Rebel Justice - changing the way you see justice
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Rebel Justice - changing the way you see justice
E 65: Orsola de Castro on Redefining Elegance The Call for Authenticity in Fashion Choices
Have you ever pulled a beloved garment from your closet and felt a profound connection to its story? Today, we bring you an intimate conversation with Orsula de Castro, the visionary co-founder of Fashion Revolution, who shares her personal narrative and passionate crusade for sustainability in fashion. Orsula's tale is rich with memories of cherished clothing passed through generations and an early disinterest in the consumerism of buying new. She unveils the transformative power of creativity over profit in the industry and reminisces about her own pioneering upcycling brand, revealing the challenges faced and the eventual liberation in its closure. The tragedy of Rana Plaza, which gave birth to Fashion Revolution, and Orsula's inclusive vision that guided her leadership until her step away in 2022, are pivotal moments that shaped her journey and our broader understanding of ethical fashion.
Our wardrobe choices can be daily acts of defiance against an industry often out of sync with authenticity, and this episode explores just that. We discuss the vital roles governments and consumers hold in steering the fashion industry toward a greener horizon, highlighting policies like France's law that favors repair over replacement. Cultural attitudes are up for reevaluation, and the conversation emphasizes the consumer's purchasing power as a catalyst for change. Ursula encourages us to celebrate true innovators and consider the implications of our fashion habits in the broader context of the climate crisis, championing personal actions as the building blocks for meaningful change. Join us as we uncover the layers and look beyond the fabric to the heart of sustainable fashion with one of its most influential voices.
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Welcome to the Vue magazine's Rebel Justice podcast. This week we bring you Ursula de Castro, a pioneer in sustainability in the fashion industry and author. Ursula is the co-founder of Fashion Revolution, current Creative Director at Estetica and visiting professor at Middlesex University. Ursula, thank you so much for being here with us today. We'd like to start by asking you how did your interest in fashion start?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a question. So it started pretty much the second that I was born. I think one of the first stories concerns my elder brother one of my two elder brothers going to my mom literally the second, or a few minutes or whatever, maybe a few days. In those days it wouldn't have been so immediate, but he asked about me having just been born. What was she wearing? And my mother had to tell him that I came naked like everybody else.
Speaker 1:And when my mother told me this story.
Speaker 2:I was livid at the thought that I'd come out naked like everybody else. I absolutely agreed that my brother should have inquired about my clothes because it just did seem really out the question that I would be born naked. So it's that early that I have been concerned with clothing. Now I wouldn't necessarily call it an interest in fashion, because my interest in clothes is not about an interest in fashion. It's about an interest in people and in women in particular. But it is as old as me as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's such a wonderful story. Do you remember the first piece of clothing that you bought and what you did with it?
Speaker 2:No, and I probably wouldn't have bought my first piece of clothing that is memorable or rememberable. First of all, I had three elder cousins, female, and I inherited the majority of my clothes from them, and my family had this long passing towing and froing that's still going on with. My granddaughters are still wearing clothes that were mine and my cousins when we were small. My grandfather also bought me a lot of clothes. He was a businessman. He loved fashion, actually, and he bought clothes for myself and my mother. My mother and my aunt made clothes, so that would also have been all of that knitwear, crochet, things that we would have been literally scrambling for because they were handmade by them. And no, I had no memory of vaguely when I was 10, buying something, but buying has absolutely never been of any interest to me whatsoever. It's not the way that I acquire my favorite clothing. I do buy, but it doesn't give me any more pleasure than mending, repairing, borrowing, sharing, and it never has.
Speaker 1:You have said that we believe in a fashion industry that values people, the environment, creativity and profit in equal measure. Can you explain a bit more about this?
Speaker 2:I can tell you that that quote is already completely outdated. I wouldn't any longer, any more say that I value profits and dignity in equal measure. I now value creativity way above profits. As you grow, as you mature, as you learn, you finesse your feelings and your emotions, and I was obviously still quite chicken then. That was the start of fashion revolution. So it wasn't just myself. But there you go, I have become way more radical since then.
Speaker 1:It's really refreshing to hear that and to hear someone admit the changing in the growth throughout the years. Would you like to tell us a bit more about your brand?
Speaker 2:So I started a brand in 1997, which was pioneering in the field of upcycling. I think we were probably the first brand to really focus on scale, which we achieved by the use of pre-consumer waste that would be stuff that's abandoned by factories. It's a funny old story my brand because at the time I had I mean, not even in poster syndrome more. We were the only ones doing what we were doing, so it was so easy to feel like a fish out of water. It was so easy for me to feel that what I was doing was so naive and so unrealistic and fashion was all about growth, growth, growth in numbers, numbers, numbers. That's when I started in 97.
Speaker 2:So I talk about it with pain and I talk about it with relief. Pain and relief. It was painful and it was difficult, but it was brilliant and it was pioneering and it opened my mind like nothing else. It allowed my creativity to be of service. I don't believe in creativity just for the sake of it. I think most of us creatives are saying something and doing something with it. So of course, I'm extremely proud of our achievements. We were worn by many celebrities of the time, sold in some of the world's best boutiques, collaborated with Topshop and Speedo and really illuminated this concept of reusing, re-adapting, reclaiming as a design solution to an environmental challenge. Having said that, when I closed it in 2014, largely due to the fact that the Thakvoin Fashion Revolution was huge and taking up a lot of my time, but when I closed it, I thought that I would be in mourning forever, and I wasn't, god bless the day I stopped selling clothes, because I've never, ever stopped making them.
Speaker 1:You mentioned fashion revolution a couple of times Now. How did it come about? I know you are one of the co-founders and the creative director. How did it come about in your life?
Speaker 2:No longer. No longer I resigned in 2022, and I'll tell you the story, but basically there's two co-founders myself and Kerry Summers. We met at Estatica, which was the area I curated at London Fashion Week together with my partner, Estatica. We've started again in a slightly different iteration from before, but it's still about really supporting sustainable, innovative brands and solutions globally really, and fashion revolution came about as a massive frustration on the state of the industry. The catalyst was the runner-plaza disaster and the importance was that we were the first movement to really be inclusive. Already, when we started, on the 24th of April 2014, which was the first anniversary of the runner-plaza tragedy, we had something like 50 teams all over the world.
Speaker 2:So for me, the following nine years were really about building this movement. That was unique in the sense that we looked at fashion from a global and local perspective. I think we were the first ones not to focus on New York, london, milan and Paris. I think we were the first to really look at what is needed, what is lacking and what is important to talk about in different regions in the world, and I'm very proud that this is the direction that the movement has kept on taking and I'm very proud of, I guess, my creative direction, because we spoke a slightly different language. We appeared slightly differently from many other organisations that talked about similar things, and I guess that was because the majority of the founding team were people that worked in fashion. So we came from a perspective of love and frustration rather than one of wanting to change everything. We just wanted to explore how change would be possible to make it more ethical and more sustainable and, above all, more transparent, and I think we have achieved a lot of our original objectives.
Speaker 1:You've just mentioned it, I wonder if you'd like to tell our listeners what was the Rana Plaza disaster?
Speaker 2:So the Rana Plaza disaster was the biggest catastrophe, industrial catastrophe in the fashion industry. It happened in Dhaka, where, in a building collapsed, killing 1,138 young women Primarily young women injured close to 3,000 people, and this was both predicted and predictable avoidable. The idea that so many people would die to make our clothes was absolutely something that the global community of fashion I wouldn't say fashion lovers, but certainly the global community of people that were interested in fashion, its ethics and production really felt like. It was the last straw, and a lot of activation happened as a result of Rana Plaza. Of course, the Rana Plaza was a very important catalyst and things did change after that, to an extent, I'd say. When it comes to transparency, the improvement has been radical. So the amount of brands publishing and disclosing their supply chains has increased massively compared to 2013. However, we do know that not enough is happening. Not enough has changed. I mean, the only thing that we have in abundance right now and that we can say has increased exponentially are elaborate green washes in several shades of green.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I have to say I'm embarrassed that I hadn't heard of this disaster occurring and oh, have a look.
Speaker 2:It's terrifying. It's really appalling. I have to say. For me, the worst part of it was that the garment workers employed there were feeling safe, hard-complained about the state of the building, and they were sent home. Then they were brought back to work. So there was a process of days before the collapse and within those days product was made and shipped out of the factories. So it is extremely likely that people that have shopped those brands would have worn pieces that were made in fear, in indignity, while people were scared for their lives. I mean, to me there is a chemical transaction in wearing those clothes. It does to me feel the same as eating something poisonous. Wearing someone's fear in someone's pain should be seen as poisonous.
Speaker 1:This is so profound? Obviously, we've heard of a lot of stories of sweatshops and places like this. Do you think that, after this disaster and people being more aware, do you think there are so many places in the world that have very bad conditions for workers?
Speaker 2:100% yes. I do not need to answer that in any elaborate way. Absolutely 100% yes. First of all, this is an industry that designed itself to exploit people and nature from the get go. We're talking cotton which was found by enslaved individuals in the American South, shipped over to the UK to be woven in UK sweatshops that were rife with exploitation and child labour, and then exported throughout the world by none other than the East India Company, a precursor, which is not a bastion of modern day capitalism. But it is an industry that continues to be designed to function like this. I mean, if I hear another fashion billionaire saying, but I have worked hard for my money, my reply is always the same no, you haven't. Other people have, people that you underpaid, made the money sitting in your bank. That is not your hard work. It is your hard exploitation and the hard work, the very hard work, the very undignified work of others whom you have never even bothered to meet.
Speaker 1:Yes, how do you think we can improve this situation, because it surely has to come from governments to implementing stricter laws and regulations.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a combination, because the regulations and the laws that we're seeing emerge and the EU is doing an awful lot, france is doing sufficiently but a they are fairly watered down. But two, you put a law, say. I give you an example the law in France that incentivize people who want to repair Fantastic, amazing, brilliant. But there is no systems that facilitate that repair and there is no culture that glorifies that repair. So any law and regulation also needs to be supported by those people led systems that make it possible and upscalable those we've not invested on.
Speaker 2:We've invested in technology, billions in technology, not in people. Another example we've invested so much money in recycling opportunities and money is poured in when the innovation is potentially ready for use. It isn't used by those same brands that invested. It seems that they invest a lot. Actually, they invest peanuts. They invest enough that they can then forget about it afterwards. So investment is a pretty much. There is a recent company called Renew South which benefited from millions of dollars and pounds, if not even I would have thought millions minimum and now it's folded because now that they've got the yarn, they've got the product. Nobody will buy it. So there is no point in investing in technologies unless we take into account the people that will run the systems that will make that technology ultimately efficient.
Speaker 1:So, following on as a consumer, what steps can I take to be more responsible?
Speaker 2:Consume, consume, consume, consume. But be aware of what consuming actually means. The etymology of the word consume is from the Latin consumer. Now, that means to wear, to wear until you tear, to wear until something is broken, it's gone, it's consumed, it's used. Be that, absolutely 100%. Be that if we all consumed our clothes, we wouldn't have any time, nor any space, nor any need to buy anymore.
Speaker 1:That is so beautiful what you said. I actually have parents who are very frugal in a way, and they are a living example of that. But I guess we grow up in the society, and especially now with social media, where we're just told to buy more, to wear something different every day, and it's quite difficult to not respond to that, to not subscribe to that sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we've been hooked to that. The story is so well known. It's no conspiracy theory, of course. We've been kept lollying about the mall with cheap clothing as if they were just a little sweetie, making us feel a little bit better, a little bit happier. We all now know it doesn't work. Actually, mending something or having something repaired and it comes back and it's like old is the new. New is so much more effective. It's so much more mood altering than buying something cheap, knowing you're gonna chuck it up.
Speaker 2:But there is a way that so-called customers because I don't wanna use the word consumer but there is a way that customers can really support the alternative.
Speaker 2:And I would suggest also thinking about customers completing daily acts of defiance against this industry, which we know to be so fake and inauthentic. If every single woman that buys Stella McCartney in the fake lull that she is actually doing something for people and planet were to buy from some of the designers I mentor in India, in Africa, in Italy, in the UK, in Malaysia, in Singapore, wherever, in Hong Kong, wherever they may be Now, that would be effective If, rather than browsing innovation online and then buying from yet again another mainstream giant, those with money were to spend that money conscientiously not even consciously conscientiously ensuring that it went to support the livelihood of people who genuinely innovate, who are genuinely unique, who really are putting people in nature first, then we would see a change. God, I beg for that day to happen. I cannot wait when that 1% that literally keeps the luxury brands alive because that's who keeps them alive If they were to switch to mine, if they only were to switch to mine it would change overnight.
Speaker 1:I agree, you mentioned these people. You mentioned these designers. Is there a website where we can follow their work?
Speaker 2:I would suggest you follow myself and my team, which is at Estatica under school fashion. And they're not so easy to find. I do understand. You know, as I said, they're kept quite deliberately invisible by the mainstream. So it does take the effort. That's what I'm saying. You know it doesn't come easy, but then shouldn't we react to this fashion that comes too easy? Shouldn't we react to that just impulsive pressing of a button without any understanding of what we're buying? I mean, in the future, at the point of purchase, I don't just want to see the size of a pair of jeans, I want to see the size of the pay package of the person who made those jeans. Yet again, when I'm buying my perfect pink jumper, I want to know that that perfect pink doesn't contain any azodies, that it was made with respect to the people who make it and the planet we all share, once we wash it and care for it. That's where we need to go when it comes to switching our buying habits. That's the change we need to see.
Speaker 1:And now moving to a big topic of climate crisis, we can see that spilling into fashion industry. How do you feel this can be combats?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's really a way too big of a question for someone like me. I mean, you know, I'm somebody that starts with small steps and that's really all that I can talk about. I don't know that we can combat climate crisis right now, certainly not just the way that we wear or care for our clothes. I mean, you know, we can all make efforts in order to have a more climate friendly life, and we can all make efforts in order to understand that it is our emissions and our vices that are really putting in danger People who are on the other side of the planet and much less responsible for any of the damage done. So I think, if we are aware of that, then we will feel an impetus to change the way that we operate. But that's it. That's all I can offer, you know. The rest, again, is very strict regulations and an absolute 100% turnaround when it comes to our culture of greed.
Speaker 1:Yes, there was a period of time when I became more conscientious about fashion industry, and here in England there's a lot of secondhand shops. We buy cheaper pieces of clothing and what I saw happening is that because it was cheap, I was buying more, not necessarily because I needed it. So that was one negative side, but the other one was oh, but I can recycle. There's many, you know, those recycling clothes bins that we see sometimes, but I found out that a lot of those recycling bins actually end up causing a lot of damage and some of these clothes that I'm donating, sometimes they're even being sold to people in poor countries.
Speaker 2:All of them are not even being sold. That's the business model. You don't donate to poor people. That's gone a long time ago. You know, poor people don't want your discarded clothing. There's nothing more patronizing, at this day and age, to think that somebody with less of an income than you would need your clothes. I mean, how horrendous. Yes, sure, if you were to give it to them. But donating is a gift. So if you donate something without having mended it first if it's broken, washed it, if it's dirty, made it special, wrapped it in a gorgeous cloud of love, that's donating.
Speaker 2:Everything else, what we do today is dumping. It may start with the same bloody letter of the alphabet, but it's a completely different thing. And of course, those clothes are sold for quite a lot of money to people who do not need them. And in fact, the mere existence of our waste, our discarded garments, in places such as Africa or Eastern Europe or the Akatama Desert in Chile, is creating problems that are way deeper than what we think. It's not just about the waste scattered all over landfills that are completely unregulated. It's the fact that our cheap clothing has destroyed local businesses, textile businesses, tailoring businesses, making them look too expensive but, above all, stylistically obsolete because people prefer what our distressed denim, our Nike shoes, our sweatpants to glory, ancientness, tradition, quality, dignity, to all the things that were there before our cheap greed took them away.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was actually quite moving when you were talking.
Speaker 2:And so if I sound angry, I am. I work with designers who live in areas where this reality is a daily life occurrence and they struggle one with the stigma, because there's still a stigma around reusing, repurposing secondhand clothing. They struggle with difficult legislations because often reworked clothing cannot be exported easily, certainly, for instance, in places such as Uganda. I know a fantastic designer in Uganda who cannot export his upcycling clothes because there is no investment in upscaling upcycling, despite the millions invested in recycling solutions that, as I said before, are then not taken up and upscaled. So we're investing in lives. When you look at what we've done, how we destroyed all quality, not just of product but quality of lives for people who were making products previously. That's why I'm angry, because we have a solution Reusing and upcycling is a really viable solution.
Speaker 2:It is something that humanity has been doing since we started making, because we made and then we mended. We made something to last as long as possible. We thought about longevity and the process of design. Always it's excess, that is a temporary trend which we need to make a passing trend.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. To me, it sounds like maybe there is anger because you do know the solutions, but there's a lot of passion, a lot of knowledge in the field and to me, instinctively, from this conversation we had today, I think that a very important thing is to spread this. It's the fact that we are not educated in this way to see what is happening when we're buying, when we stop using it, when we donate or try and do good in that way, and I think it's just very important for people to listen, to be informed, and so I thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Just a fun question to end, if you permit me If you ruled the fashion world as Queen Ursula for the day, what would you?
Speaker 2:do, I would rebrand it completely, 100%. I'm actually good at rebranding, or branding in general, and it's something that I enjoy. So I would only need one word, and I would sprinkle that word wherever there was fashion, wherever there was fashion thinking, wherever there was fashion making, wherever there was fashion planning, wherever there was fashion buying, and that word is kindness. This industry is profoundly unkind. It's unkind to its workers and it's unkind to its wearers as well. We all need to fit some kind of a picture that feels uncomfortable for all of us, so Queen Ursula rebrands the fashion industry with kindness.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's been a pleasure talking to you and thank you for your questions and for inviting me.
Speaker 1:And this concludes our podcast for today. Thank you so much, ursula, for this passionate and insightful conversation. We are the Rebel Justice Podcast, brought to you by the View Magazine, an independent media platform by and for women in the justice system. For more about the View, please check out our website at theviemagorguk, and you will find us on X, formerly Twitter at Rebel Justice, and on Facebook and Instagram as the View Magazines, linkedin as the View Magazine. Please like and subscribe the show. We rely on your support and please do leave us a nice review if you like what you heard and found it informative. Thank you.
