Dress this sweater up with a fun skirt as pictured or simply pair with jeans for a casual feel. Your style options are endless!
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I love statement blouses, vintage dresses and tailored coats in natural fibres.
What are your wardrobe staples?
I work in sustainable fashion as a speaker, educator and digital creative. My background is in fashion journalism. I used to work in magazines and have always loved beautiful clothes. Today, I am the founder of Wardrobe Crisis - a sustainable fashion podcast and online courses platform.
Talk us through your personal style?
If it’s a small designer, then I look at how much they communicate on their website around their materials and processes. I often look for upcycled pieces from independent creatives. If it’s a bigger company, then I will start with climate, and ask — are they taking bold, measurable steps to reduce their carbon impacts? For sure I will look at materials — in particular third party certifications for things like organic cotton. I will also look at what they are doing around labour practices and transparency. Have they signed the new Bangladesh Accord, now called the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry, for example? Do they engage with the sustainable fashion conversation? You’d be surprised by how many companies do very little in this space.
What are some of the things you look for when determining whether a fashion piece or brand fits with your own sustainability ethos?
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Clare Press, Host of the Wardrobe Crisis Podcast,
On What She Looks for in Sustainable Clothing
When having conversations about sustainable fashion, you’d struggle to find someone better equipped to tackle the issue than Clare Press. Clare’s been a fashion editor for more than a decade, working at the likes of Vogue Australia, Sunday Style and Marie Claire — and in recent years, she’s turned her attention to helping all of us understand the sustainable (and not-so-sustainable) aspects of the industry.
That’s where Clare’s company, The Wardrobe Crisis, comes in. Her podcast sees her interview designers, change-makers, academics, creatives and fashion insiders about environmental sustainability, fashion, ethics, and the ways they all intersect.
Don’t be intimidated, though, because Clare’s work has one big goal: to make the big issues accessible for everyone. And four years on from The Wardrobe Crisis’ inception, that’s exactly what she’s doing. Clare’s written two books and launched an online program, all to help us understand environmental and social justice a little bit better — and she also found the time to become Vogue Australia’s first Sustainability Editor along the way.
We recently sat down (virtually) with Clare to learn more about her work, personal style and exactly how she’d style the latest collection by H&M.
Keep on scrolling to read the interview.
Well, my podcast is based on a book I wrote in 2016 called Wardrobe Crisis, How We Went from Sunday Best to Fast Fashion. The catalyst for that, was that my wardrobe literally broke from the weight of clothes hanging in there. The rail snapped clean in half. While my case was extreme, it seemed related to the bigger picture. I decided to investigate how the global fashion system works, and how we got to this place where so much fashion production and consumption is unsustainable.
What was the catalyst that made you more aware of how your own fashion choices impact sustainability?
What are your sustainable shopping tips?
Don’t be intimidated. Yes, this stuff can be complex but it’s okay to start small. Start by reading labels and looking at fabric content, even just knowing what fabric is being used is more than most people do! Try to connect a bit more with the items you buy, and the stories behind them. Maybe you already do this with food? Maybe you look for healthy ingredients or where something has been made or how it’s packaged. You can do the same with clothes, or homewares or whatever it is. The more you learn, the more empowering it is.
What are some of the things you look for when determining whether a fashion piece or brand fits with your own sustainability ethos?
Mostly I look for what it’s made from, where those materials come from and the impact its production has on the environment. It may seem like a lot of research but all this info is really easy to find, as brands are becoming more transparent.
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What tips would you have for someone still figuring out their personal style?
Take the pressure off. Try to enjoy the process.
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It’s complicated. On the one hand, we do need good clothes to be accessible and affordable for everyone, and I do worry about sustainable fashion being elitist, or being seen that way.
On the other hand, there are true costs hidden behind very cheaply produced/sold clothes. It fuels the false idea that fashion is somehow disposable — more than half of all clothing is made from synthetic fibres that don’t biodegrade. Furthermore, producing clothes too cheaply means squeezing the most marginalised in the fashion supply chain — usually the garment workers.
In general, my advice is: buy less, choose well. Do your research. Consider your values (recognising that not everyone’s will be the same) and apply them to your shopping decisions. Forget trying to be perfect. Instead, aim to be a more mindful shopper within your budget. Select pieces you care about and intend to get your wear out of — rather than just buying a load of cheap stuff on a whim because the price-tag is attractive.
Do you believe it’s possible to shop affordable fashion in a sustainable way?
What is one trend you hope comes back soon and what’s another that you hope never sees the light of day?
I would actually challenge you on that. I feel like the idea of trends is outdated. Trends are just whatever you want them to be and very personal. They certainly used to be cyclical — when I first started working for Vogue in the 2000s, ‘in’ vs. ‘out’ lists were the norm. It was all about: this season’s must-have — which rendered last season’s whatever-it-was obsolete. I don’t think that is relevant today. You can wear flares if you like them, or not bother. Fashion is less about judgement, less hierarchical. So, I am not going to answer this question! Wear whatever you want — you don’t need the fashion machine to tell you what to like.
If you could pick any person from any era, who would you choose as your style icon?
Ah, if you’d asked me this question a few years ago I could have rattled off loads of people, but I’ve stopped being interested in this sort of thing. These days my style icon is Nature. That’s not as daft as it sounds — I remember reading that Diana Vreeland thought the most stylish things were panthers and ocean waves. I might have that slightly wrong; maybe it was jaguars (not the cars though!) and surfing, but you get the point. If you push me to say a person, I’ll go Nick Cave.
The H&M Spring 2021 collection launches in storeson September 16
and online at hm.com.
Note: Due to Government COVID regulations, not all stores are currently open.
Do you feel like your awareness of sustainability has impacted your personal style, or has it held steady?
My style hasn’t changed — I’ve always had clear ideas on how I want to look — but my relationship with fashion and the clothes I buy has changed a lot. One thing I would love to get across is that you don’t have to compromise on style to make more sustainable choices.
What pieces did you choose from H&M’s new collection, and why?
I chose the pieces made with Agraloop Biofibre, which is a new generation circular fibre made from crop waste - in this case, the stems and leaves of the hemp plant which are normally discarded.
The Californian company behind it, Circular Systems, is also working on processing tech that they say will ‘recycle the wastewater generated during fibre refining and create beneficial soil amendments that can go back to the farm’. Agraloop only became commercially available last year. The fibre made its debut in H&M Conscious collection and is now being scaled across the broader ranges, including this trench coat.
I’m very interested in new generation bio-materials, particularly those that repurpose waste streams. Currently, the fashion industry is overly reliant on virgin synthetic fibres and (to a lesser extent) conventionally grown cotton - which has historic high pesticide use, can be very thirsty and often uses petroleum-based fertilisers.
I also chose this folk dress, which is very much my style in terms of shape. It’s a blend of Tencel and organic linen. Tencel is the Austrian company Lenzing’s most sustainable viscose and the fibres are certified as compostable and biodegradable. Linen is a great sustainable fibre option — it’s from the flax plant, which can thrive in hardier soil than cotton and requires less water.
It’s exciting to see a transition to more circular and regenerative materials.
Pictured: Oversize Trench Coat ($119), Shoulder Bag ($19.99)
Pictured: Long Lyocell Blend Dress ($59.99)
Pictured: Short Sleeve Hoodie ($24.99), Shorts ($29.99)