Lisa Diegel, Global Sustainability Director, on Faherty's Native Initiatives, what mutually beneficial relationships can look like in practice, and the nuanced ways brands must take responsibility for the products they put out into the world

In episode 305, Kestrel welcomes Lisa Diegel, the Global Sustainability Director at Faherty, to the show. A family business, Faherty is focused on making high quality clothing.

“They knew they wanted to do things differently and not follow that conventional way of take > make > waste in the fashion industry. They wanted to build a feel-good brand. And I think to do that, you need to be accountable and you need to take responsibility for the products you put out into the world.” -Lisa

As we’ve explored on past episodes, the fashion industry has a deep history of appropriating and stealing ideas and designs.

Our guest Manpreet Kaur Kalra, back on episode 203, said it so potently –  “Fashion has been built on appropriation — it has been built on basically, stealing designs and concepts from communities that have been historically marginalized, and basically, reframing them to be quote unquote minimalist or really ethnic or boho chic.”

This week’s guest (who is of First Nations heritage) works with a company that used to be one of those so-called appropriating offenders. And this is something they acknowledge blatantly on their website, stating –

“For years, the fashion industry has exploited and appropriated Native prints — and for years, so did Faherty. Now that we know better, we must do better.”

This is not something you typically see a fashion brand acknowledge in such an upfront way to their shoppers. It feels like an important and meaningful step forward in healing some of the extensive damage that comes from these extractive histories.

You may be asking – what does *doing better* mean in practice to Faherty? To start, it means modeling a mutually beneficial relationship with Native and Indigenous artists, it means respecting ancestry, land, community and stories. And it means doing a lot of listening and a lot of learning.

With the role of Global Sustainability Director, this week’s guest has a lot on her plate – but she’s also very tuned into the importance of slowing down in order to be able to continue doing this work. 

Quotes & links from the conversation:

• “So, for me, the appeal really was working for a smaller family-run business. You know, I had been working for large corporations and parent companies for about 15 years. And I felt like in this role, I could build a strategy using the knowledge and the skills that I had acquired over the years, but also be able to be really involved. It’s really nice to be able to Slack or text the cofounders and get an answer immediately without having to go through these corporate tiers of hierarchy and weeks or months of time to get approval on things. And then the cherry on top, as a Native person, as a person with this heritage, I was just so impressed by the Native initiatives and the storytelling that Faherty was doing around these initiates.” -Lisa (12:58)

• “In practice, it really starts from the very beginning — from the concept meeting — where the team sits down with some of our partners and really talks to them about what do these designs mean to them, what does it mean to their people, what are the stories behind them? And then, they really support how these artists want to be represented in our modern culture without sort of that stereotypical image that maybe a lot of people might think of when they see or hear of Native American culture. I think that is very special and unique.” -Lisa (15:50)

• “How To Work In Sustainability At A Fashion Brand", article in Fashionista that Kestrel mentions

• Climate Optimism, book by Zahra Biabani that Kestrel mentions

• Faherty’s Native Initiatives 

• Second Wave, Faherty’s new resale platform

• Faherty Website

• Follow Faherty on Instagram >