Orsola De Castro: The revolutionary

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Designer, activist, and mentor, Orsola de Castro is an internationally recognized opinion leader on issues relating to fashion and sustainability. We sat down with Orsola to chat about her career, and the work of Fashion Revolution, a global movement calling for change in the fashion industry.

LM: You have been working in fashion in a responsible way for many years now. You are considered to be a pioneer in the sustainable fashion world. How did your journey begin? 

OdeC: It didn't start in this area. I was a designer. I had a label, and my instinct as a designer was reusing. This was in 1996, 1997. I started the label called 'From Somewhere'. I used to take jumpers [sweaters] that were utterly ravaged by moths, and intricately crocheted them with beads, and they become these works of art. As my label grew and we started selling in New York, Tokyo, London and Milan and so on, I needed to get more and more materials. And I thought it would be challenging, but it wasn't, there was just tons of waste. That was really the moment that it became eye-opening. So, I became more creative in reusing [the waste] and more outspoken about how much others were wasting.

LM: ‘From Somewhere’ collaborated with established brands including Jigsaw, Speedo, and four best-selling capsule collections for Topshop. What was the attitude to ‘up-cycling’ at the time and how has it changed overtime? 

OdeC: Jigsaw is an interesting example because when we started working with Jigsaw, it was 1998, and the word ‘upcycling’ didn't exist. Neither did the concept of sustainable fashion. There were perhaps two or three brands, like People Tree. We weren't the ‘sustainable’ lot, as we were customizing. Jigsaw started off buying all of our secondhand, re-done cashmere, and then they suggested sending us some defect items or overruns from their factories in HK. That was my first experience with factory bulk. I would get 50 articles with identical flaws, like 25 in blue, 25 in green with a sleeve defect. So, with customizing, we could make it right. My other collaboration, such as Top Shop's 'Reclaim to Wear" was very interesting and lasted four years. The Topshop creative team, and the creatives at the top, were very eager to have us involved and work with us. However, their supply chain was so fragmented that we encountered quite a lot of obstacles. The collection was kept up by the young team of designers and fabric sourcers at Top Shop who pushed through, but it wasn't easy.

LM: You have also collaborated with brands in the luxury sector? How did this come about? 

OdeC: I was fortunate because I was a tiny brand, and I worked in Italy's Veneto region. I was introduced to a woman who runs a knitwear manufacturing company that produces items for Marni, Brioni, Dolce e Gabbana, and Alaia Azzedine. I would go to the factory, and she would show me all her damaged knitwear. I started picking up items from the floor! This was in 2000 and the start of a lengthy collaboration. We also created a fashion department in the local co-operative rehabilitating disabled and emotionally damaged individuals. I mean, it was a significant collaboration. But what was interesting was that I was collecting all of the waste of all of these famous designers. I have a lovely story with Alaia. He was the first to say to the manufacturer, "give her whatever she wants". Then little by little, all the other designers agreed that the waste should go to me, aside from when it was very [brand specific] like Pucci's logotype. At that point, it was just creative, and there were a few illuminated companies. Now we see Virgil Abloh [and others] doing that same kind of upcycling we were doing in 2002. But designers like Christopher Raeburn, Bethany Williams, and Kevin Germanier. These are the people that [I feel] I have ‘passed’ the work on to. 

LM: There seems to be a natural progression to the founding of Fashion Revolution -  another milestone in your activism. The organisation’s vision is for a global fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment, aiming to achieve this through education, collaborations, and with tools and policies to that incentivize and promote transparency and accountability across the supply chain. That is a huge undertaking! What types of initiatives has the Fashion Revolution undertaken?

OdeC: So Fashion Revolution is a progression of my work at Esthetica, the British Fashion Council's, sustainable area at London Fashion Week. And that's where I met Carry Somers, who was one of our exhibitors with her brand Pachacuti. Esthetica framed a community of people, around 2006, who were committed to sustainability like Dennis Williams and Tamsin Lejeune. After the Rana Plaza accident [in Bangladesh], we felt, "ok, we've been showing our creativity, but this was too much". And Carry had the idea of a Fashion Revolution event, so we sat down and starting talking, realizing we had to do something bigger. We needed a Movement. We have the people in the fashion community, and I was at the point I could put all my experiences together and push myself creatively, and to work out - what does this movement look like, how do we speak, and where are we going? So, that is how it started. In terms of initiatives, some have been successful like the Fashion Transparency Index, which has been instrumental in demanding full accountability and public disclosure. That's all we want. We don't judge. Another success has been the hashtag #whomademyclothes. It's a simple question that no one can answer. The hashtag has been used millions of times. And it has made brands compete with each other on the good, rather than the bad, that is a fundamental change in the way of thinking. The methodology is the same for every brand in the Index. We do get questions from brands, like, “how can I do it better?” ; so, there is this genuine sense of them wanting to do better.

LM: The Fashion Revolution has created the Fashion Transparency Index, a powerful tool to influence brand stewardship behaviour in the industry. What has been the reaction from brands?