Commercial Break - A Lovely Conversation on Noticing Birds

We know the struggle to resist the January sales is real! So this week's pod is for anyone who needs a reminder that some of the best things in life are free. Or, maybe you could use bit of encouragement to take a moment to ground yourself. Consider it permission to forget capitalism, scary news headlines, the spectre of going back to work for while.In this limbo time after Christmas but before the new year really kicks in, we wanted to invite you to have a moment of noticing the birds, how delightful, clever and fascinating they are, how they live among us, yet often go unnoticed.My guest is Australian theatre actor and playwright, Nathan Harrison, who's latest play is Birdsong of Tomorrow. Our conversation was recording on a birdwatching jaunt in my local park.Hang on! Isn't Wardrobe Crisis a fashion podcast? Don't worry - birds are often brilliantly dressed with their wonderful plumage.Enjoy!If you find the Episode 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lizzie Dibble wants libraries to lend clothes as well as books. Not just any clothes though. A carefully curated selection of donated second-hand fashion, imbued with the stories of former wearers, and volunteer-run.With Love From… has built a collection of occasion-wear, mostly for women (though there’s also a children’s dressup box) for library members to loan in her hometown of Oswestry, UK. That focus is intentional, because party dresses are some of the least-worn garments in our wardrobes. Lizzie is on a mission to encourage less wardrobe waste and more collective joy - all while encouraging new users into the existing local library network.We have questions!Who’s donating? Who’s borrowing? How does it work in practice? Did the library take some convincing? How can others get involved? Could it annoy existing library users who just want a quiet spot to read? Lizzie’s answer to the latter is both lovely and surprising. She says that the shared wardrobe is a quiet space, and that’s part of why it works. With Love From… is not just like shopping without money, but without the frenzy that underpins so much unsustainable consumption. Could this be a blueprint for shared wardrobes around the world?If you find the Episode 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Despite Shein’s new sustainability rhetoric, workers are still paying the price for the ultra-fast fashion giant’s success. To 75-hour working weeks, piece rates and no contracts, we can add secrecy, opaque financial operations and a general air of mystery around its billionaire founder and how the brand does business.This is the story they don't want told.But thanks to Swiss NGO Public Eye's meticulous research and undercover reporting, it's now out in the open. So can Shein change for the better? Or is unethical simply part of the business model?If you find the Episode 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen up! Yayra Agbofah is the founder of Ghanaian non-profit, The Revival. He's seriously stylish a poet, a creative upcycler, and one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders, as well a 2025 winner of the H&M Foundation's Global Change Award. And he's got some advice for the global fashion industry...Also covered in this charismatic convo: why wear a hat, the art of knowing yourself, community upcycling at scale, fashion education, how circularity is creating jobs as well as value from waste, and a new vision for the fashion system of tomorrow.If you enjoy the Episode, please help us share it.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comRead Clare's columns & support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspressGot recommendations? Hit us up!And please leave us a rating / review in Spotify/ Apple & help us share these podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back! And excited to be kick off Series 12 with this fabulous interview with Copenhagen-based Moroccan Danish stylist, and excellent dresser, Samia Benchaou. Clare and Samia met at fashion week when they got talking about the power of a great outfit. Can you relate? Bet you have a story of someone you met because of what they were wearing! (If so, tell us on Instagram). Clothes speak before we do and fashion is a fun way to connect. But what we wear can also express our politics, culture and identity and belonging.Themes up for discussion? First, confidence! How to get it, how to dress with it, and how it can set you free. We also talk about why you should give more complements to strangers, being a renegade, the influencer economy, and how much some people really get paid, while others miss out. Earnings, value, power imbalance, and how free clothes don't pay the bills. And we talk racism, why representation matters but it can't stop there, and why there aren't more Muslim prominent fashion influencers and stylists. Buckle up!If you enjoy the Episode, please help us share it.Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.comRead Clare's columns & support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspressGot recommendations? Hit us up!And please leave us a rating / review in Spotify/ Apple & help us share these podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Construction! Proportion! Craft! What lies behind the enduring power of the suit? Of great tailoring? How is that amplified when it’s bespoke? What makes a good suit? Does it still matter? Why? And how much should it cost? All these questions, and many more are on the (cutting) table this week, as Clare sits down with Savile Row tailor Dominic Sebag-Montefiore, creative director of iconic bespoke house, Edward Sexton.Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis Series 11! We'll be back soon with a new series of inspiring interviews from fashion's front lines.Find links and further reading for this episode at thewardrobecrisis.comRead Clare's columns & support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspressGot recommendations? Hit us up!And please leave us a rating / review in Spotify/ Apple & help us share these podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest, Glen Rollason, describes pattern making as the architecture of fashion. It's the bones, the structure, the technical process that gives our clothes shape, moves them from the 2D to the 3D, and helps them fit. Pattern making is drafting, design, and highly skilled technical process - but it's also team work. No pattern, no coat!From the basics (what is it, where do you begin) to the artistry (fit, form, allure) through Raf Simons, bust darts and the crazy complexity of national sizing standards, we've got it all in this dynamic conversation about this essential fashion ingredient. Plus, why do we need to keep capacity on shore? How might small factories / design labs work in future? What's going on with apprenticeships, and what are we going to do about skilled people ageing out of the industry?Scissors at the ready!Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis.Find links and further reading for this episode at thewardrobecrisis.comRead Clare's columns & support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspressGot recommendations? Hit us up!And please leave us a rating / review in Spotify/ Apple & help us share these podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the last of our mini series, Made in Melbourne, we meet Australia’s National Designer of the Year 2025, Amy Lawrance.Amy launched her namesake label just a couple of years ago, but she's highly experienced - working for other labels, teaching at RMIT, and she is an extraordinary, couture-standard maker.Her architectural patterns are blisteringly original, she uses mostly undyed silks and has been experimenting with decorative embroidery stitches that she discovered studying vintage dressmaking manuals.As she tells us, her atelier is "very, very small scale and very, very hands-on"; everything from pattern-making, to sampling to final production is by her own hands. "A lonely team of one!" she jokes, but she loves it. Not that it comes without challenges. Any small fashion business owner will be familiar with these. Like, how are you going to pay for it all? Will you need a second job forever? At what point should you give up? Or shift your aims from running your own show to helping grow someone else's vision? Resist! It's worth it in the end!In our discussion, we talk about passion, solitude, the joy of sewing, and the gap between that and selling, doing media, all that stuff that not every creative automatically loves. Why should they? We cover trend cycles (hello, Pantone Colour of the Year), self doubt, origami, the joy of having a dog and what it's like to stand before the judges at one of these big fashion prizes. But big picture: this is an episode about the sometimes elusive "Why" - why do what you do, the way you do it. Enjoy!Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis.Find links and further reading for this episode at thewardrobecrisis.comRead Clare's columns & support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspressGot recommendations? Hit us up!And please leave us a rating / review in Spotify/ Apple & help us share these podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do your favourite clothes mean to you? How connected are you to most of what's in your wardrobe? If you had to start from scratch, what would you prioritise?This interview is the third in a mini series of four about made in Made in Melbourne. This time, it's actually made in Ballarat, which is about 120 ks from the Victorian capital, but you get this idea. We're talking thriving in your own community, local production and pushing back on the idea that to make it in fashion you have to rush off to Paris or New York.For my guest this week, designer Saskia Baur-Schmid, it's sustainability and zero-waste pattern making. It's the fabric choices that she makes for her label Hyph_n, her beautiful sewing, and the way she communicates all this to her customers - each garment carries its own 'Eco ID'. But more than that, it's about crafting a sartorial identity, what makes us connect with our clothing, and how that ultimately plays such an important role on tackling overconsumption and waste. It's boils down to meaning, where we find it, and why it matters.Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis.Find links and further reading for this episode at thewardrobecrisis.comRead Clare's columns & support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspressGot recommendations? Hit us up!And please leave us a rating / review in Spotify/ Apple & help us share these podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second of our mini series on emerging designers based in Melbourne, my guest this week Singaporean-Aussie designer Jude Ng. Jude started out selling at design markets, and we talk here about how some people might view that as not elevated, somehow not fashion enough. And what rubbish that is! As Jude says, it was having these direct relationships and conversations with potential customers that helped him build his business. To this day, he's set up his workshop on view in his Fitzroy, Melbourne store, so that people who are interested in his work can actually see him do it. In his own words, he offers: "ethically Melbourne made, zero waste slow fashion production and in-house bespoke mending". His pieces are unisex, and he talks about: "a different perspective in the realm of fashion by playing with a signature asymmetry and a relaxed, gender neutral sense of tailoring... using an artisanal approach and respect for the traditional craft techniques." And it works. It's beautiful and people love it. Six years in to his independent business, he's proving you can thrive as a directional designer outside of the obvious fashion capitals.Thank you for listening to Wardrobe Crisis.Find links and further reading for this episode at thewardrobecrisis.comRead Clare's columns & support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.comTell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspressGot recommendations? Hit us up!And please leave us a rating / review in Spotify/ Apple & help us share these podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.