June in Sustainable Fashion, Condensed.
The Traceability Playbook, How Retail Therapy Rewires Your Brain, and the Monster in our Closet.
Hi there,
June has been a big month. It started with the launch of a project I’ve been working on since January with the Swedish traceability tech company TrusTrace. Together with advocacy organisation Fashion Revolution and innovation accelerator Fashion for Good, I got to write an A-Z guide to supply chain traceability for the fashion industry.
It’s definitely one of the biggest projects I’ve worked on, and I’m so excited that it’s finally out in the world. We launched the book at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit and I got to host a panel discussion in front of several of my favourite sustainable fashion journalists and esteemed guests, which was intimidating, to say the least.
Next up was Graduate Fashion Week ‘22, a huge annual showcase of BA graduate fashion that I’ve been lucky enough to help run for the last four years with a small but mighty team. This year, I was on the GFW Live! Talks stage interviewing Nadja Swarovski (as in the Swarovski) and Catherine Teatum (from responsible British brand Teatum Jones) who shared their journeys as advocates for sustainability in the fashion industry.
I’m ending the month in Stockholm, where I’m writing this newsletter from. You may have noticed I’ve moved over to Substack. Same content, same format, but (hopefully) more eyes on the newsletter! In July, I’m looking forward to getting back into writing for different publications again, finding more great content to share with you at the end of the month, and maybe taking a little holiday.
As always, I love to hear your feedback and thoughts. Hit reply at the end of the email to get in touch! Until next month,
Meg X
Things I Wrote
Things I Didn’t Write
Quartz Investigation: H&M Showed Bogus Environmental Scores For Its Clothing by Amanda Shendruk for Quartz.
How Fashion Giants Recast Plastic as Good for the Planet by Hiroko Tabuchi for the New York Times.
Pakistani Garment Workers Left Destitute and Starving After Missguided Collapse by Shah Meer Baloch for the Guardian.
Europe’s Biggest Echo Chamber by George Harding-Rolls for Apparel Insider.
From China to India, Asia Braces for EU Plan to Kill Fast Fashion by Sayan Chakraborty, Pak Yiu And Lien Hoang for Nikkei Asia.
Shein - Saviour Or Arsonist? by Tansy Hoskins.
What Does it Really Cost to Make Your Clothes? by Yasmin Jones-Henry for the Financial Times.
Fashion Has Abandoned Human Taste by Amanda Mull for the Atlantic.
Fewer People Are Purchasing Sustainable Products in Favor of Cheaper Alternatives by Shoshy Ciment for Footwear News
The Future Of High Street Fashion? A Hub Where You Mend, Make And Swap Clothes by Nicola Slawson for Positive News
How Retail Therapy Rewires Your Brain (and What You Can Do About It) by Sophie Caldecott for Remake.
The To-Do List
This short documentary (30 min) from Patagonia is so well made, it’s a fascinating look into the use of plastic in fashion, and the work of U.S. activists fighting to legislate the industry.
The Transformers Foundation, a group that released a fascinating report on cotton misinformation last year, has just released the Truth Series, a series of webinar episodes investigating the facts around greenwashing, cotton claims, decarbonisation and more.
During Graduate Fashion Week ‘22, I got to interview Nadja Swarovski about her career at the brand, launching the Swarovski Foundation, and her passion for promoting sustainability in the fashion industry.
Here is my GFW Live! conversation with Catherine Teatum, cofounder of Teatum Jones. We spoke about the brand’s zero-waste mission and evolution from fashion week favourite to sustainable design pioneer.