified. as It's like magic. It's like, why do people keep their clothes in use?
00:32:05
Speaker
And we all have that gross jumper that we've beent that we've had for like 15 plus years. It might be an old uni sweater or something. Yeah. We just won't throw it away. And why It's because we've got an emotional connection to it.
00:32:18
Speaker
It's not because made of particularly cool fibres. It's not because it's sort of made spectacularly, amazingly. it's because we've got a connection. And I think that's something that i've really, that puzzles me about circularity.
00:32:30
Speaker
Something that can't be defined. ah We'll get more into that emotional durability a bit later because um that's an area that umm fascinated by as well. You do offer quite a few circular business model options such as a take-back scheme with Reskinned.
00:32:45
Speaker
You do repair with Sojo and rental with Zoa. Really interested to learn more about the data insights that you've got from these different approaches. Is there traction from the customer side?
00:32:56
Speaker
And how is that data feeding back into your product development or decision-making process? earlier in the process? It's a really good question. I'll talk about SOJO first.
00:33:07
Speaker
ah So we've been partnered with SOJO for a couple of years now and the stats that we get back from SOJO are typically sort of around 35% repairs and 65% alterations.
00:33:21
Speaker
And I think that's really good because it shows that um Our clothes, people want our clothing to sort of fit them perfectly so that they'll wear them more. And obviously, because if if it needs to be repaired, um they want to repair it, which I think is really good.
00:33:36
Speaker
um Again, that all sorts of feeds into the um emotional durability side of things. We're also getting it in store in more of our stores so that customers can actually go in store and then the um customer team will sort of help them do all the logistics and get it sent off to Sojo because that's ah that's a bit of a thing with circular business models.
00:33:55
Speaker
There's so many amazing things out there, but you have to be really committed as a customer to try and sort of utilize them. So I think there's um a lot of things that brands can do to kind of make them more accessible and just do a bit of the legwork.
00:34:07
Speaker
So I'm really excited to roll that out across all of our stores, hopefully by the end of the year. Rental is gorgeous. The last time I crunched the numbers on rental, this is our on-site rental, by the way, so that it's actually positioned side by side with um conventional buying.
00:34:24
Speaker
So you can sort of go on the description page and it says, I'm also available to rent, which I think is really nice to sort of recycle business models in ingrained with traditional transactions.
00:34:34
Speaker
And so it's sort of like maybe sheds a bit of stigma, any of that sort stuff. I know that we're kind of past the stigma of it all now, but it's nice that it's positioned there for the user journey. And our...
00:34:46
Speaker
Clothing last year spent 5,959 days in rental in total, which really cool because if one of those was a virgin purchase, it would obviously have a bit of a bigger impact than you know, them being rented.
00:35:00
Speaker
And we're getting some gorgeous stories about, you you know, and brides renting their sort of like bridal party um dresses through rental, which is just a gorgeous story because it's sort of, it shows that people, it's such a special day for them. And they just look amazing, but they don't, right they're not fussed about keeping the garment, which I think really good.
00:35:19
Speaker
oh That's fantastic to hear those stories because then because you do wonder if these strategies are really translating to the customers, but it looks like it's not just working, but it's actually creating quite a bit of extra revenue as a company as well.
00:35:32
Speaker
And that's important for brands. Let's not pretend it's not. how How does Nobody's Child measure success of these circular initiatives, both environmentally and commercially, you've just mentioned?
00:35:45
Speaker
Are there any KPIs that you track and review over the year? um Yes, so we sort of get regular reporting from our um service providers for the circular business model side of things.
00:35:57
Speaker
So we sort of, we're seeing a nice gentle sort of increase of um uptake across the board, which is really nice. I think that It's a chicken and egg situation with the circular business models. You have to communicate about them as a brand so that people know they're there and so you drive traffic.
00:36:12
Speaker
And so there's always more that anyone can be doing in that space, which is, um I suppose, an exciting challenge. And then with circular design, we've started tracking mono material. We've only started doing it sort of at the back end of last year. The stats last year were 51.4% of all of our products were mono material, which you know It's a decent half, but yeah when you think that we've sort of expanded into other product categories as well, I still think it's really good that um we've got such a high percentage of monomaterial design.
00:36:42
Speaker
Because if you think about things like outerwear and tailoring, that's obviously far more complicated to get monomaterial than something like dresses or jeans. That's maybe shooting fish in a barrel.
00:36:53
Speaker
And um there's always this sort of push and pull between... the use of elastane, I suppose. That's probably the biggest concern with circular design. And you want the customer to be to feel comfortable in the jeans because then they'll wear them more. So then they'll have, you know, the duration of service and the impact per wear might be lower.
00:37:12
Speaker
However, if they do enter the waste stream, they won't be able to be recycled or biodegraded. So the whole trick is just to keep them in use for as long as possible so they never enter the waste streams. So I think there is a case for elastane, but it has to be done really under very strict parameters because it can't you can't just go crazy with it because otherwise nothing will be on the material.
00:37:34
Speaker
And what are some of the big challenges that you faced in scaling some of these processes across the brand? You're a large brand, you sell huge volumes across the country.
00:37:45
Speaker
How did you achieve that? We sort of have general targets as a as a company around sort of our materials matrix and our monomaterial, things like that. But you you have to also filter it down into the product categories because some of them just won't be able to um get to monomaterial. So then dead stock becomes a solution. It's like a kind of creative design challenge for um every single designer and they're so creative and they've got their own sort of framework.
00:38:14
Speaker
But I see, I'm going off on one here, I see circularity and circular design as sort of like a still life, the still life subject matter. And everyone's an artist doing the same, um you know, they're doing their drawing of the um ah the subject matter.
00:38:29
Speaker
But the output is different for everyone. So that's the same at Nobody's Child with our product categories. And so I think, yeah, I've touched on the problems or the sort of the challenges um around circular design for the specific product groups.
00:38:42
Speaker
But then i think for the circular business models, it's sort of reframing the finances of it all and sort of maybe even slightly departing from the kind of like, this will make us this much money.
00:38:55
Speaker
It's kind of and more of an abstraction than that. It's sort of new customer acquisition. It's um maybe preparing us for EPR schemes because we'll be able to keep things in use and out of waste streams.
00:39:07
Speaker
um And then, yeah, it's sort of, it's a bit of a leap of faith really taking the circular business model trials. It's not as clear cut as buying and selling.
00:39:18
Speaker
It is such a growing um space in the industry. And you just think about how the terminology has changed in a very short space of time. it Things used be called second hand, hand-me-downs, castoffs.
00:39:30
Speaker
And now it's like pre-loved, re-loved. And so that that just shows that evolution of terminology that just shows um the journey that we're on as an industry. And you've got to sort of just start with some trials and get the proof of concept.
00:39:45
Speaker
And yes, there are going to be challenges. And it, you know, there are things that you can do to alleviate them, like communicating about them more and really shouting about it on all of your social media channels and stuff. But I think it's good to start with the trial so that then you can actually trickle them down into actual business or normal business operations.
00:40:02
Speaker
It's really inspiring to see how you've achieved that with such a large brand. I'm glad you mentioned EPR because I'm aware that you do attach a digital product passport to the tag. i've worked with a company which focuses on creating DPPs, so it's an area I'm interested
Digital Product Passports in Fashion
00:40:19
Speaker
in.
00:40:19
Speaker
ah But I also realized that it's it's on the tag. So once i you know, I do check it in the shop, I'm like, oh, this is where it's come from. And It's very exciting. And then I buy it, but then I cut the tag off.
00:40:30
Speaker
um So you you've kind of used DPP as ah as a way for customers to understand the supply chain and trace it. Do you think in the future you're integrated into the garment itself and it can enable...
00:40:42
Speaker
the circular the circularity of that product because that's kind of the intention that you wanted the tag on on the clothing right is so that you can add that it's been repaired or it's been resized or whatever and that information stays with the garment till the end when it goes to recycling Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think the DPP is a landing page.
00:41:03
Speaker
And so the QR code in the garment care label is a key. And if we need to find another key at some point, we will, and because the landing page will still exist. And I think it's so amazing. Actually, we also partner with ACS.
00:41:17
Speaker
on our um to fix our faulty returns and resell them on eBay. And we get regular feedback saying, oh, we've got another garment with a QR code that's come back. So that's sort of showing that some people do keep the labels in and ah a lot of them do actually, and um and that we can sort of then pick up the end of life.
00:41:34
Speaker
and not Yeah, through those channels like ACS. Yeah, so that was my next question, actually. What kind of data are you getting from the ah the DPP? And has there been a lot of customer engagement with that landing page?
00:41:47
Speaker
ah Yes, people love it. I mean, look, the TV show, How It's Made, has been popular since before look the Lord of the Rings films. And so people are obsessed with it. It's trending on TikTok. People love seeing, like, the inner mechanisms of um how the product got into their hands.
00:42:02
Speaker
And so we've had a really, really, really good response to it. We've obviously been doing it for quite a while. We've been trialing it since 2023 with the Fern Cotton Ranges. ah We've won ah few awards, which is really rewarding and awarding.
00:42:16
Speaker
We've also very recently, as yesterday, bought it into the pre-purchase journey as well. So if you're on our website for our Poppy Delevingne collection, you can actually click on a sort of little button on them on the product description page and it'll take you to the landing page of the DPP.
00:42:33
Speaker
So people can actually use it in their purchasing decisions, which really exciting. And we're going to roll it out across everything soon, hopefully before the end of the year. I love that. Thank you. Sorry to keep you waiting, Letitia, but we've talked about the importance of language and and you know how we communicate about circular design and circular business models.
00:42:54
Speaker
We've heard from both luxury brands and larger high street brand. How important is it for customers to know about circular design principles? if we expect them to be active participants in this practice, and how do we get them to be engaged more in and understanding and making decisions?
00:43:13
Speaker
I wish I had the answer to that question in a simple form. and Yeah, it it is really tricky. I think like the the things that make it so exciting for designers, like the...
00:43:25
Speaker
wealth of questions and of different challenges i love that metaphor of the still life and that we're all sort of like sitting in in a different corner of the room and like drawing it from different perspectives um and that's really exciting but it makes it really hard to communicate like for instance like one of the examples is like talking about like recycling routes and like the challenges between you know something going to mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, biodegradation, and I'm not even going to go like into that like minefield of an end of life um solution. And all those things are like, yeah, really like interesting, deep questions.
00:44:04
Speaker
But then when we come to communicate them, it it is really tricky. I guess there's like one super clear message that like we really need to get across to like every single clothes wearing citizen.
00:44:17
Speaker
Like really to take it down to the simplest form is like just never ever throw your clothes in the kitchen bin. um That is like really the first step. and France, with their sort of like step forward ahead of eu legislation, have been doing some fantastic work, like really sort of like centralizing the circular fashion efforts around their refashion.
00:44:39
Speaker
system and the sort of eco contribution that goes with it so like they've been of really pushing that and sort of like basically through the centralization model have i think having the capacity to then distribute non-wearable and re-wearable in different ways in the UK because we're a lot more sort of like distributed with lots of different charities that do the collection at different places like and that's not even going into like brand collection, we're like still sort of like finding the the way of like dealing with all the different grades of clothing at end of life.
00:45:15
Speaker
But the point still stands that if people put their clothing in the bin with like their other household waste, it will definitely never, ever go to any kind of recycling system.
00:45:27
Speaker
So i guess like if there is one thing that we want to communicate really clearly, it's that. But then people get really sort of like worried or confused. And then, you know, they put stuff in a clothing recycling bin, and like sort of in their local area and they go oh, but I've seen, you know, images of like the Atacama deserts with like all this clothing going there. And it's, and it is really tricky. And because we have all these different end of life systems that sort of, you know, work on a global level, is really hard to communicate. And yeah, like I said, wish I had the answer.
00:46:02
Speaker
to that. But yeah, I think there are some like really key messages, like what you do at the end of life, like buying into these circular business models, like taking your clothes for repair when you can, like all those things are like at the level at which people really connect with their garments. And I think that's a really important aspect you know around the language that we use.
00:46:27
Speaker
It's not necessarily to like get everyone drowned with ideas of you know like mono material and your Zips are disruptors, etc. It can get really technical. And like i I love that aspect. I find it like i'm like really exciting and I'm a bit nerdy about this kind of stuff.
00:46:44
Speaker
But when it's about you know the clothes that you're wearing and if you're not to know materials expert actually you just really want and you know understand on an emotional level like why this clothing is important like why how it's been well made and what you can then do to make sure that it continues um like living its best life for as long as possible.
00:47:05
Speaker
Brilliant. Thank you. Patrick, um I think you've done a beautiful job but ah communicating the story of your brand and and how central circularity is and sustainability is to your customers.
00:47:16
Speaker
How have you done that? How, how, or what's worked and what hasn't worked in trying to figure that communication and storytelling? I mean, I think really, it it is super important to have those stories that to be able to talk about a wedding dress that belonged to the family of the artists like it's, you know, that's my job as a designer to be able to tell those kind of compelling emotional um stories because, you know, i trained at Central St. Martin's, my collections all have narratives. Essentially, we write books, but instead of pages, they're closed, right? So everything is connected, and we're very much taught, you know, very, very, I was very lucky to be able to to be taught in that way. But we're taught that things but have to have meaning, right? And, and all of your references have to have a place in the narrative. And so we just take it one step further and include all of our
00:48:08
Speaker
messaging around circularity and that too. So yeah yeah, I think it is really important to be able to tell compelling stories that resonate with people emotionally and and switch them on to the idea that this actually is something that can be interesting. And for us, we we definitely see that kind of thing has more resonance with people than facts and figures.
00:48:32
Speaker
Philly, you have a much more difficult job of trying to communicate that to all women, all kinds of women. How have you done that? How have you done your storytelling? Again, what has worked and what hasn't worked as you've experimented with this?
00:48:47
Speaker
So we have an absolutely fantastic head of brand um who has a really, really clear vision for how we show up to everyone that crosses our path.
00:48:58
Speaker
We work very closely together on sort of, I suppose, sustainability communications because obviously they have to be accurate, especially in the modern day, but they also have to be compelling and a bit sexy.
00:49:10
Speaker
And ah my... My downfall is that I'm far too technical so that everything always needs a bit of a look um and for sustainability comms. ah As a company of our size, I think you do need to have some facts and figures to substantiate things.
00:49:24
Speaker
They don't almost need to be the sort of USP. I think that they need to be there for people who are interested and who want to go and see them. um So things like at the end of the month, we're publishing our first sustainability report, which is really exciting.
00:49:37
Speaker
And so the for the people who go straight to the bottom of a website when them when they visit it to go and look at what they're up to with sustainability, we'll have our report up, which is great. But I don't think it needs to be the USP. Sustainability and circularity isn't a USP, it's a BAU.
00:49:53
Speaker
So I think it's just sort of about presenting people with the information in a sort of clear, compelling and coherent way, but not just dumping everything on the product page, on a label.
00:50:06
Speaker
Like you don't want your clothing labels look like the Rosetta Stone, like need to sort of have have the information when people want it on demand, I suppose. And I think it's also sort of about hearing from the customers as well about sort of like the direction that we're taking and things like that, especially to do the sustainability.
00:50:24
Speaker
We sent our biggest um sustainability survey out to our customer base as part of our double materiality assessment. And it we just found some really incredible things out sort of commentary that has been used cross-functionally, also some celebrations and some real nice um feedback we've got from our customers.
00:50:43
Speaker
And I think that that sort of helps us weather the storm of retail, I suppose, because it shows that we're doing the right thing, but also we've got some next steps from our audience, which is really good.
00:50:55
Speaker
I mean, storytelling is absolutely important. Letitia, are there any sort of other strategies that brands can use to ah to enable better storytelling? you know, behavior change is probably much harder than trying to find a solution for Elastin or recycling. Those are sort of technical things that we feel, you know, we can use technology to figure that out, but behavior change so much harder.
00:51:19
Speaker
And storytelling is a big part of that as both Patrick and Philly have shared, but are there any other ways that we could be doing this? Yeah. I mean, if you're, if you're like thinking about storytelling, there's also so many different like angles of a story that you can take. I mean,
00:51:34
Speaker
I think that could have, like, that idea of storytelling can apply so multiple strategies, things like ah material innovation, for instance, um which is, like, a thing that people get really excited about and for very good reasons. I mean, like, the possibility of having fabrics made from algae or from, like, mushrooms is, like, is amazing. Like, everyone wants to buy into that.
00:51:56
Speaker
And obviously that's a way to, like, you know, get people interested in, like, what things are made of, which I think is a really, really important thing. aspect of like having of a responsible like meaningful relationship to our clothing.
00:52:11
Speaker
I find it like sort of very worrying when we get students who don't really understand fibres and like don't you know have the reflex of ah like looking at at to composition labels on their garments and I think that's something like you know like connecting back to what Patrick was saying about modern but also ancestral practices and like connecting to the way that maybe our parents or our grandparents connected to clothing.
00:52:38
Speaker
This idea of like knowing where things like how things are made and like where they're from is really interesting. And if the entry point is futuristic, exciting materials, that's fantastic. And and then it sort of like draws across to also understanding what type of wool your garment is made of and what the difference between mohair and British wool could be, for instance, like all of those things are really important. And I think they tie back to the idea of emotional durability that you sort of touched on ah earlier. And i mean,
00:53:12
Speaker
you know, trying to maybe like address the elephant in the room about sort of like, know, mass consumption and hyper fast fashion, like those two things like don't sit well together. Like the mindset that you're in when you're like you know, doing a, like a garment haul and just like buying a million things that you don't even really think you're going to be wearing compared to the type of habit where like you'll actually, you know, want to go into the shop um look at the labels. If you're not going into the shop, then you've got fantastic ah bits of technology like Fili was just talking about and you're able to look all ah all that information up on the website.
00:53:48
Speaker
Like I think that's a really important sort like step into like a sustainable fashion kind of approach. And it's not necessarily something that we directly connect with circularity ah looking at fiber composition doesn't have to be part of a circularity like or circular design perspective but it does all tie together and i think it's actually really important remember that um circular design is actually sort of like one strategy amongst a sort of like a broader bubble of like design for sustainability and something can be so
00:54:25
Speaker
designed for like extreme sustainability can include very regenerative practices and not be strictly circular design but in the same time it's impossible to do circular design without thinking of like broader sustainability practices it's like a venn diagram but like you know yeah the the the circular design has to be completely inside that design sustainability bubble like some parts of it do sort of like you know uh step outside of it like there's a a part of that circular design bubble that maybe like is hanging out of the sustainability one.
00:54:59
Speaker
That's the stuff that can be quite worrying. Like if you're doing circular design, but you're doing it with materials that are extracted, you know, in like polluting or socially unjust ways, like you're definitely not doing it right. Yeah. um I'm glad you mentioned technologies. um Like we talked about digital product passport. What other the technologies or emerging technologies are you seeing ah coming through that is accelerating or enabling the adoption of circular design in fashion? Philly talked about it a little bit, but this idea of digital product passports is like super essential to the way that ah we're moving towards circularity.
00:55:36
Speaker
It's a bit of a ah big unknown at the moment. It's coming through with legislation, which is connected to EU. So it's not even directly applied to us, but we know that the UK is going to have to follow. And in any case, brands from the UK are selling into the EU. So it's all connected.
00:55:51
Speaker
There's no... sort of clear description about what it's going to look like. But there's loads of like pockets in which it's being experimented with. Nobody's child is a super example of like just like going ahead with it. And you're like, this is how we would do it. And like that's how you can also inform policy.
00:56:10
Speaker
So the way that that's going to be implemented is going to be absolutely essential, ah not only because it can help ah foster circular practices with users because they'll have more information but it's also got the effect of basically forcing accountability um and forcing like brands who are going to have to write something into that DPP to like go check their supply chains and actually know as much as possible and so yes it's really ah linchpin of sustainable systems across the industry
00:56:45
Speaker
And Philly, you mentioned about it's still quite challenging for customers to kind of return things or, you know, get it in your hands for you to be able to repair. um So hopefully there's a lot of opportunity there for innovation in that space, enabling customers and bringing down some of the barriers or the hurdles that they have to jump through at this point. So opportunities for innovation there.
00:57:05
Speaker
ah Question to both Philly and Patrick. ah You know, we talk about switching out unsustainable material with sustainable materials and we talk about keeping garments in use for longer.
00:57:18
Speaker
But our volumes of garments produced an equally huge problem that we need to address as an industry.
Future Vision of Sustainable Fashion
00:57:25
Speaker
We've gone from sort of two collections a year to potentially, you know, some brands doing 52 micro collections and we're producing huge volumes of garments.
00:57:33
Speaker
the same thing it might be better materials but it's still and large large volumes of it can the fashion industry as a whole rethink this approach you know if we create more obviously people are going to buy more is is the fashion industry really willing to rethink the very core of its business uh can we think the unthinkable which is to make less but still be profitable Yeah, I mean, until fashion stops relying on the ever increasing um volume of clothes to signal success, like there there is always an issue, right? So circularity offers a great opportunity for businesses to identify other revenue streams through experiences around clothes.
00:58:16
Speaker
And that's a great way to top up a revenue stream without purely just selling things. And it also plays into consumer behavior changes towards experiences rather than simply buying and using, which across the board, we're seeing people just aren't interested in doing anymore.
00:58:37
Speaker
And fashion brands are seeing that at the moment, right? Everybody's sales are down. Nobody's retail is doing as well as it was like, across the board at all levels of fashion industry, everyone is having to reassess how things work. And so I think it just has to be seen as an opportunity like nobody's child is doing where you can, you know, explore other avenues and consequently gain new customers, gain new insight and have less impact.
00:59:03
Speaker
I'd also just like to highlight, I think that the regulation is very much on us now. It daunting, of course, not gonna shy away from that. But do think that once we're up and running with it and it's all harmonized, they'll all work together like an orchestra. Like we'll have EPR making brands physically and financially responsible for the waste generated by their production.
00:59:26
Speaker
That will then feed into fiber to fiber recycling, which can help eco design and reduce our dependency on stealing plastic bottles from the food and drink industry. And then we'll be able to sort of like, you know, keep our and loop closed.
00:59:39
Speaker
um Then with DPP, we'll be able to shine a light on the supply chain and with the circular business models, which will become probably a necessity as EPR develops, then um we'll sort of see those roll dial up as well.
00:59:52
Speaker
So I think... We're in this sort of, everyone knows where we're going. And obviously, you know, the climate crisis is getting pretty, pretty hot now. So I think that with that, teamed with regulation, teamed with the sort of increase in innovation, i think that the future in about 10 years hopefully looks good. It's just about sort of finding the industry, finding its feet until we get to that lovely utopia that I do believe is possible. Yeah.
01:00:19
Speaker
My next question was, what is your vision for the fashion industry in the next 10 years? And you've just painted that beautifully for us. Thank you, Philly. Okay, now going on to a few ah personal questions, maybe.
01:00:32
Speaker
And we touched upon this a little bit earlier, but um this is something very important for me because textiles and fashion are so powerful. They fulfill our senses and our soul, as we talked about the emotional durability.
01:00:45
Speaker
And it really, kind we can deeply connect with an an item of clothing. Could you ah share an example of a piece of textiles or a garment that you've held on to because it holds very special meaning or memory
Emotional Durability of Clothing
01:00:58
Speaker
for you?
01:00:58
Speaker
Letitia, is there something you could share with us about a little story? Um, there's lots. I'm, uh, I've, I've sworn off buying new clothes about eight years ago. So like by nature through that habit, I end up just having a lot of very old things, but to pick one example, I could almost like, uh, yeah. Grab it from my drawer next to me.
01:01:21
Speaker
But I have this ah this jumper, ah which is a cotton a pure cotton ah jumper, which actually belonged to my mum. So I don't even know when it was made. i going to guess somewhere in the late eighty s So it's fantastic because it's so it's cotton. so it's sort of a lightweight jumper that I can wear.
01:01:40
Speaker
like at different seasons and it's, you know, nice and breathable. So it doesn't do that thing where sometimes you're wearing your like wall jumper and you just get a little bit overheated. And really importantly in terms of design.
01:01:53
Speaker
So it's a, it's a white jumper with a sort of swirly of black line pattern. So the pattern itself is, it's got sort of Art Nouveau type of inspiration.
01:02:04
Speaker
So it has a sort of, you know, a temporality to it through the the historical bit, but super importantly for wearability, it means that it doesn't and show stains so much. Interesting, yeah. you know, a white jumper from like so many years ago.
01:02:20
Speaker
and it's not, you know, it's definitely not white, white anymore, but because of that pattern, it gains that of wearability and durability and you you can roll up the cuffs and all looks okay.
01:02:33
Speaker
Definitely not something that I'd wear to you know, a formal event. Yeah. wearable Yeah. and And it's also special because it was your mom's and it was passed down from her. um How about you, Philly? Philly.
01:02:44
Speaker
So my, um I suppose, favorite garment throughout the three three-pl plus decades I've been on this earth was this amazing purple and white spotty dress. It was not like a spectacularly amazing fabric. It was probably a poly cotton, but used to call it purple dress as if it had a sole and I'd wear it every single day. My mum had to prise it off me to get it laundered. And It became threadbare. I'd honestly wear this thing on like beach donkey rides, going to the shop, birthday parties, try to wear it school and everything in between. And it became threadbare, like almost like a bit of a fishnet dress, I suppose.
01:03:21
Speaker
And um I didn't want to part with it at all. And so it was beyond repair. Like there was no way this thing was coming back to life by the time i was done with it. And so my mum took me to the local haberdashery and we bought some stockpiles. stuffing and we bought loads of lovely and buttons, like of all, like very eclectic buttons.
01:03:41
Speaker
And together we just sewed all of the little sleeves shut and stuffed it with padding and then sewed the little buttons onto the rah-rah skirt part of it. And I had this like very bizarre, quite like ornate looking pillow that would just be on my bed for the next 10 years.
01:03:57
Speaker
And I've still got it now, but it's under a drawer. It's in a drawer now because it does look a little bit Buffalo Bill. but love it. It's a pillow shaped like a dress. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love it.
01:04:10
Speaker
It's a mannequin pillow. ah stuffed dress. Brilliant. Thank you, Philly. How about you, Patrick? I'm obsessed with the idea of a pillow in the safe of a dress.
01:04:25
Speaker
the For me, I think it's my... ah Maybe two things. My childhood teddy, which i was was bought for me before I was born, it's called Pookie and has...
01:04:36
Speaker
you know, had a ah very long, well-loved life. And she's been reincarnated a few times in our collections in mycelium leather as a handbag and also as a, as a teddy again, but using offcuts from one of the collections that we made. So, um, and she continues to have many more lives, which is quite nice. And, um the other is dress that my mom wore when, when I was five, um,
01:05:01
Speaker
to celebrate the millennium, ah new year, she wore this kind of floor length red dress, which, you know, they had a little party in the semi-detached house in the suburbs of Liverpool, but it was a floor that's right just with train.
01:05:15
Speaker
And at the time it just really resonated with me and and still does today. And I, so I, uh, you know, ah have a lot to thank that dress for because it really showed me about the kind of transformative power of clothing and how clothing can make people from all walks of life feel empowered to be maybe the person that they dream of being. And and I think that's really beautiful.
01:05:39
Speaker
Oh, that's a beautiful, beautiful story to to almost wrap up our conversation. i guess the last question I had was ah really any recommendations of resources that you could give our audience to learn more about circular design, circular business models, any books, web websites, podcasts, anything you can tell us about?
Resources for Learning Circular Design
01:05:58
Speaker
I know, Letitia, you have published a circular design with Next Gen Materials guidebook. Is that publicly available or is that kind of behind academic closed off? Yes. It's absolutely publicly available, ah as are like sort of most of the single author thought or co-authored papers that I've been working on over the past eight years or so. Brilliant. yeah So it's all at UAR Research Online.
01:06:22
Speaker
um And it's not just my work. Obviously, there's loads of like stuff published by a different academics. um So yeah, that's a great place to look. And yeah, so the the guidebook on circular design with next-gen materials is there.
01:06:34
Speaker
It's probably one of the more um like fun kind of resources there. It's got like a diagram with lots of colors. It's been worked on by this fantastic um graphic design studio called Acre also. So it's a really nice piece to work with.
01:06:49
Speaker
But on that subject, um there's also a really sort of accessible resource that I've also been working on with ACRE actually, um which is currently on display at the Design Museum as an interactive digital piece, but it's a website effectively. So you don't have to go to the Design Museum to see it.
01:07:08
Speaker
And it's called garmentlifecyclemap.com. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes. Yeah. And it's um it's a public facing tool effectively that really embodies quite a lot of the research that I've been doing around material literacy and understanding garment life cycles.
01:07:27
Speaker
But it's really sort of like broken down to like something that can speak more to like people who experience clothes as wearers. um So I guess that's ah an entry point to things like recycling technology and like different types of fibers, et cetera.
01:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, brilliant. um Philly, would you have any recommendations? I feel like I should point people in the direction of Letitia's works. It sounds absolutely amazing. um I think that separate to that, um I've personally learned a hell of a lot on um this call with human interaction. And so I think there's a lot of really good trade shows out there and really good sort of forums. So there's obviously the British Fashion Council's IPF, which is um fantastic. There's SIFIN, Circular Fashion Innovation Network.
01:08:13
Speaker
And then there's the Future Fabrics Expo, which has an absolute wealth of sort of innovative materials, but also more accessible materials, ah sort of, you know, less fringe.
01:08:24
Speaker
And I think talking to people and sort of getting away from your laptops and having a bit of a human interaction is another really nice way to learn in addition to sort of resources. Absolutely. Patrick, anything from you? Yeah, I think if you don't already, just try and pick up a needle and thread and engage with the craft of making clothes.
01:08:44
Speaker
It can be as simple as sewing a button on or fixing a hole or, you know, The great thing about sewing is that it's very um removable. So you can try it again if it doesn't work.
01:08:56
Speaker
On almost every fabric, you can take out stitches and put them back in again, especially hand sewing. So I think don't be afraid and try it. And we always see with people, once they try it, the way they engage with clothes afterwards is very different because they have a very different understanding of how long things take and the fact that it is a skill and a craft to make the things that we wear and somebody somewhere had to do that.
01:09:18
Speaker
So yeah, pick a needle and thread. Oh, beautiful. That is such, i mean, it's something everyone can do. So I do hope the listeners are encouraged to do that. Thank you so much for a fascinating journey into the world of circular design.
01:09:34
Speaker
Patrick, for your insight and your vision to bring circular design into the luxury world of fashion and show that it's possible and it can work. And and for you, Philly, to do the same in in reaching a wider audience with the same message as well.
01:09:48
Speaker
ah You guys both are doing amazing work. Letitia, really value the research that you're putting in further upstream so that you are feeding into brands who are trying to find ways to to make their approaches, their material choices, their processes, and of course, the use of the product lasts longer. in in the world as well. So amazing conversation. Thank you so much again. i really, really appreciate it And I know the three of you are doing a workshop at the Fashion District Festival on the 6th of June.
01:10:18
Speaker
So if listeners are interested to have a deeper conversation, learn more about the topic, you can meet all the guests there. So do sign up for that as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
01:10:34
Speaker
Wow, I think we managed to unpack so much there in just an hour. How incredible are these guests that we had today? It might be worth having another listen to get all that information digested.
01:10:47
Speaker
It was amazing to hear their stories showing us how circularity is shaping everything from luxury fashion to high street brands. And we could actually start reimagining the fashion industry to be one that is zero waste and circular.
01:11:02
Speaker
If you're inspired by what you heard and want to go deeper, don't miss the chance to meet all three of our guests in person at the Fashion District Festival taking place in East London from 3rd to 8th June 2025. They'll be leading a workshop on June 6th where you can explore these ideas further, ask your own questions and connect with others passionate about sustainable fashion.
01:11:23
Speaker
This is a free session, but you do need to register. So come along, join the conversation. Check the link in the show notes below for registration. Before we wrap up, I want to highlight an exciting initiative I mentioned earlier that you can support Flock.
01:11:38
Speaker
This innovative project is transforming Madras lace textiles into natural cotton Flock fiber, a sustainable closed loop alternative to the currently available synthetic fibers that is used for flocking textiles.
01:11:52
Speaker
By backing Flock's crowdfunding campaign, you'll help scale up this pioneering process and prevent valuable cotton from ending up in landfills. Plus, there are some fantastic rewards for supporters, everything from exclusive access to the new fiber that they've created and creative workshops, a tour around MYB mills, as well as ah unique handmade lace keepsakes. So, it's If you believe in a future where textile waste can become a resource, join the flock journey. Every pledge makes a difference. So let's help close the loop together.
01:12:27
Speaker
Thank you again for joining me today. Stay tuned for more episodes and don't forget to subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of textiles, emerging technology, craft and sustainability. Until next time, I'm your host, Millie Thurakin, reminding you that there's no such thing as ordinary cloth.
01:12:43
Speaker
Every thread has a story to tell.