WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press

On the surface this is our first episode on the textile, clothing and footwear industry in Pakistan. The industry is major player in the country’s economy, contributing significantly to exports and employing more than half of its workforce. And in this interview with labour rights expert Khalid Mahmood, we cover capabilities, challenges, cotton production, wages and improvements in factory safety. But there's a bigger story here - one about history, and who gets to tell it; politics, power and democracy; and what happens when the latter fractures, or is captured by the military, for example, and how all this impacts on freedom of association, social justice and workers' rights. How do you organise in the face of that? Why should you, what are the stakes? There's a personal story woven through this too: Khalid went from driving a taxi to heading up a leading NGO. Also up for discussion: what to do as an ambitious person when conventional routes seem closed to you, the power of creative thinking and the secret to loving your work.We hope you enjoy the latest from our series on workers' rights, produced with Clean Clothes Campaign. Don't forget to listen to the previous episodes you may have missed.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

H&M, Inditex, Adidas, Gap... Some of the world's most famous apparel brands source from Cambodia, where 1 million people are employed by the garment, footwear and travel goods industry. Low-paid work, work in the informal economy, even work without pay is sadly widespread. By some estimates, half of all fashion workers are indebted to micro-finance because they need to take out loans to make ends meet. And, warns Clean Clothes Campaign, while Cambodian law theoretically protects the right of workers to form unions and bargain collectively, many independent labour organisations face severe legal and practical restrictions.What can, and should, multinational brands be doing about this? Why don't they step up and pay more than survival wages? How does politics come into play here? Plus the curious case of the instant noodle unions - can we really expect trade unions run by management to put workers first?In the latest from our series on workers rights, Clare meets Tola Mouen, executive director of the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, Cambodia.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

All fashion eyes on the Danish Capital!We interrupt our series on workers’ rights to bring you this warm and lovely chat between friends. I have been on the sustainability advisory board of Copenhagen Fashion Week since 2019, and it’s by far my favourite fashion week. As the SS27 runaways happen in the city, and the event turns 20, here’s how CPHFW's CEO Cecilie Thorsmark is thinking about progress, nostalgia and the way forward for sustainable fashion.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

How much do we really know about how our clothes and shoes are made? Or even where? While the latter is routinely included on care labels, that’s often the end of the story, at least the one the brands want to tell you. Despite years of campaigning by groups like Fashion Revolution, Labour Behind the Label and Clean Clothes Campaign, many of us still have no idea who made our clothes and under what conditions.Did you even know the Philippines is an important garment producer for brands like Lulu Lemon, and until recently, Adidas? In 2023, when a factory in Cebu supplying Adidas closed, 4000 workers lost their jobs. How about the stories of union busting linked to factory in Cambodia that's a major supplier to ASICS? Or the closure of another facility in Vietnam making Nike shoes that left thousands of workers without severance pay?Niki Gamara is CCC’s South East Asia Urgent Appeals Co-Ordinator, working with those needing quick support in areas where violations are happening. In this vivid, warm conversation we talk about everything from how the history of colonisation echoes in the present to what I should do with my sneakers now that I know more about what goes in behind the scenes...Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

There's a long history of exploitation in the denim supply chain, as our first guest this week, Bego Demir, can attest. He developed incurable silicosis in the 2000s as a result of his sandblasting job in a Turkish factory producing jeans for a famous American brand.These days Bego coordinates Clean Clothes Campaign Türkiye, and is supporting a creative new activist strategy to hold another brand to account, this time for making big claims about being "responsibly made", while workers in a supplier factory in Istanbul faced harsh consequences when they dared to organise for better conditions.Earlier this year, the Dutch office of the CCC network filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against denim giant Levi Strauss. Their core argument is that Levi’s used misleading claims on the labour conditions in its supply chain when advertising its products to Dutch consumers. Four individual consumers, who purchased Levi’s products believing they were buying from an ethical brand, have joined the lawsuit. One of then, Pam, is also on this week's show sharing her perspective.Too many brands fail to prevent worker exploitation in their supply chains, from union busting to denying workers' their basic rights, whether that's the right to organise, to strike, or to be paid a living wage. Could this latest CCC tactic - to use consumer law that protects shoppers from greenwashing - make a difference? Let's find out.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

What are the biggest issues facing garment workers globally today? How can we most effectively advocate for them if we've never walked in their shoes? What do we mean by solidarity, and how does that work in action? Is the compliance and social auditing industry the answer? (Spoiler alert: no!)In this deep and meaningful introductory convo with Clean Clothes Campaigner Johnson Yeung, we unpack the challenges and changes facings the labor rights movement today, and ask, what will it really take to build a fair fashion supply chain for the people who make our clothes?This Episode was recorded at the CCC's 35 Year Celebrations in Bangkok. If you find the interview valuable, please help us share it.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

Welcome to the first episode of our new series all about workers' rights. My guest this week is Christina Hajagos-Clausen who is the IndustriALL Global Union’s director for the Textile, Garment, Shoe and Leather Sector. Our interview was recorded during the organisation's 4th Global Congress held in Sydney at the end of last year, at "a critical moment. Workers everywhere are being hit by converging crises, growing inequality, the climate emergency, digital disruption and the increasing concentration of corporate power." So how can workers ensure get to help shape a future that is fair, democratic and just?This is an expansive conversation that covers everything from: Why are trade unions necessary to the New Industrial Revolution, automation and AI. We explore what unions doing in the global textile & garment sector to shape a just transition. We look at specific garment producing countries and stories - including whether or not to boycott Made in Myanmar - plus the whole idea of the Labor movement as a check on fascism everywhere.If you find the interview valuable, please help us share it.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress

So Shein has bought Everlane and it's freaking people out.This feels like the right time to throwback to 2019, and my one-on-one with Everlane's founder Michael Preysman.I found it super interesting to listen back to what he said 7 years ago about why he built the brand, what inspired him, and his hopes for changing the game around sustainability. He ended up selling to LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton in 2020, and as such was not involved in the Shein acquisition. But in a yet another plot twist, he's just announced plans to return with a new offering, that he's calling Still Radical. Questions: will anybody buy it? Who else feels let down? Can someone please press pause on sustainable fashion's Twilight Zone/Black Mirror nightmare moment for corporate #sustfash ?!I'll be back soon with Series 13!Want more encores in the meantime? Here's the Episode on How Shein Makes Clothes So Cheap.

This week, I bring you an interview with the fascinating artist Nikesha Breeze. Their Living Histories project explores African diasporic stories, and was a standout at this year's Biennale of Sydney. The fashion connection? Cotton's colonial history.Maybe you (rightly) love cotton as a beautiful, breathable natural fibre, and routinely choose it over synthetics. Me too! But how much do you know know about the commodity's troubling history, and its links with slavery in the US? The textiles that we wear never exist in isolation, and it's the human stories that unlock meaning.Also up for discussion: art's role in catalysing change; self-care; the healing powers of sound; capitalism and the commodification of time; our relationship to place, land and each other; how corporations profit from the prison industrial complex - and even make clothing using prison labour.Recorded in person at the 25th Biennale of Sydney.If you find the interview valuable, please help us share it.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comSupport the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress Follow Nikesha @nikeshabreeze