Twenty-two billion! What are we playing at?!

Things get worse when we look at the materials most commonly in use. The sports shoe category in particular is a giant, influential sector, yet its waste footprint and chemical inputs tend to fall under the radar. And don't get us started on the Crocsification of everything! Injection-moulded EVA is coming to a clog near you, but don't let's pretend that's sustainable.

Increasingly, our shoes are made of frankenstein plastics, and even their creators don't necessarily know what's in them.

This week on the podcast, Clare's guest is Chandni Batra, founder of A BLUNT STORY - a disruptive Indian sandals brand on a mission detoxify your footwear, and challenge the industry to stop trashing the planet.

This is a gob-smacking conversation full of revelations about how huge numbers of shoes are made today, using oil-based plastics, potentially-toxic foams and petrochemical ingredients for all sorts of uses you’ve most likely never even heard of. Could these chemicals be leaching into our skin? What are their effects on the environment? And on the workers who must handle them? Why are modern shoes to hard to recycle? And what can be done about all this. Chandni has solutions! Ears here!

More info at thewardrobecrisis.com

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In the third of our four-part mini series on sustainable fashion in India, Clare sits down with Drishti Modi and Rashmick Bose, the duo behind slow fashion brand Lafaani. It's focused handcraft, handloom weaves, and natural dyes, and their clothes are gorgeous - we want them all!

But the founders didn't always dream of fashion careers - they're sustainability professionals who met at university studying environmental resource management. At first, it was all about biodiversity, water use in marginalised communities, and regen ag.

So how does one move from observing flying lizards in the Western Ghats, or surveying toilet numbers in remote villages, to staging runway shows? And making wonderful trench coats dyed with marigolds diverted from temple waste-streams. Somewhat of a winding road, it has to be said! Was it hard? What drives them? When you haven't been to fashion school, how do you get the design right? Who do you work with? How do you figure it all out, while staying true to your purpose?

A warm, inviting conversation that will help anybody with big sustainability ideas trying to do fashion differently.

More info at thewardrobecrisis.com

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More from our visit to India! If you listened to the last episode with stylist Daniel Franklin, you'll have heard Clare promise more to come from India's burgeoning sustainable fashion scene. This week's chat is with one of Delhi's most promising young designers, who's just shown his collection at Lakmé Fashion Week in Mumbai, and who won last year's Circular Design Challenge (run by R/Elan and UN India). He is Ritwik Khanna, founder of the edgy menswear offering and atelier RKive City. He's created a new system of working with post-consumer textile waste (lots of denim and camouflage gear) that he de-constructs, then recuts into brilliant new garments, often embellished with embroideries. The result blends cool modernity with high craft.

What's up for discussion? His process, obviously, but this is also a conversation about dignified work, what people don't realise about the second-hand and waste textile supply chain in India, and ultimately - what makes a good life.

Fancy your chances winning the Circular Design Challenge? Applications for 2025 close May 8th. Info here.

More info at thewardrobecrisis.com

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Mumbai and New Delhi take turns to host Lakmé Fashion Week, and this season it's the former that will be exploding with creative runways and high-craft fever, starting next week.

To get you in the mood, we're bringing you an Indian mini-series of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast, starting with this delightful conversation with stylist Daniel Franklin.

Daniel styled five shows last season, and has seven on the go this time, and we can't think of anyone better to contextualise India's new gen talent explosion. So yes, expect to learn the new names-to-know and what makes them tick. But Daniel studied fashion history before breaking into magazines, and this is a far-ranging discussion that gallops through the myth of the Silk Route to the truth of the colonial hangover, via a tour of India's unparalleled craft heritage. Enjoy!

More info at thewardrobecrisis.com

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A disturbing shift away from diversity, equity and inclusion is spreading through the corporate world. Following US President Donald Trump's lead, some of the world's most powerful companies have rushed to dismantle years of positive work that's been done in this area.

Race and gender are central to this discussion, but diversity and inclusion programs concern the whole gamut of non-majority groups in any given setting, including sexual orientation, disability and class. So what does mean to be abandoning policies and initiatives designed to make our societies, organisations and businesses fairer and more equitable for everyone? To remove unjust barriers to entry that have, for too long, locked less-privileged groups out? It’s not like, our work is done here.

Take, for example, the continued lack of representation of women in the C-suite. The numbers simply don’t represent broader society - or brands’ stakeholders and customer-bases. Or educational establishments that blatantly favour upper class students from rich families. That’s where affirmative action comes in. Talking about merit-based hires and some lofty ideal of a colour/class/gender/disability-blind world is pure nonsense when some of us clearly get a head start over others.

Big questions: what's driving brands to drop DEI programs? Did they ever really care in the first place? How do the culture wars play into all of this? Will what's happening in America spread to other countries? And will more big brands follow suit? Is diversity and inclusion officially dead - or just on life support?

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In this episode, Clare gives you a masterclass on the history, context and current state of play, then revisits key messages from previous episodes on this topic, including insights from Aja Barber, Lou Croff Blake, Rahemur Rahman and Junior Bishop.

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It's time for some more trashtalk, my friends.

Remember plastic pollution? Of course you do - because it's still with us.

According to the UNEP, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic enter the world's oceans, rivers and lakes EVERY SINGLE DAY. And while there was a great deal of excitement around the prospect of a Global Plastics Treaty last year, talks were suspended at the end of 2024 when UN member states failed to reach an agreement on what would have been the first-ever global legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution.

But it's not just plastic that's littering the environment. You name it; it ends up there - from paper and cardboard to aluminium cans, glass, clothing and fly-tipped furniture. We're all complicit, so we've all got a part to play.

The good news is that awareness and community action is growing, and that is the focus of today's interview with the inspiring Ripu Daman Bevli - a Delhi-based environmentalist and runner, on a mission to make picking up litter cool. Meet the Plogman of India...

Plog-what?!

The term plogging originated in Sweden - it's a portmanteau of the Swedish verb, "plocka upp" (to pick up) and the English word "jogging". In 2019, Ripu ran 1000 km across 50 cities in India, picking up trash - and followers - along the way. As he says, if you want to spark behaviour change, forget shame and berating people - the secret is to invite them to join a fun activity.

So don't stress, this is far from a dismal discussion about the waste crisis.

Rather, it's a joyful, encouraging story about how to change the world with positivity, recorded on location in Delhi, with a soundtrack of beautiful birdsong.

Tell us what you think? Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

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London fashion week spotlight: In a markedly hatless era, forward-marching British New Gen accessories designer Leo Carlton is turning their talents to digitally-printed crowns, elf ears, breast plates and mysterious sculptural masks. Some of these genre-defying fashion artefacts feel a bit witchy, with pagan undertones. Others, firmly futuristic.

But how do they make them? Wouldn’t you like to know!

Leo trained at Cordwainers, enjoyed a two-year residency at Alexander McQueen's Sarabande Foundation, and studied classical millinery techniques - their first job out of college was with the iconic London hatmaker Stephen Jones, and they used to make showpieces for Dilara Findikoglu, Richard Quinn and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy. But these new VR adventures step beyond the confines of the physical word with mind-bending results. From teaching themselves digital printing via Youtube to sculpting in virtual reality, the only limits are: there are no limits.

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Experience matters. Everyone always tells new design graduates that it's best to work for someone else while you find your feet. But at what point do you know that you are ready to strike out on your own?

While on the surface this conversation with emerging German fashion designer Essie Kramer seems to be about the joys of sourcing old ecclesiastical textiles and turning them into provocative new ensembles, or how digital printing is democratising object-making, I think it's really about confidence and finding your flow. When you know, you know! Essie is one to watch.

I'm always excited to meet next gen fashion talent. Featuring young designers has been a pillar of Wardrobe Crisis from the start.

I've been lucky enough to be a judge on many new gen competitions over the years, including Redress in Hong Kong, the Circular Design Challenge in India and Australia's National Designer Award. I got to write a bit for Sara Maino's Vogue Italia Talents project, and covered the BFC's New Gen for years.

Every series, we've run at least one (sometimes more) Episodes focused on new designers around the world.

Got recommendations? Hit us up!

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Then re-listen to these treasures from our archives:

Ep 61 Vogue Talents, featuring HUEMN and Sindiso Khumalo

Ep 65 with Ruchika from Bodice Studio

Ep 70 featuring Bethany Williams, Matthew Needham and Patrick McDowell

Ep 110 with upcyclers Helen Kirkum and Duran Lantink

Ep 139 with Icelandic knitter Ýr Jóhannsdóttir

Ep 146 with Joao Maraschin

Ep 204 Michaela Stark

Happy listening!

Clare x

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