The Green Dream with Dana Thomas

My guest today is Camille Charrière, influencer and sustainability editor for British Elle. A law school graduate who for a time worked for a hedge fund in London, Camille has become one of the leading voices in the eco-fashion movement. In our conversation, Camille shares how – while she has always been conscious about sustainability – a switch flicked in her mind during the Covid-19 pandemic, making her see that she would have to do her work differently if she wanted to make a difference in the world. So, she pivoted to sustainable fashion. We discuss what the fashion industry can do to become more sustainable and what we as consumers can do to contribute to a more eco-friendly world of fashion (hint: buy less!). Camille also tells the story of how an article in The New York Times led her to her wedding dress. Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisCheck out the “World’s comfiest knickers” from Stripe & StareFollow Camille Charrière on InstagramDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

Neither of today’s guests is a stranger to Hollywood. On this special episode, we first talk sustainable fashion, dance and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with one of the Housewives, Sutton Stracke. Then, we travel to another movie Mecca, Cannes, to check in with Time magazine film critic Stephanie Zacharek on this year’s film festival. Sutton Stracke is more than just a regular housewife. Sutton is the founder of The Sutton Concept, a boutique in West Hollywood, where she sells her own lines of eco-responsible fashion and homewares, as well as the products of local designers; she is also one of 200 women in the world who is a regular couture client. Before becoming a star on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Sutton was a studio manager for Merce Cunningham – one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th century – in his studio in West Village, New York, and before that, she was a debutante in Augusta, Georgia, with dreams of becoming a modern dance choreographer. Next for Sutton is a new season of Real Housewives – and maybe a RomCom?After Sutton Stracke, we hear which movies and performances Stephanie Zacharek loved at the Cannes Film Festival which just wrapped up. Stay tuned for tales of flirting Chinese garment workers, French haute cuisine, and a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisVisit The Sutton Concept onlineRead Stephanie Zacharek’s latest articles for Time magazineDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

This month has been one of the most sparkly in ages. First, we had the Met Gala in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's annual black-tie fundraiser, to kick off its latest blockbuster exhibition, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, on show until July 16. Invitees were asked to dress in homage to Karl Lagerfeld, the longtime designer of Chanel, Fendi, and Chloé, as well as his own namesake brand. Karl died in 2019, at the age of 85. That dictate meant high glamor on the red carpet, with lots of important jewelry. A few days later, there was the coronation of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey, and while, in these difficult economic times, guests were asked not to wear coronets and tiaras, there was still a lot of remarkable jewelry on display, most notably the King and Queen's crowns. And now we have the Cannes Film Festival, a two-week-long glittering Red Carpet parade on the Riviera, and, by far, the glamest cinema event of the year. Anything and everything goes at Cannes.To talk about all this shimmer and shine, and how it's sustainable–because, yes, it is–we have leading jewelry expert Carol Woolton. When Carol joined Tatler magazine in London in 2001, she created the role of jewelry editor, one she later carried on to British Vogue, and one that is now an important post at all major glossy magazines. She has written several books on the subject, including The New Stone Age, and coming this fall, Dolce & Gabbana High Jewelry, published by Rizzoli. And Carol has her delightful podcast, called If Jewels Could Talk. On it, she speaks with owners of important jewelry collections, and about the history of famous jewelry. This fall, a book inspired by the podcast, also called If Jewels Could Talk, will be published by Simon & Schuster.Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisLearn more about Carol Woolton and If Jewels Could TalkDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

When people talk about trying to reduce their carbon footprint, the one item that almost always comes up in the conversation is air travel. And with reason. Researchers believe that aviation accounts for approximately four percent of human-induced global warming–more than most countries, including Germany. If the aviation industry was a country, it would be the sixth largest greenhouse gas emitter, after China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan.What to do? ​​The world's population is not going to stop flying. Quite the opposite: there were nearly 40 million flights in 2019, pre-pandemic, and the numbers are quickly reaching that record again, and will bypass it swiftly. Next year, that number is expected to be four percent higher, and by the mid-2030s–a mere ten years from now–experts predict that there will be 200,000 flights a day.The only way to reduce aviation's impact on climate is to create an environmentally cleaner way to fly. And that's what our guest today, Val Miftakhov, is doing with his company Zero Avia. He'll explain how. Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisLearn more about Val Miftakhov and Zero AviaDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

Four years ago this month, Notre-Dame de Paris, the 12th-century cathedral in the heart of Paris, caught on fire. The city was smothered in smoke for days, and hearts around the world were broken. Notre-Dame is a gem of gothic architecture, an incomparable beauty in the center of the city, and a site for pilgrimage and tourism. As the cathedral smoldered, the city of Paris pledged to rebuild it as it was. But the mayor had also set forth a plan to make Paris the greenest city in Europe by 2030, and realized that redoing the landscape around Notre-Dame in a more ecological manner could help Paris reach that goal. In September 2021, the city launched a pro-environment design competition for the site, and last summer, the jury selected a team led by our guest today, the award-winning Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets, who has specialized in taking hyper-urban, often desolate sites and turning them into eco-friendly oases. For Notre-Dame, he and his colleagues will use the same approach for the surrounding landscape–the parvis, as the West side plaza is known, and the gardens to the east. Their proposal will turn the Île de la Cité, the island in the Seine where Notre-Dame sits, into a sustainable microclimate. Bas is here on The Green Dream today to explain to us how they will do it.Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisLearn more about Bas Smets Discover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

Today, we welcome Mya-Rose Craig, a 20-year-old British-Bangladeshi who is the foremost birdwatcher of her generation. Three years ago, Mya-Rose became the youngest person to have seen half the world's bird species. Mya-Rose, who grew up in a village near Bristol, England, has been a passionate conservationist and climate activist since she was a tween, when she launched her blog, called Birdgirl. We talk about her activism and the beauty of birds and all biodiversity in her new memoir, also called Birdgirl, The Times of London described her book as "a cross between a travel diary, an ornithologist's guide, and a thriller." And the esteemed writer Margaret Atwood has called Birdgirl, "Lyrical, poignant, and insightful." I think that's the perfect way to describe Mya-Rose, too. She spoke to us from her dorm room at Cambridge University in England, where she is studying Human, Social, and Political Sciences.Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisLearn more about Mya-Rose Craig and her memoir, BirdgirlDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

About a year ago, we welcomed on the Green Dream two Ukrainian fashion designers, Ksenia Schnaider and Ivan Frolov, to tell us about their harrowing experiences as the Russian army invaded their homeland. When we spoke, Ksenia was a refugee in Germany, with her husband and their young daughter, figuring out what to do next, and Ivan was at home in Kyiv, which was under heavy assault from the Russians. I thought, with the recent anniversary of the invasion, it would be a good time to check in with them and see how they are managing. Turns out they are as well as well can be, given the circumstances. This may be the most hopeful of all our Green Dream episodes. We also welcome back Hannah Elliott, luxury car writer for Bloomberg Pursuits, and a regular Green Dream contributor. She's going to tell us about her adventures as the first driver outside of the Rolls-Royce company to test drive the luxury motor brand's new EV, the Spectre. Yes, like the James Bond enemy. Hannah flew halfway around the world to take the wheel. How Bondian of her!Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisLearn more about Ksenia Schnaider and FrolovDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

It's Oscars Week next week, and to celebrate cinema's top awards ceremony, we've decided to have a glamorous movie episode here on The Green Dream. Our first guest is Shaunak Sen, the award-winning director of All That Breathes, a poetic documentary that has already won best documentary awards at both the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals – a first in cinema. And it has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.Also on The Green Dream today is Time magazine film critic Stephanie Zacharek, who will tell us about other touching, and beautiful, environment-themed films in theaters or streaming right now. Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisLearn more about Shaunak Sen’s All That BreathesDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

My guest today is Amber Valletta, supermodel, actress, and climate activist. Amber works with several NGOs, serves as British Vogue’s Contributing Sustainability Editor, and does eco-consulting for brands such as Karl Lagerfeld. This spring, the third Karl Lagerfeld Amber Valletta collection will drop in stores around the world, and includes stylish, environmentally conscious ready-to-wear, such as biker jackets, little black dresses, and suits, as well as accessories. And she takes her activism seriously, participating in Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Friday protests in Washington and Los Angeles, and even getting arrested for the cause. This activism is deeply embedded in Amber—her mother successfully protested against the construction of a nuclear power plant near their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Amber was a child. Amber watched and learned.I like how Amber is trying to push fashion towards more sustainable practices from the inside—as her friend Stella McCartney says, “Infiltrating from within.” As the Fall/Winter 23-24 fashion shows unfurl in Paris this week—with Amber walking in several of them, including such eco-conscious brands as Stella McCartney and Chloé—I thought it seemed like the perfect time to have her on the podcast. Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisDiscover the fashion brands Another Tomorrow and ChloeExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio

My guest on The Green Dream today is the legendary former Vogue editor André Leon Talley, and no, he is not speaking to us from the grave, though if anyone could, and would, it would be André! André and I met for our interview at the Mona Bismarck American Center in Paris, where he was overseeing the installation of "Little Black Dress”. This week, a year after his death at 73 from Covid-19, a large swath of his estate is up for auction at Christie's in New York, to benefit two of his favorite places of worship, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and the Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, where he grew up. The Christie's auction is how this interview fits into The Green Dream remit: if you buy well, and, boy, did André buy well (and was gifted very well too), your belongings can have a good long life after you are gone – be it heirlooms for friends and family, or estate sales open to the public. As I say often in my British Vogue sustainability column, in interviews, and in conference speeches, the most sustainable thing you can do is buy less, buy better. We’ve even turned into a hashtag: #buylessbuybetter.Read the transcript of this episodeGet to know Dana Thomas and her book FashionopolisDiscover the fashion brand Another TomorrowExplore the new Green Dream website, thegreendream.studio