The Wellness Scoop - Livia Firth on Sustainable Fashion

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

What is the human cost of fashion, how do our choices impact on others, is feminism at odds with fast fashion and how do you define sustainable fashion? Livia Firth, the founder of the green carpet challenge is talking us through her journey with bringing glamorous, sustainable fashion to the Oscars, visiting garment factories in Bangladesh, what to look for when we shop and so much more as she lifts the lid on the industry, showing us the responsibility that we have as citizens of the world and the way in which we wear the stories of those that make our clothes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. investing. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Deliciously Ella podcast with me, Matthew Mills, my wife and business partner, Ella Mills. Hi, guys. So today we have a really special guest and something we've been really, really excited about. So we have Livia Firth on with us today. Livia is a UN leader for change and the absolute queen of sustainable fashion. She's been making conscious consumerism and environmentally friendly fashion glamorous and exciting, moving our kind of pre-existing perceptions away from hemp shirts and potato sacks towards the Oscars through her Green Carpet Challenge.

With everyone from the supermodel Giselle to Penelope Cruz, Olivia Colman, Cameron Diaz, Dandy Newton wearing green carpet looks and let's be honest there aren't very many people that could get a BAFTA winner to wear a dress on the red carpet made of recycled plastic bottles or a designer like Valentino to make a dress like that. So it's a real honor to have such a visionary with us today. And as some of you might know, the fashion industry is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, as well as being something that's really responsible for a lot of quite negative social impacts around the whole world. So that's what we want to talk about today. So welcome, Livia. Thank you so much for

taking the time to join us. Well, thank you for having me here because you may not know it, but I'm a huge fan of yours. I follow your recipes all the time and I salivate over the new ones. And what an introduction. Can I write a whole chapter about you too and then read it to you next time I do a podcast about you? Perfect. We'll take it. We'll take it. So I'd love to start at the beginning. And I know one of the first things that kind of informed this whole mission of yours was a trip to Bangladesh would it be okay to start there and tell us a little bit about that trip so when we started eco age and a couple of years earlier than the trip in Bangladesh or a year earlier eco age was all about home and you know

how to have an eco home and solutions for that. So fashion was not part of the offering. And then I started meeting different women involved in ethical fashion at the time, like Lucy Siegel, who has been a pioneer of this for many years, and Ursula de Castro, who used to head Estetica, which was at the time the British Fashion Week part of, you know, all ethical fashion side and then they scrapped it. Jocelyn Whipple, who we call the walking encyclopedia on everything sustainable. So I was having chats with them and it's almost like it was the first time that I actually associated more than the environmental impact of fashion, the human rights impact of fashion. Because, you know, they started telling me stories

about labor issues and things that I never thought about it. So when I went to Bangladesh at the end of 2008 with Lucy Siegel, it was for Oxfam for a campaign against domestic violence. And while we were in Dhaka, Lucy and I asked Oxfam if they could smuggle us into a factory to have a look because we were curious. We heard a lot about these issues, but we never really seen it. So when we arrived at the factory, which was at the time what they consider an A-rated factory, so quite a good one. And the thing that alarmed me immediately was that there was an armed guard outside the door of the factory.

And the factory was this big building with lots of bars at the windows. And I thought, is this a prison or a factory? You know, you think what's going on here? And then we walked through and there was three floors crammed with women working at these production lines. There was no air circulation. You know, it was really tough tough air and they were at the time producing 150 pieces an hour and the minimum wage was 65 dollars a month so you start thinking was you know what's going on this is like modern day slavery and the women were barely looking in our

eyes because they were all scared and by the time we convinced some of them to talk to us and asking them questions they started explaining that they had like one or two toilet breaks a day that if their child was ill and they couldn't come to work they would have been fired that some of them were beating up and so it was almost like the coin dropped and you think oh my god is this what we're doing to these women? So when we came back to London, I couldn't, you know, pretend as I couldn't pretend that I didn't see it and go on less business as usual. So I started to become an incredible, passionate campaigner for it, because also if you want to talk about feminism as a woman, we're doing this to women. And you think it's not possible. You know, is are their lives

considered less than ours you know and so this is how it all started and were most of those things being produced for the high street effectively yeah they were um and they still are i mean i'm completely shocked that things are getting worse rather than better and actually as we are recording this is the copenhagen fashion summit you know where everyone goes and the big summit about sustainable fashion where a lot of the fast fashion brands make promises in 2013 I think it was 2013 I had this huge round stage which was very public with H&M about wages is because that was the year that they announced that by 2018 they would have given a living wage to their suppliers to their garment workers and that didn't happen and this year the

CEO a few days ago the CEO of H&M said they didn't ever make that promise and actually then you read the report on Ethiopia which has become the new Bangladesh that came out a few days ago H&M is producing in Ethiopia where there is a country that doesn't even have a minimum wage. And the average garment worker earns $26 a month. So things are getting worse. We have to keep the attention on, you know, people alert on this. Wow, that is, it's quite sobering, isn't it? And it's so interesting, as you said, as women, and as modern day women who want to be so pro women, celebrating women, feminism, actually, it's really ironic that our kind of interest in our own image, and as a result,

what we're purchasing to kind of pander to that is then having such a detrimental effect on other women, and we don't see it yeah exactly it's almost like we don't join the dots and so how did you go from there to you know yourself and getting other high-profile women to start wearing sustainable fashion on the red carpet what was the next step in the journey I think the next step happened almost by accident as a lot of things in life happened by accident like you know arriving in Dhaka and having the opportunity to get into a factory was that Colin was nominated for a Golden Globes for a single man the Tom Ford movie and at that it was the end of 2009 so a year later

and being totally indignated about what we discovered in Bangladesh and trying to understand how can we possibly reconnect women to their clothes and to the stories of the people who make it. It was also, you know, at the time that I read this very powerful quote by Ali Hewson, who founded the brand Eden, who said, we carry the stories of the women who make our clothes. And I thought this is no one has ever put it in a better way so how do we make sure that women identify with those stories and when Colin was nominated Lucy Siegel said ah should we start a green carpet challenge will you wear only sustainable fashion and how do you define sustainable fashion that That's the $3 million question because there is no definition for sustainable fashion. So what we did was the first year we covered through the award season,

I put myself as the guinea pig and I started going on each carpet with a different story to understand what you are asking. What is sustainable fashion? So we're talking about natural dyes and so we work with the brand like prophetic who at the time was dying this beautiful silk organic silken you know indigo plants and you know it was beautiful beautiful gowns and so i went to the golden globes with that and then you know we working. Is it about upcycling? So we work with Ursula's brand from somewhere. I went fiber. So we started uncovering the different aspects of what sustainable fashion can look like. And I think through the years, what I realized is that because there is not definition of sustainable fashion, and because there are so many buzzwords like organic cotton circularity and because fast fashion is the the one that appropriates

all these buzzwords very very immediately so you have a the conscious collection in organic cotton or you would have you know brands signing up to be circular by 2030 well maybe we'll be dead we don't even know what it means and and so the thing that you realize is that actually if you put the meaning back into the word sustainable sustainable is something that lasts in time so it's exactly the opposite of what fashion is today which is disposable so it's as simple as that and i i think that also frees you from people gets petrified because they think okay do I go around with an encyclopedia on what should I buy which are the good brands which are the bad brands or what are

the good textiles and how do I should I read a label and what if it's not labeled you say you know what just buy less and then you know make fashion not disposable and sustainable in time. Then you suddenly realize you make a huge difference. And 30 times? And B, is that item something that would be that much of a part of your wardrobe? Which I absolutely love because as you said, as a consumer, you know, this is a word that, for example, for me is really quite new to me. And I don't really know how to navigate, you know, as you said, those different materials and things like that. But I can look at something, look at myself in the mirror and say, will I wear that 30 times?

I think, and it was a minimum of 30 times. So when you buy it, ask yourself that question. And if the answer is yes, buy it. But you will be surprised how many times the answer is no. So put it back. So if you look at what I'm wearing today, these trousers are like nine years old. My boots are more than 10 years old. You know, you keep clothes for a long time when they're good quality and they're things that actually you you really love and you bought with purpose like you when you bought them you thought no I actually this is something that I'm gonna wear I keep wearing obviously it's more difficult to try to be super trendy and to have the latest look on but is that really important and fundamental you know well that's the question isn't it and I feel like everything you're saying also taps back into kind of wider conversations that we've been having on the podcast about

kind of our identity and the way that we value ourselves and our self-worth and the importance of improving that because it feels a lot like this taps into the culture we live in today of like when I buy this or when I can look like that when I wear this dress I'll be happy you know I'll feel good about myself instead of actually addressing the internal things and at that point wearing like a great classic pair of black trousers will just be a brilliant thing and you don't need to feel like you're constantly trying to reinvent yourself to prove that you are kind of have that sense of self-worth and self-esteem that is absolutely absolutely right. And we are completely on the same page. And that's what scares me most about today's teenage girls.

For example, I'm fortunate because I have boys, but, you know, I see a lot of their friends and you think, my God, you know, how do we make these strong women and not afraid of that? And then you read it statistic that 70% of teenage girls is afraid to be seen wearing the same thing twice on Instagram. And you think, Oh my God, how is that possible? Come on, girl. You know, yeah, life is crazy. But then on the other side, you have like now girls like

Greta Thunberg and all this huge student movement and you think, okay, yes, you know, they are going to be the leaders of tomorrow. They're going to change this for us yes you know they are they are gonna be the leaders of tomorrow they're gonna change this for us you know so one thing i've just made me think of which you know for us when i started wanting to change my diet i looked at this the healthy eating space and the vegetarian space and i thought it was so for want of a better word uncool basically and and that was part of the reason i felt that people weren't connected to it is it felt very kind of hemp sack and potato and kind of just a bit weird and a bit niche and I've always felt like in order to make people excited about taking care of themselves from a kind of nutritional perspective it had to be exciting it had to be aspirational it had to be beautiful because

otherwise we're not going to do it and I feel like that's what you're doing in fashion. And how important do you think that is, is to kind of reinvent the way that we look at sustainable fashion? Well, it's fundamental because everyone wants to be glamorous and wants to be beautiful and look good. And I think that the power of the red carpet and why the green carpet challenge has been so successful is because it happened on the red carpet,

which is a huge platform for communication. it's all about glamour so to prove that actually gowns that can be sustainable are glamorous you see you win because you showcase not about the hemp and the sack of potato it's about you know an incredible dress regard that like style has nothing to do with sustainable fashion we wear the gown is sustainable or not and that's what I think the green carpet challenge helped to change the conversation is to put the focus on the story of the gown rather than you know oh if it's beautiful it's not sustainable if it's not beautiful it's sustainable it changed completely the conversation absolutely and who were the kind of first early adopters like who were the celebs that kind of helped put it on the on the map for

you well first of all the first real celebs were the designers that the a-list designers that decided to you know join it because after a year of doing the first first year for Single Man, it was me and all this, you know, extraordinary stories with like emerging designers or, you know, obscure designers. The second year it was, I said, OK, now I'm going to, we can do it. So I'm going to challenge the big fashion houses. So it's about Armani and Valentino and, you know, joining the quest. And they did. So the first stars were Maria Grazia, Curie and Pierpaolo, Piccioli, Valentino and Giorgio Armanio said yes immediately.

And so they were the ones who were the stars. And then the first celebrities that came on board, like Viola Davis and Michael Fassbender, you know, you mentioned about the recycled plastic tuxedo on BAFTA carpet, that was Michael. And Colin did it too. And then, you know, the year of Meryl Streep winning the Oscar, she wore this lamb van gold dress that was GCC.

And Meryl was so, so passionate about it. And then Julianne Moore started to become passionate about it. You know, I think when people start to understand how powerful it is to wear a story not only a gown but a story they think change is complete I had lots and lots of actresses who told me oh my god I've always been scared of the red carpet or you know no one enjoys walking on the carpet because it's it's quite intimidating so but I wore differently because I knew I was wearing a story and you it made me proud. That's amazing. I love that. So you're really empowering everyone.

Well, I'm not, but I think the story is empowering. So as just a general shopper, what are the big watch outs that we should have other than just maybe buying less? What are the other things that we can do that make the biggest difference? Well, I think there are two things that now we know for a fact. One is that if the price tag is too low, someone else is paying the price. So you know that there is always a slave labor behind. So while supply chains are incredibly complicated and sometimes, you know, you are not even guaranteed that maybe a brand that sells for a higher price, that the supply chain is totally clean,

you know that something that is really cheap is because it's been produced by someone who has not been paid. So that is a fact. And the other fact that we know today is that synthetic fibers like polyester have a huge environmental impact we know that they you know about the microplastic issues and the plastic issues and oil-based textile is not you know environmentally friendly anyway so unless you're dealing with you know textile like econil which is 100 recycled nylon and is you know forever recyclable and it's totally environmentally friendly we know the natural fibers like you know are the a better choice even for your skin if you want to talk about health those are much better so these two fundamentals we know and then if you

apply this 30-way rule it is you almost done it really and how does that work from a kind of affordability perspective because I know and it's exactly the same in healthy eating one of the biggest challenges is I hear you I appreciate what you're saying but that doesn't sound doable for me it's too expensive I think that is the the thing that I struggle struggle mostly with because when I grew I'm 50 this year I'm gonna be 50 when I grew up there was no fast fashion so I couldn't buy things cheaply and I came from a family where only my dad worked and it was four siblings we had no money at all and yet I went through my teenage years my I finished university, my parties, going out, my first job. I had beautiful clothes and I bought.

But what I did is I bought probably once a year, one coat every three years and I saved money. I made really, really informed shopping choices. And with the advent of fast fashion, what fast fashion did is they addicted us to buying and buying people didn't used to buy like we're buying today and obviously this is a much more general conversation about how consumerism has really now today's part of our life you're talking about how do we think that we feel happy we think we feel happy if we can buy something new all the time so we feed ourselves through that so we didn't used to do that and then fast fashion arrives obviously after fast food

which was the first but everyone has to see it today fast food with bad health so everyone knows why fast food is bad but with fast fashion it's much more difficult to do that because they sold us the fast fashion made as something that, first of all, that we need. So that we need always to have something different. But also that is our right. It's democratic to buy fashion cheaply because what if people don't have the money? So now my answer to that question is, first of all, if you did the price per wear of something that you bought, I am sure that it will be much cheaper.

If you had no money, you will really buy good quality pieces because you will want to keep them for a long time. The second answer is, do we think that the owners of fast fashion brands that are on the top 10 richest men in the world, like the owner of H&M or the owner of Zara, they are multimillionaires and that their business is a multi-billion business because of people who don't have the money and can't afford to buy clothes? I don't think so. So is it because we buy too much and we feed? And in fact, people can't afford to buy. People who can't afford to buy clothes don't buy clothes. It's as simple as that. When you look at Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon and it's full of people with Primark bags or fast fashion, any brand's bags,

are these only people who can't afford to buy every single Saturday? So is it false perception because we have been brainwashed and we have been addicted you know I said at that time at Copenhagen Fashion Summit we've been addicted to fast fashion like we've been addicted to sugar and it's true almost like our brain doesn't think about it and we don't connect, we don't join the dots. Yeah, I think that's the thing exactly. And it's quite similar exactly to food, which is that you can't see the impact of it. You know, we know that we're meant to eat well and we know that fast food, for example, isn't that good for us.

But it's really hard to see what's happening inside your arteries, for example. And likewise, it's really you don't get that window into what's happening inside your arteries for example and likewise it's really you don't get that window into what's happening in that factory it's also that it's also the misconception though that that healthy food is expensive food when yeah it's not you know i think healthy food gets this bad name because of superfoods and things that people haven't heard of that cost 10 pounds a packet but actually lentils nuts but i totally agree and it's so true and I was gonna say that it's like that's with food for example I remember as an Italian you know when I first came to England I was so surprised and shocked how much already made meals they were selling in supermarket

and I saw people like a friend of mine's buying already made mashed potatoes and I was thinking like why do you buy already made mashed potatoes when to make mashed potatoes you just need two potatoes boiled and you mash them and it's like what 50 cents yeah so it's like what what's going on so that disconnect and also yes like to make a plate of pasta yeah with a simple tomato sauce it doesn't cost a lot of money so yes you're right when you think about chia seeds and like special superfoods probably it's very expensive and a little bit complicated but you know if you talk about simple healthy food yeah yeah and it feels the same with fashion exactly the same if you're buying like classic black trousers and white

shirts and things that you'll wear forever and that you feel great in, then you can spend that bit more. So just to kind of sort of start to go towards the end. I know you co-produced the brilliant documentary on Netflix, The True Cost, which is really eye opening. I'd love to just hear a little bit on that. And then also whether there are other resources that you'd recommend for readers who listeners who are listening to this and thinking I really really want to learn more. amazing movie and Lucy Siegel and I who co-produced it we didn't do a lot of work on it I mean it was really Andrew's vision and Andrew's got shocked when he saw the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka and on the front page of the New York Times he never thought about fashion as a you know a possible vehicle to kill people and so he decided to to start journey. It took him three years around the world. How many people died in that?

1,133 and mostly women. Yeah. And it's the biggest even to date industrial accident. Yeah. So actually women died to produce fashion for us. And that is shocking. But the true cause, so it's still so relevant and it still gets screened in so many places. Like the other day, I got an email from someone who screened it at Oxford University and, you know, asked me to go and do a Q&A there.

And, you know, every day I meet someone who says, oh, my God, I just saw the true cost. So the true cost is if you want to understand the issue with fast fashion and what's happening in our society you have to watch the true ghost i know that there is also another beautiful movie coming out in september which i can't tell you much about unfortunately it's michael winterbottom direct directed it and it's fantastic and i watched it and it's gonna change a lot as well and it's on fast fashion that's amazing and then are they any kind of books that you've read or? Yeah, there's a wonderful American writer called Corban Addison, who wrote a book called A Harvest of Thorns.

So as an Italian, it's very difficult to pronounce in an English way. A Harvest of Thorns, which is a fiction, but it's like a, an investigation into a supply chain. And it's a little bit of, do you remember the movie that George Clooney did, Michael Clayton was on the pharmaceutical world? Is it the equivalent on the fast fashion, on fashion world? And I, I can't wait. I hope someone will make a movie out of it. In fact, if anyone is listening, who's a producer and wants to do and make a movie out of that get in touch yeah oh go get in touch with Corbin Addison okay so we like to finish every episode with um a kind of food for thought five takeaways for listeners things that they can kind of put into their life after after

listening to this so what are your top five okay one um remember that for me it's very important always to remember that that all is one that we're all interconnected so that we're not separate and so that's from a you know human point view. It's something that is very important. I think it would change a lot if we all carried that principle. The second is about being respectful about the environment we live in. So thinking that every single thing that we do has a repercussion. And I love the, was it the Buddhist thing about the butterfly? How do you say?

Flapping its wings. Flapping the wings on one side of the world and, you know, like a storm or an ocean wave. I can't remember happening on the other. And it's so true. So if you apply that rule, you can go into the third one also that, you know, everything around us. I was reading the other day this incredible article about they discovered that trees actually talk to each other so if you if you think about everything around us in terms of nature and animals and you know if you go into the native american thinking that everything has a soul and it's a life and you know so that informs also

how we live in our environment natural environment um the fourth one would be remember to have fun always a lot of fun and not to take yourself too seriously because if you take yourself seriously first of all you become the opposite of simpatico as we say in italy antipatico so like pompous and no one wants to be with you but also you get petrified by trying to be perfect like what you were saying, for example. So let's have a sense of humor about it. And the fifth one is no one is perfect. Perfection doesn't exist. So whether you want to apply that rule to how sustainable you try to be in your life,

please allow yourself for a lot of failures because it's really difficult. But try nevertheless or if you apply that to your body and you know looking at touched up pictures of of models on on instagram won't help you so don't look at that or think look at that saying oh my god that body looks so awful and unreachable and i want to have a little bit of a tummy, a little bit of a bum and, you know, and have fun with that. I love that. And that is, you know, my five foot thoughts. I love that. Matt always says you should never let perfect be the enemy of good.

Yeah, I think it's so true. It's very true. And I think if anyone is listening, like it is sobering, you know, understanding the impact that we have and every decision that we make in our lives but that being said don't let it kind of take away from the enjoyment exactly and you can only do your best and if this is a new area for you you know throwing out your whole wardrobe today is not the answer either oh no just wearing that wardrobe for longer yes exactly you need to have pretty big wardrobes though because i have to say because i have so many clothes of all clothes i like my my wardrobes are full of clothes from my mom my aunts vintage secondhand things that i found and it was like oh my god you need a lot of room to keep the clothes for a long time but you know i love that

well thank you so thank you it was so nice thank you for having me thank you for having me here that was wonderful and if anyone's interested in learning more about kind of climate change in the environment we've got um an episode in um season one on um food waste and an episode on veganism and our diets on climate change as well so have a listen of those and otherwise we will be back next Tuesday. Thank you so much, Livia, and have a lovely, lovely day, everyone. Bye. Thank you.