Researcher Anjana Baburaj on the pervasiveness of Shein & the ways in which social media and the drive to increase social status are directly fueling the overconsumption of clothing
Release Date: 06/13/2023
Wafa Ghnaim of Tatreez and Tea & Dr. Tanveer Ahmed of Central Saint Martins on preserving culture, decolonial frameworks, and how intersectional reform can be a pathway toward sustainable fashion futures
Conscious Chatter
Episode 320 features Wafa Ghnaim, a Senior Research Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Curator for the Museum of the Palestinian People and Founder of The Tatreez Institute, alongside Dr. Tanveer Ahmed, a Senior Lecturer in Fashion and Race at Central Saint Martins and also Course Development Lead for MA Fashion and Anthropology at London College of Fashion. “Inherently, just by being Palestinian and by teaching about Palestinian life and history, and including oral history in my work as a foundational aspect of my research, I am threatening these kinds of structures, in and of...
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Sustainable fashion podcasters unite — Emily Stochl of Pre-Loved Podcast & Stella Hertantyo of Conscious Style Podcast help us reflect on 11 years since Rana Plaza, celebrating collective movements & ways to focus our continued advocacy
Conscious Chatter
Episode 319 features guests Stella Hertantyo, the co-host of the Conscious Style Podcast, alongside Emily Stochl, the host and creator of Pre-Loved Podcast. Stella also works as writer and communications coordinator, while Emily also works as the Vice President of Advocacy & Community Engagement at Remake. “There are so many painful roots when you look back at the way that certain dyes came about and you know, cotton farming — there are so many different legacies of colonialism that existed and still exist. But I also want to take the word painful out of that sentence and say that...
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Upcycling artists Francisco Alcazar & Ella Wiznia of Series NY are redefining sustainable fashion while reimagining craft & challenging the gender binary
Conscious Chatter
*DISCLAIMER — this episode features stories connected to eating disorders and sexual abuse. Episode 318 features guests Francisco Alcazar, a zero waste designer based in Los Angeles, California, alongside Ella Wiznia, the founder and designer of Series NY. Using his 25 years experience as a structural engineer, is leading the movement that promotes circularity in fashion, and expanding these principles to other disciplines, whilst celebrating the material stories of each textile and the individuality they represent. A New York based brand of ethically made genderless clothing and...
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How gender plays into the devaluing of knowledge and its links to sustainable fashion & wellness with Megan Schnitker of Lakota Made and Niha Elety of Tega Collective
Conscious Chatter
Episode 317 features guests Megan L. Schnitker, an Indigenous Traditional Herbalist and Niha Elety, a fashion advocate, designer, chef, and storyteller. Megan is the owner of , who offer plant medicinals and personal care products. Niha is the founder and CEO of fashion brand, , a brand that co-creates with Adivasi (Indigenous) communities celebrating their craft and knowledge with each collection. “American herbalism was founded on Indigenous knowledge and use of all the plants that are in North America. And so, American herbalism is founded on Indigenous women’s knowledge, Indigenous...
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Celebrating the cultural tradition, past and present, of Palestinian Tatreez with artists / educators Lina Barkawi and Eman Toom & why sustainable fashion must include cultural sustainability
Conscious Chatter
Episode 316 features guests , a Tatreez practitioner, preservationist, and educator based in Brooklyn, alongside , a Palestinian Tatreez artist, teacher, sewer and crafter. “Part of just doing tatreez, in my personal opinion, is a form of resistance because we’re basically just existing and we’re showing our Palestinian identity, but there have also been very explicit uses of tatreez as a form of resistance. And so you have thobes that came out of the intifadas in the ‘90s where the flag was banned and so these are very explicit uses of tatreez where they would stitch literally the...
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Intergenerational knowledge & sustainable fashion — how clothing is more than just aesthetics; it’s about the upholding of cultural practices and the amplifying of knowledge & traditions
Conscious Chatter
Episode 315 features guests Amy Denet Deal, the founder of , a Diné (Navajo) owned sustainable artwear brand, alongside Sha’Mira Covington, Ph.D., an and Assistant Professor in Fashion. “Thinking about sustainability beyond just the textiles, thinking about the land that we’re on, how we can live in reciprocity with the people, the four-legged relatives, everything, the plants, the animals here — in all the work we do. Which is why community focus is so much part of what I consider sustainability ‘cause everyone should be thriving from what we do — not just the brand, not just a...
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Vintage stylist Beth Jones & Dounia Wone of Vestiaire Collective on whether fast fashion brands fit into the resale experience
Conscious Chatter
In episode 314, you’ll hear our first official roundtable format, featuring guests Beth Jones, YouTube star and creator of , alongside Dounia Wone, the Chief Impact Officer at , a platform that showcases luxury preloved fashion. “It’s few and far between that the fast fashion holds up against vintage or really quality pieces maybe made by a designer or things like that … Even if it has a vintage look to it, there’s something about it that doesn’t hold up in a way. And honestly, I will be a little bummed. It’s Zara. I’d rather have the old Kathys of California blazer or dress. I...
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Why self work is integral to advocating for transformation in fashion & why we must deeply question our personal values to truly get active in creating a more sustainable fashion future
Conscious Chatter
In episode 313, you’ll hear from co-hosts (yes, co-hosts!) Kestrel Jenkins and Natalie Shehata in the launch of Season 7. This is also the first episode in which Kestrel and Nat showcase their new co-host dynamic. With this powerful community-driven change, they’ve teamed up to reimagine some aspects of the show. Here’s what you can expect this season: Roundtable Discussions — featuring at least 2 guests per episode Focus On Making The Conversation More Circular — bringing more folks to the table to learn from various voices at the same time Monthly Themes — we’ll hone in...
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Denali Jöel on fashion as an art praxis rooted in Afro-Indigenous philosophies, interrogating the emphasis placed on the *industry* & reminding us of the possibility of creating new ecosystems
Conscious Chatter
In episode 312, Kestrel welcomes Denali Jöel, a non-binary Multidisciplinary Artist, Designer, Educator and Fashion Griot, to the show. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, has been an asylee living in the US since 2014, recently obtaining their U.S. citizenship this year. Their art praxis intersects design, performance, media and community engagement with particular focus on queer identities and Afro-diasporan histories, futures, collective healing, and radical imagination. “It comes back to us as an individual but also as a collective to recognize that we need to shift our own...
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Julius Tillery aka the "Puff Daddy Of Cotton" on the need to remix both the perception of the cotton industry and the business model
Conscious Chatter
In episode 311, Kestrel welcomes Julius Tillery, founder of BlackCotton, to the show. A 5th-generation cotton farmer from North Carolina, Julius founded to help center and uplift the Black community closest to the cotton fields in Northampton County, North Carolina. “There’s so many demons and like bad spirits and bad tropes around cotton and the industry in general, and you know, just coming from the South, and people having these perspectives of cotton production relating to slavery — I felt like people was making these notions about cotton and not really knowing anything about...
info_outlineIn episode 298, Kestrel welcomes Anjana Baburaj to the show. An impact-focused strategist and communications specialist, Anjana works with mission-driven organizations to leverage communication platforms to increase visibility and achieve sustainability and impact goals.
“No matter how much we try to control — if we keep overconsuming, we’re not getting anywhere with anything that we’re doing for sustainability. So, that is one of the reasons I wanted to know — why is this happening? And that’s how I got into my research.” -Anjana
If you’ve been following along over the last couple of years, I have often brought up the links between fast fashion and fast media. In today’s world, I believe the only way to slow down fashion is to also slow down media – since fashion and media are intrinsically linked predominantly around driving consumption.
This leads me to this week’s guest, who recently conducted some powerful research focused on fashion, social media, and consumption.
Have you heard of the TikTok Shein haul trend? You may have seen it – basically, it involves individuals sharing all the items that they purchased from ultra fast fashion brand Shein in a video (or haul). Sometimes they disclose how much money they spent on the clothing, and as this week’s guest concludes, it’s largely interconnected to showcasing social status.
The United States is Shein’s largest market – I have personally experienced their aggressive social media tactics – I get these messages that are tagging me in a visual telling me how to become a Shein ambassador. I feel like I am constantly flagging them as spam and blocking the accounts, but they never stop rolling in.
The surprising thing is that it’s not Shein’s actual *influencers* or *paid partners* that drive the company’s sales – instead, it’s User Generated Content, which is basically content individuals post on social media without receiving any payment. They do it at their own will, and it’s fueling the continual growth of this ultra fast fashion brand.
There is so much to break down when it comes to these layers — tune in to hear more directly from Anjana.
Quotes & links from the conversation:
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“The reality is that we will always be pressured to consume more — that is how business works. Because the idea of growth is tightly linked to economics of sale, and that is how even the fundamentals of GDP work. And we can see that the developing countries will soon catch up with the developed nations in terms of the amount of consumption, which is bad. But to change that, the definition of growth should change — GDP should probably not be the sole indicator of how a nation is classified as developed. And systems should change. This will take more time and effort, but reducing consumption and choosing wisely, even it is from a mass-market brand, can be done faster if individuals and communities engage in conscious consumption.”-Anjana (35:53)