Orsola De Castro: The Revolutionary

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.

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

OdeC: It's changed dramatically. The first year we did 40. Sarah Ditty is responsible for the Fashion Transparency Index. Initially, we did it in partnership with the Ethical Consumer Magazine, but it's changed drastically since then. It has become legitimized as the Fashion Transparency Index, and it's changed the language so that people understand transparency. However, it must be said that it's about public disclosure, and is not an audit. Brands are more willing to participate as it has become more powerful. Sometimes they use it as a marketing tool, so we have to manage how it's used [in marketing]. Also, transparent doesn't mean sustainable. It has changed the game, though. 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: Which brands or designers are setting the best examples for good habits in fashion? 

OdeC: You can go on Google as see how much big brands disclose, and decide if you believe them or not. What I can say is that if you go to Fashion Open Studio, you will find a ton of very, young creatives, and not-so very young creatives, that are part of our cohort and who each represent a way of changing. As I said, from Christopher Raeburn to Bethany Williams, and designers in India, Zimbabwe and South America. What we try to bring to them is visibility as there are myriad of these guys. We don't see them. We don't know about them as they are on the other side of the planet, or so tiny that we wouldn't even consider them yet compared to the mainstream.

LM: You recently published a book  - Loved Clothes Last: How the Joy of Rewearing and Repairing Your Clothes Can Be a Revolutionary Act. Tell us a bit more about it.

OdeC: The name is one I've used for my collections since 1997. My collections were called Abandoned, Reclaimed Women's Wear, and Loved Clothes Last. It was initially my love. I want to make my loved clothes last. It's something I've always used. I started using it as a hashtag when we were working on the Fashion Revolution. We started with transparency, but we wanted to introduce the environmental impact of clothing and waste. It made sense to introduce that conversation, which has since expanded into 'What's in My Clothes', and the chemicals and blah, blah, but we introduced it through the concept of ‘waste’. I offered the hashtag #lovedclotheslast, and when it came to writing the book it made sense.

The book is more of a "why-to", rather than a "how-to". It gives you the background on the fashion industry to understand that each time you decide to mend your clothes or campaign for repairing facilities to be available in your community, you take a step towards having less of an impact on the planet. There are two simple places where we can start to make changes in our lives- the fridge and the wardrobe. We are aware of the fact that we must change our diet to eat less meat. We need to transport that kind of information on the clothes that we wear. It's the same type of thinking - What are the ingredients? How do I store it? How do I consume it? And how do I use it when it's a leftover? It's not that different; it is just applied to a more creative reality.

Interview: Linda Mateljan

Images: FashionRevolution.org