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Ep 27. Sustainability Through Longevity: Emotional Durability in Fashion with Charles Ross
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In this episode of No Ordinary Cloth, we sit down with Charles Ross, Performance Sportswear Design Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, to explore what durability and sustainability looks like in the fashion and sportswear industries. Charles has spent over two decades at the intersection of functional design and environmental responsibility, championing the idea of sustainability through longevity — creating durable, meaningful clothing that stands the test of time.
Together, we unpack the idea of emotional durability: how designers can foster deeper connections between people and their garments, making us value what we wear more and waste less. Charles shares insights from his extensive experience working with brands like Patagonia, The North Face and Adidas as well as from his teaching, research, and outdoor pursuits that inform his hands-on approach to design.
It's an episode where you will laugh and learn from one of the legends of outdoor and performance wear.
Key Takeaways
- Designing for both physical and emotional longevity is one of fashion’s most sustainable acts.
- Storytelling, authenticity, and personal connection drive emotional durability.
- Consumers are more likely to repair, care for, and retain garments they’re emotionally attached to.
- The sportswear sector can lead in circular thinking by blending innovation with human-centered design.
- Longevity is not just about how long clothes last, but how long they matter.
Resources:
A Climate of Truth by Mike Bernes-Lee
There is No Planet B by Mike Bernes-Lee
Connect with Charles Ross: LinkedIn
Connect with Mili Tharakan: LinkedIn I Insta I Website I Buy me a coffee
If you enjoyed this, please share the episode with a friend or colleague. Subscribe and leave a review, I love to hear your feedback.
Cover art: Photo by Siora, Photography on Unsplash
Music: Inspired Ambient, Orchestraman
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'No Ordinary Cloth'
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the No Ordinary Cloth podcast, where we explore innovations bubbling up at the intersection of textiles, emerging tech, sustainability and craft. I'm your host, Malith Harakin, a textile researcher and innovator. Join me as I sit down with pioneers who are radically reimagining the very way we make, use and remake textiles.
00:00:21
Speaker
As we kick off 2026, I want to wish you all a fabulous new year. One where your curiosity, creativity and collaborative efforts flourish and bear fruits. And as a collective, I hope this can be a pivotal year where we create the ripples and waves needed to radically transform the textile industry itself. So cheers to 2026.
Guest Introduction: Charles Ross
00:00:43
Speaker
For today's episode, I'm delighted to welcome Charles Ross. Charles is a rockstar when it comes to performance sportswear design. To say he's a specialist is an understatement. He has played a pivotal role in shaping the future of technical apparel, outdoor wear and sustainable textiles.
00:01:02
Speaker
As a lecturer at the Royal College of Art, he has taught and inspired the next generation of designers for over two decades, shaping talents at brands like Patagonia, The North Face and Adidas.
Sustainability Through Longevity: A Focus on Durability
00:01:13
Speaker
Passionate about sustainability, Charles is known for championing the concept of sustainability through longevity. We'll go into this in a lot of detail today, so stick around. He's been an advocate for durability and circularity way before it was a thing. The aim of the podcast was to focus on emotional durability, but Charles is so knowledgeable about so many areas of textiles. So we go on wonderful little detours exploring areas like designing for longevity, circular business models, looking after your washing machine, and also how textiles have become less evil over the years.
00:01:49
Speaker
It was an absolutely inspiring conversation. His passion for textile and expertise just oozes out of him so effortlessly. I don't think I've ever laughed and learned so much while inter interviewing someone. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I've enjoyed making it for you.
00:02:06
Speaker
Hey Charles, warm welcome to the No Ordinary Cloth podcast. Absolutely thrilled to have you with us today, not just because you're a bit of a legend in the outdoor and sportswear industry, but because you wanted to discuss about a theme that I've been quietly exploring. And to be honest, I was just thrilled to find someone else who wanted to talk about it. For the listeners, the theme of our episode today is quite different to what we've done so far in the podcast.
00:02:30
Speaker
which has been mainly looking at new materials and emerging technologies that are transforming the fashion and textile industry. But on this episode, we're going to be exploring another layer of sustainability and circularity that we haven't discussed as much, and that is emotional durability.
00:02:45
Speaker
And I believe this is a really important factor in our drive to keep products in use for longer and to design better. And we need to be talking a lot more about this. If you're not familiar with this topic, please stick around because I know Charles has a lot of light to shed on this and go away with lots to think about. All right, Charles, that's enough of me. ah You're going to do the rest of the talking a for today. And I'm looking forward to exploring this idea, this theme of emotional durability for sustainability and circularity in fashion. When I got started and as I did a bit of research on you, i came across your mantra and that was quotes, sustainability through longevity.
00:03:26
Speaker
So over your 30 year career, you've been a champion for sustainability and you've been advocating circular approach to textile production and
Charles Ross's Sustainability Mantra
00:03:34
Speaker
consumption for decades. So what does sustainability through longevity mean to you and how do you see it shaping the future of fashion and sportswear design?
00:03:43
Speaker
Well, Millie, thank you for inviting me on. um I like going to the more edgy podcast rather than the core middle ones because I've hit that middle age stage of life. I have gray hair, so I should just be doing proper things. But that's not where the interesting stuff happens. So to answer a couple of questions at once,
00:04:04
Speaker
I have been teaching for over a quarter of a century and 90% of the questions, 18 out of 20 questions that come to me from my students are, yes, Charles, but how can we do it better?
00:04:17
Speaker
So they have very much turned me around. i am one of those dinosaurs. And I was really lucky in the early days when I first joined the outdoor apparel industry to work for Sarah Howcroft, who then went on to become an environmental consultant. So I've always had that somewhere and it's just developed more and more.
00:04:39
Speaker
But specifically for emotional durability, I work in the area of performance sportswear design. So if you want to work for Adidas, Nike, Under Armour, Patagonia,
00:04:53
Speaker
Arcterics, the North Face, Bergkamp, whomever, you might well have to suffer me at some stage because I work i work with postgraduates. And we always talk durability in those fields, but it's known as physical durability.
00:05:08
Speaker
So we put... materials on a martindale machine which is a rubbing machine we see their rip strengths and the thinking has evolved an awful lot more and i would say the biggest person to back the two biggest people to bounce ideas off in my life on this have come from mark shaler and also katie beverly And for both of them, we have talked about the subject of emotional durability. Now, emotional durability is a hard subject to get your head around.
00:05:40
Speaker
So I talk about, or or rather
Emotional Durability in Fashion
00:05:42
Speaker
Mark talks about the reverse of it. he He talks about emotional obsolescence. So how long until you no longer love the garment?
00:05:51
Speaker
Emotional durability to me is how long do you love that garment for and you're not tempted away by something new and shiny. And quite often in performance sportswear, it doesn't look so new and shiny, but it's got a greater technical background. So it tells you it's more waterproof or more permeable or stretchier.
00:06:12
Speaker
That's the subject. It's actually... come alive this decade as well. The author Alec Leach has written a book called The World is on Fire, But We're Still Buying Shoes.
00:06:25
Speaker
And that addresses the subject of something called cultural durability. And when you're as old as me, you remember flares were in the first time around. But when I started to buy my own clothes in the second half of the 80s, were all into drain pipes. So that's cultural durability. So what's acceptable in the community that you live in? And there's a fourth durability, which we all know about, that we don't really consider a durability, but but it's a massive durability. It's
00:06:55
Speaker
fit durability. And when you get old, things go south on your body, so you need slightly larger fits. But it is easier to explain about when you have growing children, they will grow out of apparel before they wear it out. So the durability traditionally people talk physical durability.
00:07:17
Speaker
And there's cultural durability, there's fit durability, but especially chats with Katie and Mark, we agree the most influential durability or the durability that really decides is emotional durability.
00:07:33
Speaker
And if I accelerate to almost the takeaway of this session, every year this millennium, the individual impact of garments have gone down if you want to measure the footprints, which is a great move because the textile industry is seen as terribly wasteful and having lots of bad sides. But...
00:07:54
Speaker
the impacts do go down. The hiccup is that we're buying more stuff. Clothing has become relatively cheaper over the decades, than ever since the 1970s.
00:08:05
Speaker
So we have twice the amount of stuff that we had from the
Evolution of Clothing Consumption
00:08:10
Speaker
noughties at the moment. So if you were to measure at the millennium, we have about two and a half times the amount of clothing from there. Between 1970 and the millennium, we actually doubled what we owned as well.
00:08:21
Speaker
And if you go right back to the 1950s, people didn't so much have wardrobes in that they had pegs in their rooms. Because you only had two outfits. You had what you wore to work and what you wore for Sunday best. So you didn't need to put stuff in a wardrobe. You just put whatever you weren't wearing onto the peg. So if if anything, I hope by the end of this session, what people will walk away with is the thought that And I've catchphrased it just as the churn is the concern.
00:08:55
Speaker
We get through far too much clothing. And yeah, I mean, sorry to disappoint people really early in the podcast, but that's it. we And i am saying that with caveats in that the individual impact of clothing is relatively small.
00:09:13
Speaker
Clothing also has a wonderful ability to make us all unbelievably happy. And I don't mean that shopping has become a leisure activity. It has, unfortunately, become a leisure activity. But when you get shouted at, when you're feeling down, it's so easy and so fast and so convenient to buy clothing now that lifts our spirits.
Emotional Impact of Clothing
00:09:35
Speaker
And if we're going to sort out this world for us all to live on, we need to have happiness within this world. And sometimes clothing makes us, well, clothing always makes us proud of our appearance, of who we who we are and it reflects our values. So we've got to walk a ah reasonably tight line between what's good for the planet and what's good for ourselves.
00:10:00
Speaker
ah You touched on so many things there, Charles. I want to go deep into lots here, but you're so right. I always talk about how textiles and clothing have the power to not just fulfill our senses, but our soul as well. And that's what you just mentioned here. And we'll go a bit more into it. So can
Designing for Emotional Durability
00:10:17
Speaker
we drill down a little deeper on this idea of emotional durability?
00:10:22
Speaker
What is it? Because it's it's a little more sort of hard to get your hands around, isn't it? Like it's not something concrete and it's personal and it's individual. So how do we explain this concept and then how do we design for this?
00:10:35
Speaker
Well, the good question you've asked, and I'm going to answer it in several parts, you've got to accept that everyone in this world has a footprint, and our footprints always count. And it was Mike Berners-Lee who first floated the really practical idea that we shouldn't look to goes have a minimal footprint. If we just look at reducing our footprint each year, and he started off pointing out that most of us have a footprint of between 10 and 15 tons of carbon dioxide. If we can just reduce that by a third to start with, we will make massive changes. So the idea of emotional durability is to keep clothing for longer. But that clothing has to be clothing that you want to be seen wearing.
00:11:23
Speaker
And in the 90s, at the end of the ninety s the grunge look really, really worked worked well to this. But we also had the acceleration by textiles. I do a lot of work within denim. how people were pre-aging jeans. And I have a pair of salvage jeans that you wear them for six months, for 180 days before you wash them. And that way you you get the marvelous effects of them. And as long as you know how to care for them during those six months, which is it the tip, turn them inside out, hang them on the line out and actually the uv will kill the bug to the things that make them smell but you learn tricks like this you can put them in the freezer temporarily and that will also make them hibernate but so what i'm trying to say is look to buy what's been classed in the world as slow fashion so items are which are reasonably timeless, that will go forward. And in something like sportswear, which is where I concentrate, there's an awful lot of slow fashion because we don't want to keep up with the trends. We're using reasonably expensive materials.
00:12:34
Speaker
So we're focused on their performance. And if we need to dress them up, like if we're in a certain team, we'll wear a particular tabard or or put colors onto it. But is your core garment... Something that you can see yourself wearing in not just a year, but I'm talking five years, I'm talking 10 years. I still have some shirts from Patagonia that are not made from organic cotton. Now, Patagonia switched their production to organic cotton 28 and a half years ago. Oh, wow. so That just shows the durability of cotton shirts if you treat them properly.
00:13:13
Speaker
Proper shirts rather than T-shirt. But also on that subject, I've become a bit of a nerd. And if I make the excuse now, sometimes talking to Charles is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I've become a specialist on using washing machines.
00:13:29
Speaker
to get the maximum performance out of washing machines. And I've cheated a little bit in that I know what piece of advice I'm going to give at the end of this podcast recording. Excellent. I love that. can't wait for it. So we've talked about so that emotional durability on the side of the the consumers to to want to keep it for longer. How do designers, you are teaching young people to be designers, how do they think about this concept and design that into the garments that they're making? Is that possible? It is. It's really, really possible.
00:14:02
Speaker
People would like clothing. that is personal to them. One of the big fear, I'm doing a lot of work in Asia at the moment. If you'd asked me 10, 15 years ago about the expansion of the Chinese middle class, around 2010, they started to get paid a minimum wage. They now have the largest middle class in the world and the fastest growing middle class in the world.
00:14:24
Speaker
And right now, we're recording this on April the 4th. We've had the American tariffs coming out. And I, within China, think three and a half weeks ago. And to tell you the truth, the Chinese are not bothered about selling to the Americans. The Chinese actually want to make clothing for their own nation, and they're really proud to. But that's that's going off subject. What I want to say about personalization, 15 years ago, there was this fear that what we were wearing was would be seen on 100 people throughout the rest of or or in 100 different countries around the world, whereas people just want something slightly more personalized. There are lots of breaking brands that I would choose to support because especially i work at several trade fairs. The last thing I want to do is walk around a trade fair with a backpack
00:15:17
Speaker
that's made by one of the brands there. Because then people say, oh, you're owned by such such a brand. So I'm always trying to find a nerdish brand, but it's quite hard to find a nerdish brand that isn't widespread, but also is a wonderful design.
00:15:34
Speaker
Pure design is brilliant. And all I'm trying to say to my students the whole time is stop compromising. Stop trying to design for everyone. Design for a role and you will bring in an audience.
00:15:49
Speaker
And I am a big fan. i do a lot of work in Scandinavia of clean Scandinavian designs. So my backpacks are relatively simple and yeah, they perform and I apply that mantra to the clothing. Although I'm a clothing specialist, it's easier for me to talk about it outside of clothing.
00:16:08
Speaker
Can you give us an example of of a designer who's really very successfully managed to translate these ideas of durability all for both you know physical, emotional, cultural...
00:16:20
Speaker
and fit Yes. I mean, the one that springs to mind, if you're watching The Apprentice last night, he he was almost on The Apprentice because they were using one of the sites that he helped ah develop. It was the E20 site in in East London.
Christopher Raeburn's Sustainable Design Approach
00:16:37
Speaker
um And the guy's name is Christopher Rayburn, a real star, good graduate of the Royal where I work. because his start point is waste.
00:16:47
Speaker
And it's a really simple mantra. Why are we producing more materials when we have enough waste materials already on the planet? And I know when I speak to other people, the quotes I'm getting is that we have...
00:17:01
Speaker
between six and eight generations worth of apparel already on the planet. If I turn that into timescales, that means that no one needs to buy any clothing for 150 years.
00:17:15
Speaker
That just sums up the overproduction we have. But I am proud to work in the sports industry where we work very closely with using recycleterials. And one of the projects I work on It's something called Performance Days, which is an ingredient sourcing show. And we are changing the rules of the judging committee. We have over 1,000. I think we're up to 2,500 at the last show. 2,500 material samples to examine to see whether they should be put onto the champion part of the stage in the fabric forum.
00:17:49
Speaker
And we're going to change the rules to say that if you're... submitting recycled materials. They must be textile to textile recycled materials. So our industry has been brilliant for stopping waste plastic bottles going to landfill.
00:18:07
Speaker
But... To tell you the truth, that's a bit of a waste of PET, that type of plastic. but And the big soft drinks manufacturers have now agreed to integrate that waste plastic back into the feed for bottles. The Gen Z expect their plastics to be recycled. So that's good because we're not downgrading that that version of plastic. My industry at the moment is scrabbling around saying...
00:18:34
Speaker
We've got over 90%, we think it's over 95% of the plat of the RPET feedstock is going to disappear before the end of this decade.
00:18:44
Speaker
What can we do to replace it? So there are lots of projects going on and things like biopolymers, polyamides in really simple terms. Starch. If you take starch, what's left of a corn plant or a potato plant or a sugar beet plant. So you take out the fruit, which is, of course, the nice bit you like to eat. And the rest is actually polylactic acid or PLA. PLA is a type of polyamide, and if I translate that into English, nylon is a type of polyamide.
00:19:17
Speaker
So we can create a synthetic garment using waste from plants, which is now starting to get people thinking. And I hope I've not turned too boring too early. No, no, no. This is brilliant. This is definitely the kind of meat that we want to chew on. It's interesting that you said we have enough garments for the next 150 years, right? But that's not going to sit very well with brands because they do want us to buy.
Sustainability Challenges for Brands
00:19:41
Speaker
So how are they tackling this and approaching this?
00:19:44
Speaker
Well, brands are not tackling it really well to answer the question quite simply. But there was a whole new generation and it's being driven by Gen Z who realized that we must change the business model. At the moment, we make the most and the easiest profits. by selling new stuff. And I was at a fashion supply session earlier this week on AI, and it was just all about how can we sell more virgin stuff easier? And I just left it feeling really punctured. Because the interesting brands to me are the ones who are making just as much profit. And profit is a vital, vital part of the whole thing. They're making just and but as much profit by selling less stuff. And the formula that you've got to suddenly go, hold on, that doesn't make sense. Whether they're renting garments, whether they're reselling their own garments, whether they have a subscription service, there are lots of ways to play with it.
00:20:46
Speaker
To shout out a British brand right now, Rab, who do the big puffy down jackets, they have experiments in every single avenue that you can think of to do with earning money by selling less stuff. So they're swapping the models. offering care services, repair service, loan services.
00:21:06
Speaker
and the searchlight. To see which one becomes the most profitable because we are at the early stage and from a design point of view, you iterate, you try different things and you expect lots of failures. But what failures are balanced out by which ones are gold dust? So to go back to this question again, how can brands rest with peace in mind?
00:21:32
Speaker
The fact that will make them come alive to it is that Gen Z will not work for them unless they care about the location on the planet, their status as an influencer.
00:21:45
Speaker
And if they are still doing bad things for the planet, and right now apparel is bad. Apparel is really bad. And to throw another statistic to you, organic cotton, which is used by so many fashion brands to be their get-out card, as...
00:22:02
Speaker
you know But we're using better materials. Organic cotton, the GOT scheme, has been around for 30 years minimum. We're still closer to 1% of the world's cotton crop is organic than 2%, which is a really heart-stabbing type comment. We have lots of ways to spin good stories, but so many of them are just stories and they're not embraced in their entirety.
00:22:29
Speaker
You mentioned that Gen Z are the ones sort of driving the change and and pushing the brands to make change. You travel around a lot around the world. um Is that conversation happening everywhere? I hear that that conversation is really important here in Europe and UK, but been to Asia recently. I'm not hearing young people sort of worry about this as much. So are we in a bit of a bubble here or is this a bigger conversation?
00:22:55
Speaker
I wouldn't dispute it. If we look at the politics of North America at the moment, we have climate deniers going on. But it's not just Gen Z. It's also the millennials.
00:23:08
Speaker
The millennials with the were the best people to flag it up. But in a really crude, generic way, millennials pointed it out and complained and then went to action.
00:23:20
Speaker
Gen Z have just gone, there's not enough time to complain or to or or to blame. We need action. And they're just getting on with the new action. So it is not just the Gen Zs. If it hadn't been for the millennials starting it and embracing it, then the progress wouldn't be made. There were some ah phenomenal projects going on.
00:23:43
Speaker
And one that springs to mind at the moment, And tell me if this is inappropriate right at this moment. I've already said that all this millennium, textiles have become less bad. So every year, we've made them slightly less evil.
00:23:58
Speaker
At the start of this millennium, we actually came across technology that allows us to have textiles that do good for the
Introduction to Regenerative Agriculture
00:24:06
Speaker
planet. Not less bad, but they actually have a positive acid.
00:24:11
Speaker
of the planet, which is something to get your head around. And if I can go into detail on two of these things now, this is almost like the philosophy of clothing. So don't expect to get this immediately. The most acceptable version is what we call regenerative agriculture, which is where you grow a plant that puts more back into the ground than you take out. And to sum this up reasonably briefly, when we were 12 or 13, we learned about photosynthesis, and we learned carbon dioxide goes into plants and oxygen comes out.
00:24:47
Speaker
So this carbon is sequestered away from the oxygen and it goes somewhere. But when we were that age, none of us asked what happens to the carbon. And we're on a planet at the moment, we have a fixed amount of carbon. The more that we can sequester into the ground, so store away from the atmosphere, the better. The more that goes into the atmosphere, whether it's methane or carbon dioxide, that is the greenhouse gas that has the terrible effect on the planet and the 1.5 degree temperature rising and the's such like So that carbon during photosynthesis forms the foliage, so the leaves, or the roots of the plant, which is why something like a tree is pure carbon. And we can tell that because as the trees fell down millions of years ago and got squashed, that's what our coal is.
00:25:39
Speaker
So that's regenerative agriculture. It's a way of growing crops so that you're having long roots within the ground. And you can also have meat that comes from a regenerative agricultural source, but you're growing grass. And in crude terms for grass, if the animals graze the grass down to the sod down to the soil, the the roots will be correspondingly short. If you move the animals on ah on a regular basis, the roots of that plant will be very long.
00:26:13
Speaker
And in the roots, there's more carbon sequestered. So I've already talked about the animal side. So we have plant side. If we grow cotton, we can now easily grow regenerative agricultural cotton To go back to what I said about organic, one of the big hiccups of organic, organic, by the way, is brilliant, but it's not a perfect route. To switch from a regular cotton crop to an organic cotton crop, you have to be chemical-free for three years.
00:26:44
Speaker
Three years is an awful long time for a cotton farmer because the volume of their crop goes down. They're still being paid the old... price of it because they aren't yet organic and after three years they can start to charge more well when we look at regenerative agriculture if we're using something like the eov which is from the savoury institute the um the way of calculating the number of microbes within the soil which you want to see the improvement of
00:27:16
Speaker
you can have regenerative agricultural status after one year. So this allows for better charging, which means that the transaction isn't so hard. And by the time you've been doing it for three or four years, if you've done it properly and you are chemical free, you can actually obtain regenerative organic agricultural status.
00:27:39
Speaker
So there's some really good news going on. So that is how plants are pulling carbon out of the air and keeping it locked within the planet, which is good for us all.
00:27:51
Speaker
But we can also do crazy stuff with synthetics. So Charles just takes a really big breath and goes, what? um In really simple terms, and these experiments have been going on in Iceland, and we now have projects in the southern states of America. And it's essentially what looks like a really big air conditioning unit. And in Iceland, the energy is free of charge. They have so much geothermal.
00:28:17
Speaker
And in this country, we've got lots of wave and we've got lots of wind, so we can run the same. So carbon dioxide goes in. They've reversed the system just like you do with photosynthesis. So the carbon is sequestered out and oxygen is returned to the air.
Innovative Synthetics from Carbon
00:28:34
Speaker
Now, that carbon, originally, they were just going to bury it under the ground, you know, have basically carbon bricks and just bury them in old caves. But the clever people have worked out that conforms the start of the polymer, or in English, we can create a skeleton of a synthetic yarn off it. So we can create a polyester using this carbon.
00:28:57
Speaker
So that will translate into English. Polyester is doing good for the planet. Wow, that's bit of a statement. Yeah, if if we said this 10 years ago, if they would say, Charles, we we're showing you to the loony bin. And I am very aware, I work in the industry that has championed fleeces. And we all know fleeces are not perfect. And we're poisoning too many fish in the sea. We're going to come to the bit on pollution, hopefully later in this conversation. But we now have
00:29:30
Speaker
polyester fleece that can do good for the planet so the the excitement the amazing technical things which are going on within materials right now gets me so excited and this is why i'm really involved involved and if the conversation goes further i'll also talk about bio dyes biopolymer dyeing which will just blow your head yet again I know. I mean, the reason I started this podcast is because there's such fascinating, mind-blowing innovations bubbling up in the textile and fashion industry. And like you said, there's so much to look forward to. It's a damn exciting time to be involved in it without any shadow of doubt. Yeah.
00:30:12
Speaker
But for all of that excitement to really translate into the real world and make an impact, I think we're still, we have a long way to go. So what are some of the the the hurdles that we still have to get over to really see the impact, very tangible impact of these these new materials and technologies that are transforming the industry?
00:30:33
Speaker
I've just been talking about better materials. Actually, better materials become legated, become redundant if we stop consuming so much and we just use what waste is already on the planet. I can quote something to you like 96% of the oil that we extract from the ground.
00:30:54
Speaker
is either buried or burnt within one year of its extraction. So whether we turn it into polyester clothing, whether we put it fuel in the cars or whatever, that is a horrendous figure.
00:31:07
Speaker
And i am an advocate of let's just use an awful lot of waste. At the moment, we're still burying a lot of synthetics within the ground. And I just want to stop us burying synthetics and to actually start using them for textiles.
00:31:24
Speaker
So whereas I've talked about textiles which are doing good for the planet, I'm hopefully not having to go there because I am just literally collecting old bits of plastic and turning them into new polymers. And when we chemically recycle them, they are essentially as new.
00:31:43
Speaker
So we get the great effect out of them. A lot of the conversation about sustainability and circularity is around that. Like, how do we switch these materials out? how How do we reuse them? But a lot less is about the brands producing a lot less and consumers buying a lot less. It feels like, you know, they want us to keep buying more and more. And that's what they're brilliant at doing is to to tell the story, to get us to buy more. And there's new trends, there's new colorways, there's new, you know, every three months, there's something new that they give us and we want it.
00:32:14
Speaker
How do we sort of challenge that and push back on that? it's It's great that the products are made better with better materials, but that's still not a sustainable way to keep going. Your thoughts on that for brands? Millie, you've asked the thousand dollar question or the million quid question.
00:32:33
Speaker
We're not succeeding on that. We know what is right, but we are not going to it. And that's that's the problem. The Best light that I see is these brands are being led by younger and younger people, and especially their workforce now trying to recruit people into their workforce.
00:32:49
Speaker
Their new employees will only work for brands that have a responsible attitude. I wish it was a simple answer and I could give you a formula. But what I know about sustainability is we know how bad we are currently.
00:33:05
Speaker
We know what we must move away from. but we don't actually know where we're going. We know we're going to better. And if I was to compare it to the sat-nav, If you were to start off in London heading for, I don't know, Stirling, you would know that you've got to go north.
00:33:22
Speaker
And as you're going up the M1, the sat-nav would actually be reading the traffic flows and it might throw you across to Birmingham and go up via Glasgow because of new information coming.
00:33:34
Speaker
How this is relating to textiles, we know where bad is, we know what we must move away from, which the car is London, but we must also accept that where we're going The route's going to be revised on the way. There's a lot of work that we're doing, which is going down rabbit holes, which is not good.
00:33:53
Speaker
And some of the biopolymers, so I was talking about creating new synthetics from waste materials of the agricultural industry. Right now, we're still not growing enough food for the population of this planet.
00:34:09
Speaker
And to me, it's quite a straightforward choice. We have 8 billion people on the planet, a billion of which live below the nutritionally poverty level, which is an ethical choice, which I am not proud of.
00:34:24
Speaker
We must concentrate actually on feeding more people right now than clothing people. What I'm trying to say is that it's not a clear path. We don't know the path. We know the direction.
00:34:36
Speaker
And exactly the same time, when this all comes down like a massive of weight on your shoulders, and then suddenly something flashes up on your phone and you go, hold on, I can buy that shirt and I can wear it to work next week.
00:34:50
Speaker
And buying that shirt... is actually going to be cheaper than a round of four drinks on a Friday night. And I can buy it faster than queuing at the bar. And that's going to make me happier than just having a drink on a Friday night.
00:35:05
Speaker
That's what I'm trying to say. We know where we should be going. We know what we need to do. But it is not an easy path. If there was a formula, we would apply that formula. Biggest hiccup in the formula at the moment is that brands make their most amount of profit by selling new stuff.
00:35:26
Speaker
And they answer to shareholders. They do not have to answer for an ethical point, although the EU Green Deal coming in really going to put those the morals of the clothing trade to test and i am so chuffed at the eu green deal technically it's not going to apply for this country but any brand and i think all the brands i deal with sell abroad are going to have to conform And we've only got to go back to the PFC debate and how it's now a banned additive.
00:35:59
Speaker
And that started, yeah I believe, in Norway. And it was passed through their parliament during the summer period when most people were on holiday. So that's a country of five million people. They passed it. And the rest of Scandinavia realized, oh, we've got to get our board we've got to get on board for this because we just can't. Brands can just produce but up only for Norway. And the Germans, who have normally dominated better practice within Europe on chemicals, they got on board as well. And with Europe on board, that prompted America to to change as well.
00:36:37
Speaker
So there have been some really good signs because happening of it. And it was literally the small country of 5 million had enabled change to the rest of the world.
00:36:47
Speaker
And part of that is the extended producer responsibility that they're trying to drive through as well, isn't it? And that brings us nicely to that whole re-economy that we're exploring, which is repair, resale, rental, reuse.
Adopting Repair, Resale, and Rental Models
00:37:00
Speaker
Could you share a bit of what you've seen around what brands are doing? I know you mentioned a couple of examples, but where they've really been able to to succeed, not just in trialing it, but also making it a profitable part of their business, because otherwise they're not going to continue doing it. Are you seeing any examples of that?
00:37:17
Speaker
Yes, there are. And I'm going to use the P word. And I try my hardest not to use the P word. If I ask my students, can you give me an example of an ethical clothing brand or a brand doing things properly, they will all come back and say, Patagonia.
00:37:33
Speaker
Patagonia are brilliant at communicating what they do. Their practice is also pretty good, but there are brands, certainly within Europe, whose practice is better than Patagonia's. It's just they don't have the momentum and they don't have the international reputation.
00:37:50
Speaker
I can quote Scandinavian brands like Houdini sportswear that we can barely buy within this country. I can quote Valde within Germany. Are they sort of exploring repair or is it resale, rental? What kind of models are they looking at?
00:38:05
Speaker
They're doing the whole variety. And there are brands now that have their own sponsored eBay channels for resales. Patagonia originally did free repair. In fact, Wornwear, which is the name of their project, is actually a free service. But not only that, when you have fallen out of love with the clothing, so the emotional durability is worn through, If you return it to Patagonia, they will refurbish it, give you a credit, and then sell it to someone else. So they have resale platforms.
00:38:34
Speaker
The one i I admire the most is Rab. Rab is part of and ah a holding owned by Equip. And they actually have a full service facility. So they're very keen to take your garments back in.
00:38:48
Speaker
And technical clothing, you've got to wash slightly differently to other clothing. So they will wash it for you. They will repair it if their bit's wearing out. But depending on how long you want this podcast to go on for, I could go through all nine different types of R status. you know Tell us about it, Charles. Tell us.
00:39:09
Speaker
but Okay, we've got repair, and there are several brands repair. In fact, almost every outdoor brand now, if you return the item to them clean, by the way, will repair it. Most of them do it free of charge. Then we've got refurbishment, so it's revitalizing the product back to its original status. So you have things like for waterproof clothing, we finish all our products with something called a DWR, durable water-resistant finish.
00:39:37
Speaker
This gets contaminated by several sources, whether it's your own sweat from the inside or smog and dirt from the outside. So how can we clean that to make it work again? Especially now we've changed the chemicals. So the new chemicals aren't as long performing as the old chemicals. So that's all around PFC. Then we have changing the business model. Yes, are we going for resale? Are we going for a subscription model?
00:40:05
Speaker
And a classic one is when I grew up, when we went skiing, we all used to go to the ski resort. We used to hire our skis at the ski resort because no Brits really wanted skis for 51 weeks of the year.
00:40:18
Speaker
And if I look at a project based in Annecy at the moment called G-R-A-R-A, reaction collective re colon action and then collective that's actually run by a Brit and what he did is that he went to the ski resort down there Chamonix and at the end of season there were ski schools and other interests who had corporate uniform that were being changed for the next year and they literally just used to landfill them so he had a word he not only got the gear that hadn't been issued
00:40:50
Speaker
He also got the gear back from the instructors because the instructors don't want to chuck away good gear, but they've got to wear the new colors the next year. So they refurbished them, they cleaned them, they washed them, and then they actually covered the logos so that they could be worn by other people. And he started as a community company, so he was making money from selling that product on ah a much reduced rate. And if you couldn't afford it for the local kids... they could borrow the clothing free of charge to learn to ski. So, you know, there were just all these wonderful tips.
00:41:25
Speaker
And I can talk about people like Arcteric, the big Canadian, top of the mountain brand, very hard. Don't want to talk about sustainability because people think sustainability is not...
00:41:36
Speaker
you know performance enough but all their employees want the brand to be better so they are the full speed test bed of Gore-Tex which is the biggest material in the outdoors and they're made in Canada themselves so throughout the year whenever you cut a pattern you have waste on that pattern and that is just put to one side so what they do at Arcterics It's called the Rebird Project, or it's part of Rebird. In October or September, all the machinists turn up to work on a weekend.
00:42:11
Speaker
They know they're not get paid, and they actually make new rain capes, so ponchos, out of all the waste cortex. So the next month, they go around all the hobos, all the street population in Vancouver,
00:42:26
Speaker
and give them these free reign kugels, basically. So if you ever want to be see the best Gordek, the latest stuff before it's released on the market, become a bum within Vancouver.
00:42:40
Speaker
And that's the solution to that. But this is... The effect on that for Arcteric is that their staff churn has shot down because people are proud to work for the company. It's not just about being on top of the mountain and surviving.
00:42:56
Speaker
It's about having your place within the community. And another great, powerful tool that brands have is there is their storytelling, is their marketing. And they use that so brilliantly to share their values and get people to buy more. They can equally use that really powerful tool to help people think differently and just tell a new story.
00:43:18
Speaker
I agree.
Behavior Change Through Better Products
00:43:19
Speaker
But as a design lecturer, something I would say is that people come on board when they see nicer product, to use a very cheap expression. When they own nicer product, then they will consider nicer ways to do things. So if you want the behavior change, which is where emotional durability fits, which is what we want, people want a token to help them on their way to begin with. So the ultimate objective is behavior change. but we're doing it by introducing better products. Absolutely.
00:43:52
Speaker
Do you believe that digital product passport can enable longer use and circulation of garments? Because Europe is sort of implementing that really with the hope not of just telling you where how the garment was made and where it came from, but really encouraging people to repair and reuse and resale and and make that process much easier. What are your thoughts if that's going to make a difference?
00:44:13
Speaker
If I go back one stage before the DPP, right now, the DPP, we know 90, 95% of what's going to be in it. Although the the longer term has been set, the legislation has been set, we don't actually agree the small print, or rather Europe doesn't agree the small print until towards the end of this year.
00:44:33
Speaker
So just beware for those people in the industry, people who are coming to you saying, I have DPP solutions. nobody knows what the solution is because the parameters haven't been set yet.
00:44:45
Speaker
But yes, I do. But I'm going to go back one stage to another British company before DPPs. There's a brand in Wales that makes jeans in Wales. It's called Hyatt Denim.
00:44:58
Speaker
And they have free repairs for life. Now, their jeans are pretty expensive. But my last set of jeans from them went back three times to be repaired. And when I mean repair, I don't mean ripped. That was more my style and my you know and where I was from. I'm talking about physically wearing the material out on my thighs because of the material I've been rubbing through. From where i was putting my hands in the pockets and the pockets start to fray.
00:45:27
Speaker
They were refurbishing them free of charge, and they still do that. So there is culture change. But when Hyatt first came onto the market, they would actually show you a picture of the role of Denham of where the genes were created from they would introduce you to the personalities like the person um on the inside pocket of those genes it is signed by the person who has physically sewed the gene together wow yeah so yeah you know and i'm in a lucky situation i've actually been to meet them as well so yeah um
00:46:08
Speaker
There's storytelling and storytelling produces greater emotional durability without any shadow of doubt. And also people are proud when they have their stuff repaired and they will actually wear it for even longer.
00:46:22
Speaker
You know, just to so many people are living in a single use world that when something wears out, you just immediately replace it. But if you could repair it for them, especially with a lot of the active stuff that my group wears, because that it was the first time they climbed a 10,000 meter beacon, they want that to be in their wardrobe. I mean, i i still have a gig t-shirt in my wardrobe 1982 because I was so proud of it.
00:46:54
Speaker
That doesn't quite fit but no way am I giving it up because the emotional durability of it is so strong. Absolutely this is one question that I've asked all my guests on my podcast tell me about a story of a textile or a clothing or an item that you've kept for a long time because it's got that deep connection and meaning and value to you I was going to ask you that question later on, but now that we've talked about this, let's let's dive in because I've had the most fascinating stories from each of my guests. And this is what started my exploration of emotional durability in in our industry. But I'd like to hear your story, Charles. Tell us one.
00:47:33
Speaker
I've got a variety. I'm not going to talk about that U2 t-shirt from 1982. Okay. I'm going to talk about a pair flip-flops. which people go, what? That disposable clothing? What do you want?
00:47:47
Speaker
I was fortunate because i do I write columns within the industry. The Canadian brand who was going to launch a product approached me and they asked me about these things and they said, the only hiccup, Charles, is this product. is is that this product If it was in today's money, it would be over 50 pounds.
00:48:05
Speaker
And flip-flops, you buy for fiver. it It was very curious. I have now had those flip-flops for, if we're in 2025 now, I've had them for 19 years and they still get worn because they have been well-crafted.
00:48:24
Speaker
They are not soft. um I can actually re-solve them so I can put a new tread on them. Because the flip-flop you're not wearing socks with, you actually get the detritus from your skin going direct onto the ma material. So they will smell a bit more.
00:48:41
Speaker
But as I hinted earlier, I am that sad guy who knows how to do washing machines. So I know how to get rid of the smells. And there's special sandal wash from a brand called Nick Wax.
00:48:52
Speaker
So there are lots of little things that you can do it. But yeah, the flip-flops to me, they're light, they're... simple and I go away i do ah an awful lot of traveling so I'm normally in my work pair of shoes and I just love getting out of my work shoes and having my set of flip-flops just makes it so it's small things in life that just make you smile how long have you had this pair for 18 years And they're fine. And the thing I'm most proud of is they don't smell.
00:49:26
Speaker
yeah like treat That is an achievement, yes. You should definitely write a book about this on how to wash and clean clothing. i think that's going to be... if we are going to go into washing and clean, just a quick diversion on that. There are lots of ways to refurbish using washing machines, which I thoroughly approve of, but But most people don't set up their washing machine in the right way. And when I mean set up the washing machine, when we buy a washing machine, there are generally three ways to install it. And I'm not going to ask you a direct question, really, because I remember I sit on the all party parliamentary group for fashion and textiles. And when this was put to us, 25 people in the room.
00:50:06
Speaker
who were all meant to be textile specialists, only two people in the room did this. So not even textile specialists were aware this. They asked how often do we service wash our washing machine? And everyone went, what do you mean service wash? And a service wash is when you you flush out the machine, highest possible temperature, nothing on the inside,
00:50:29
Speaker
and it's to get rid of the detergent gunk. So you know when you put your finger in the rubber ring of the door seal and you feel it? That means you have too much detergent gunk going on.
00:50:39
Speaker
We know the sewers at the moment are full of fat baby wipes and excess detergent. We use too much detergent. You can either run the machine... with nothing in you know so just add water and let it flush itself you can use vanish one of those additives to clean but actually the best one out for me is half a cup of vinegar which will cost you what 20 25p run it later that and what will happen is after you've done that within your machine now when you wash at 30
00:51:13
Speaker
it will actually clean because all of us went onto that campaign, which was about 2013, 2014, wash at 30 unless it's really dirty, but it never cleaned our clothes well enough. If you service your machine, you will be able to run your machine at a lower wash temperature, but this is the reason why you're now going to do it later tonight, on your machine on the of service wash.
00:51:39
Speaker
When you first installed the machine, there were three ways to install it. Cold water pipe here. Plug there, that's all I need to know. Standard bloke, stupid way.
00:51:49
Speaker
More intelligent, use that folded bit of A4, which told you exactly the same. You know, these are the basic programs. This is where you put cold and all the rest of it. If any of us read the Bible that comes with washing machines, you know, the 150-page it will tell you in there, if you do a service wash every 50 washes, your machine will last twice as long.
00:52:15
Speaker
Now I've told you that if you've ever had to buy 250-pound machine because your machine is broken, you'll get, hold on, hold on. It lasts twice as long. You will now do a service wash tonight. Tip of the day. this is This is how we do it here on our podcast. Without VR, sorry.
00:52:32
Speaker
But yeah, when you've got a clean machine, then when you you apply the cleaning fluids for what for waterproof garments or even the reproofing fluids, they work a lot better.
00:52:46
Speaker
Talking with Charles is just so random. Apologies. and right No, no, I love it. I hope those those listening, they're either cartooning me as a crazy person or they're just going, brain exploded. I need to put everything back in order. No, I think it's definitely brain exploding. So to to pick your brains a bit more, you just recently wrapped up at performance days was I think last month you were telling us about that. What are sort of three big inspiring takeaways you had from the show?
00:53:16
Speaker
Okay, three big inspiring takeaways. we For the first time, we ran a session before performance days called Day Zero. And I got 100 fabric people in the room, designers and technical staff, along with 20 of the best best CSR. And I just let magic happen. There was a real, real need where people, what CSR, corporate social responsibility, who do the ESG, the environmental social governance,
00:53:44
Speaker
um There was so much open sharing. The industry has got to the stage where it realizes, and when a brand like Patagonia openly say this, that they do not want to develop the best solution.
00:53:58
Speaker
They want to do it co cooperatively. Then you know the willing is in the room to help. All the people want to do it, and magic just happened. And because I work in a design school,
00:54:10
Speaker
I know a good way to turn off all my designers is to just present a lecture to them. So we had lots of panels and workshops and it just gelled and and the conversations have gone in much further the detail. So day zero was one thing. The second thing was that we created a wool forum.
00:54:30
Speaker
four Wool an amazing fibre, the keratin fibre, it's a natural fibre, it's a waste product of the meat industry. Just like leather is a waste product of the animal industry. And I've looked at wool in a bit more detail than most people.
00:54:46
Speaker
And if I want to compare it to down or I want to compare it to polyester or cotton or viscose, if I compare it on one or two scales for insulation or thermoregulation or stretchiness,
00:55:00
Speaker
It will quite often lose against whatever is the best of the others. But wool comes second or third in 15 different categories.
00:55:10
Speaker
No other fiber does what wool does. And the one thing it champions better than anything else is that it's antibacterial. In New Zealand, when you have a Band-Aid to put on an open wound, the gauze is made out of wool.
00:55:26
Speaker
It is that antibacterial. So it will just change your thinking. So yeah, wool wool was another great thing. And then we also had lots of progress in the area of next to the skin, base layer, underwear, whatever you if you want to call it, most of the iconic images of the performance sports, Mark, about waterproof shell on the outside.
00:55:51
Speaker
We've seen the popularity of the fleece and the insulation levels, talking of which, as the planet's getting hotter, the more interesting stuff is going to come in in the cooling layers that you're wearing, not while eating it.
00:56:04
Speaker
But right now, with the base layer, there's some phenomenal stuff going on. And we uncovered a gem based in London in Putney in an old ice cream factory called the London Contour Experts, who seem to be on top of this. And very interestingly, they have realized that the base layers are becoming much, much more aesthetically pleasing, so much more fashionable. And what I mean by that is we're now in a society where we show more of our undergarments. So they've gone from being practical,
00:56:39
Speaker
items to actually now having a bit of style and the area without sounding too weird but then most of the audience realized charles is slightly weird i have done lots of work in bras and there is a new material and it's developed by a london company called rion labs r-h-e-o-n and it's a non-newtonian material Don't expect to know what non-Newtonian means. It just means it's not act like Newton's laws laws of physics. What it is, they've created a film, and when we had a thicker version, it was called D3O.
00:57:13
Speaker
D3O, we could make into something like a pair of cricket pads. It was a soft putty until something hit it hard, and it immediately turned into an exoskeleton and spread the load around So a snowboarder could wear a beanie rather than a full crash helmet, and their head would be as protected if they fell over.
00:57:33
Speaker
They've now been able to do it on a very thin film level, Rion Labs, and the British athletics team had this at the Paris Olympics last year. They used it on the quads and thighs of their running pants, but also on sports bras, because sports bras have traditionally been designed for... for women of larger busts to hold in for fat, sorry to be crude, but smaller chested women have just as much agitation, they have just as much up and down, and sports bras to them have almost constricted their breathability, the the compression has been too much,
00:58:12
Speaker
With a Rion Labs film, what happens is that it's a soft bra when you wear it. The more you jump up and down, the more that it holds you. Wow. That is mind-blowing. So, yeah, this is why there's so much excitement going on the world. And I'm also really lucky in that, from a design point of view, so much has still originated within this country.
00:58:38
Speaker
Well, you've you started to touch on this. My next question was, oh you know over the next five to 10 years, what can we look out for in the outdoor and sportswear industry? What can we expect? And what's the vision? The vision is actually something quite simpler. What I've been talking about is very much product. We're going to change why we're doing it.
00:59:00
Speaker
One of the things which has just come into mind at the moment over the certainly this this decade gate is that yes, we need to sort out our our own fitness, but everyone has moved the conversation because of COVID.
Post-COVID Fitness and Well-being
00:59:15
Speaker
Fitness is two elements. It's physical fitness and it's mental fitness. And I can quote you authors who are actually going forward, doctors, respective academics, saying that if you're feeling a bit down, and it's right, we all have ups and downs. And sorry, I don't want to shy away from these awkward subjects.
00:59:34
Speaker
But going for a walk in fresh air just makes you so much happier. It's not the question of taking a pill to get back to a good state. I think that the whole nature of active movement, especially now that we have become such a car society, I like the rise of e-bikes because that's getting people more out into the elements.
00:59:58
Speaker
I still use a traditional bicycle, but then I'm a grumpy person with gray hair. So I feel that you must suffer. But it's getting people out to enjoy life and the community and the experience. Sport is not, I mean, I do not wear that much lycra, but I am not a mammal, a middle-aged bloke in lycra. Sport to me is doing it for the fun.
01:00:23
Speaker
That's where I feel sport's going to be a lot more. And I would also say the more that we do activity and sport, not only is it good for the body, it's good for the mental side.
01:00:34
Speaker
We're reducing the NHS bill here within the UK. We're embracing but a more open and inclusive sport and activity and also not encouraging that you only do it if you're going to be the best, going to be elite.
01:00:50
Speaker
and I'm actually quite chuffed in that I know my way around the UK an awful lot. This is a magnificent country. And although we do have four seasons of weather each and every day, there's so much more in this country that i want to explore with my children. i don't want to go somewhere and climb a big mountain anymore.
01:01:12
Speaker
I just want to do things. And that regional economy needs some support from us. I mean, it clearly, you know, you're someone who loves the outdoors and you used to work in the outdoors a lot more. You had a very interesting sort of career. if you could share briefly about your journey from being an outward bound instructor in the USA, and if you can tell us what that is, to being a performance sportswear design lecturer at RCA, it seems two very separate worlds. Yes, yes, but there is a pattern and the more you understand about Charles, you realise it does not go straight forward. It's like finding the answer to sustainability. It's not in straight line that we're expecting.
01:01:53
Speaker
I grew up in a military academy. I went to a a military school where all my colleagues were sons of people within the military, not as officers. and most of them went into some form of service career. So whether it was with the military, whether it was with the police and the such like. I unfortunately broke my neck a week before my O-level started. im that old, they were called O-level. But I'm fine. But it meant that I couldn't go through to the military, which is where I wanted.
01:02:21
Speaker
So in 1984, I left school and I had the first generation of round-the-world air tickets. And in those days, they had not written the rules for round-the-world air tickets.
01:02:32
Speaker
And I remember in the States, which was not a country I particularly wanted to go, but they said, where do you want to go? So I said, what's that big hole in the ground? Where's the mountain where they've carved? I had 42 flight coupons just for the United States. And of course, they now give you rules that you're only allowed two or three put per continent.
01:02:53
Speaker
So I ended up in America working at a summer camp. ah for the first season. The next season, I was asked to join the Outward Bound School in the area, which was like a more professional version of it.
01:03:07
Speaker
And I went to their Florida one as well. So I was in New England during the summer, Florida during the winter. And i was really enjoying it. i I had friends who did Outward Bound in the UK, but it was very competitive to get into. In America, it was a lot easier. And I came back to this country on December the 1st, 1986.
01:03:29
Speaker
And it was cold. It was dark. It was wet. And it was windy. And the only decision that has really made me happy in my life, I decided not to be an Outward Bound instructor, but to go into the clothing to keep the Outward Bound instructor happy. So I came back to Britain and thought, oh,
01:03:51
Speaker
No, ah I like the vibe, but I don't want to get cold and wet. And then i have just been fortunate. I was recruited to the first ever Masters in Performance Sportswear Design. And I have been elevated on the way and I now teach at a nice college. But the best work I do is actually when the graduates go into brands and I work in that middle area.
01:04:16
Speaker
because they're taking in the new ideas and the new ways of thinking. And Through experience, we've worked out the best way to get better practice is not to get massive corporate change, but to get people coming in, applying new systems like Clo and 3D design.
01:04:33
Speaker
You can take the risk and try and retrain the whole department, or you can just get one or two people who are brilliant at it, and it will naturally spread out because their colleagues will see what they're enabled to do.
01:04:45
Speaker
So there's an awful lot of this subtle way of education. I love it, Charles. You're sort of planting people and all the big corporates to change them. They don't even realize it They get their own jobs. And then i get phoned up by people in my corporate saying, Charles, what do we do?
01:05:03
Speaker
Because we don't understand what they're like. Excellent. and And where are you from, Charles, in the UK? Where did you grow up? I came from a service family, so I was born in Scotland. I went to school in Dover.
01:05:16
Speaker
My parents lived in Chichester, somewhere between ports near Portsmouth. So I grew up sailing. When I first got a job in the outdoor apparel industry, I went for a job in Chichester. They thought i was interviewing for a job in London, so I ended up commuting.
01:05:33
Speaker
And then I flipped to the Lake District because I was offered a job up there At a time when we didn't have seven days a week shopping and it was really, really short. I lived in a village where depending on what day of the week it was, you you knew by who drove in.
01:05:51
Speaker
Like the maker came, drove in his van three days a week. The fishman came once a week. The vegman came three days a week. The meatman came twice a week. I mean, it it was just such a change from living in the middle of London to going to this place. Yeah, I i am fortunate. That's all I'm saying. I've not had a perfect journey, but I've enjoyed every moment of it. Amazing, amazing. And when you were a young boy, say, I don't know, 12 or 13, if someone had asked you, what did you want to be when you grew up? What was the answer? oh I would have joined the military.
01:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, i went I grew up in a military family. My brother's in the military. Both my parents were in the military. I went to a military school at 11. And at when i broke,
01:06:36
Speaker
C5 in my neck and they suddenly said that's not going to happen. That must have been tough. Yes, it is. But it's also opened magnificent other doors for me. So, you know, life's not perfect. you You get with whatever's on your plate.
01:06:52
Speaker
Again, doing a bit of digging around. um I've had pilots on the show before. Well, a pilot. She was a textile weaver, but she's also a pilot. But I've never actually had anyone who voluntarily jumps out of planes. And I understand you're a skydiver and you've done over a thousand jumps. Is that right? Or did that? It is.
01:07:11
Speaker
It is. It is. Well, your Weaver is jealous of us because the planes we go up in are not always perfect, nice airline type planes.
01:07:22
Speaker
And when they have a problem, there's nothing more smug than the skydiver saying, you stay there, I'm going to go for help. I do it for the adrenaline rush, and this is why I make no secret that my carbon footprint is not the best in the world. But I equate the enjoyment that it gives me as something I'm willing to offset other things.
01:07:42
Speaker
i I go to Europe an awful lot by train now just because I need to offset it one way or the other. Yes, pilots... look at us in very strange ways and we look at them and they say look you guys are in a lunatic assignment and we look at them and say no you guys are the lift operators in a lunatic assignment who's got the worst role um i do it because of the community because of the fun and i only did it because having been a sailor on the south coast when i moved to the lake district I was doing mountain work for my proper employment. So we were testing materials. And one of my friends said, look, why don't we jump out of a plane? And it just stuck for some reason. Do you still jump? Is that allowed? Yes. Oh, yes. Yes.
01:08:29
Speaker
Yes, very much. say Not as much as I used to. I was very keen and big when sky surfing came out. So someone thought we could jump out of a plane wearing a snowboard.
01:08:40
Speaker
And so I was there right at the start of that before when Free Fly was starting, but but it was sky surfing. So right place, right time and and just living for Amazing. Any scary jumps? Oh, yeah. I've had bad jumps. I've had bad jumps. Yeah. Yeah. yeah But I've been rebuilt after them.
01:08:58
Speaker
Oh, wow. i mean, did you break bones? Is that a bad jump? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ah We need to have a drink and talk about that another time. Broken fingernail, think, was the most embarrassing thing. But, you know, ah I'm someone I break my body every so often and it repairs as well. And it just fixes. Brilliant. Now, just kind of wrapping up a little and and reflecting, you know, you said your understanding of sustainability has changed and will continue to change and it's evolved. Can you find points that have been really pivotal in in in that journey of understanding and developing your idea about sustainability and how it's evolved or crystallized?
01:09:35
Speaker
That's one of those questions which I'm sure I will change my answer if you ask me now. when they die But i did give a bit of thought to this beforehand. And I'm really lucky in that I realize that you are regarded as the average of the five people you hang around with the most.
01:09:53
Speaker
So I tend to hang around people more intelligent than me. And that is often the students. Students are obviously brilliant. It's just I know how to do things. They have the creativity I did. So I very much ride on their surf wave that they create. And The students, because I'm teaching them an aspect which they're unfamiliar with, like me, and it becomes a two-way process.
01:10:16
Speaker
But I am really lucky in that I recognize the value of listening and conversation. I try not to push myself forward. So Millie, I am breaking my own rules here by being on your podcast. I listen to a lot of podcasts, but the biggest source of information for me is I'm involved in a project called The Do Lectures, thedolectures.com, which if you don't know it, it's like TED Talks, but it happens in Wales in a field.
01:10:46
Speaker
And it is just the most amazing sensation way to clear my brain. I go each year, it's amazing. Getting a ticket to the do lecture is exceptionally hard. You have to be screened to be allowed to apply for a ticket. And they always sell out on the first morning. I think it's three and a half days. They make you sleep in a tent in Wales and it costs several thousand. So it's quite a thing. And I've somehow become involved within the team there and just having the conversations with people who see it better and are willing to try things and as a designer accepting that you will fail it is good to fail but if you don't fail we continue along the path to bad so yeah
Encouragement to Ask Questions
01:11:34
Speaker
Beautiful. Thank you. i also have a question for you that came from the previous guest that I had on my um podcast. Her name's Victoria Nickerson. And her question to the next guest, she didn't know who it was, but this was the question she had. What's the best piece of advice you've been given? And perhaps how's that been used in your career to keep going forward?
01:11:57
Speaker
Ask questions. Ask dumb questions. That's it. People are afraid. i moderate several shows and we always have questions and answers at the end of the presentations and people are embarrassed because when they don't get the concept, they feel like I've got this massive question, but I don't want to announce to everyone else.
01:12:16
Speaker
But I don't know. you know, for first level. So I try and ask the embarrassing questions first. It is always ask dumb questions. Presume nothing. Ask questions and don't, although it's hard to get to this stage, don't be afraid to admit that you don't know that you don't get it whatsoever. Ask the dumb questions and what you'll suddenly feel is the energy from the room.
01:12:40
Speaker
because half the room will suddenly go, we love you, Charles. because That's what I want to ask that I was afraid to ask. So yeah, ask dumb questions and it will really help. Ask dumb questions. And you said important to surround yourself with really intelligent people.
01:12:57
Speaker
Great takeaways. Yeah. Are you reading anything interesting right now? Any resources or books or podcasts that you'd like to recommend to our listeners? I finished Mike Berners-Lee's new book earlier this week, coming back from London, and it has knocked me for six.
01:13:15
Speaker
If you don't know Mike Berners-Lee, he has a more famous brother, but we ignore his brother. His brother's been down at the Do Lectures. He's the type of person who comes to such events. Mike is the carbon footprinting specialist, certainly of this country, I would say, for Europe. He's just written a book called A Climate of Truth. His most well-known book is How Bad Are Bananas, which is a carbon footprinting of everything. Then he wrote There's No Planet B. He edited one of the chapters in Greta Thunberg's book, The Climate Book. But The Climate of Truth is just phenomenally, refreshingly honest, direct,
01:13:51
Speaker
and it will irritate and agitate. And I now subscribe to his philosophy that if we don't start to rebel more, we're going to continue on this path to do.
01:14:04
Speaker
And whereas he says, look, I don't approve of any violent action, and to tell you the truth, just stop oil aren't people I would support. But the way that they have modified their work to do something and get off their butts, they say, because what we have been doing is not working. So therefore, we must do something else.
01:14:24
Speaker
an amazing way to to end the conversation we have to take action we can't be sitting back and watching things and that's what you've been doing for the last 30 years you've been moving forward you've been having the difficult conversations you've been getting people to collaborate and yeah I feel like you've been just doing a lot of experiments to see how we can get ourselves unstuck here thank you so much Charles is there any any question you wish I'd asked or anything else that you wanted to share No, no, not really. yeah Trying to stay up with Charles I know is not easy.
01:14:54
Speaker
But are there any questions I wish you had asked? To me, the biggest thing, and I got to slip it in, is that it's important whilst you're here to have fun. Absolutely. ah Thank you, Charles.
01:15:06
Speaker
Such a brilliant conversation. My brain's exploded in all kinds of directions and absolutely enjoyed discussion. It's been a two-way thing. two like ah Thank you so much for taking time to join me today and share so much of your experience and expertise and for inspiring and encouraging us to keep moving forward, even if they're just experiments and we're all stumbling forward together.
01:15:33
Speaker
Wow, what an inspiring episode to get us started in the new year. That was a whirlwind tour of so many important topics in textiles and such a fun discussion. His energy absolutely contagious and I swear I could have talked to him for hours.
01:15:49
Speaker
I hope this conversation got you curious enough to go digging to learn more about emotional durability, sustainability through longevity and designing for circularity. Charles mentioned a bunch of resources. i will pop these into the show notes below. Do check them out.
01:16:04
Speaker
And also please follow him on LinkedIn. He posts regularly and you can find out what he's up to and all the important things that are on his mind if you follow him on LinkedIn. I will definitely have him back for another episode that focuses on how we care for our clothing when he clearly knows a lot about laundry.
01:16:22
Speaker
I guess it's a pretty mundane chore we do every week, but do we really understand what is going on and how best to wash our clothes to make sure they last longer? Hope Charles can come back and shed more light on this topic in a future episode.
01:16:36
Speaker
Well, that's all from me today. Thank you for joining me. Stay tuned for more episodes and don't forget to subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of textiles, emerging tech, craft and sustainability.
01:16:47
Speaker
Until next time, I'm your host, Millie Tharakin, reminding you that there's no such thing as ordinary cloth. Every thread tells a story.