TONTS. - Fall in love with your clothes with Lucianne Tonti

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

Today I speak to my little sister Lucianne Tonti about her book Sundressed that has just been released (so very very proud) but also about how to fall in love with your clothes and by extension yourself. About our parents, about womanhood and creativity and about a future we can find that is beautiful and hopeful through the regeneration of nature and our wild landscapes. Sundressed is the perfect balance of personal stories about her life in fashion & her love affair with her clothes and deep research into the future of fashion and the joy of natural fibres. Lucianne has worked as a sustainable fashion consultant and journalist in Melbourne, Sydney, London and Paris. She is the Fashion Editor for The Saturday Paper and a regular contributor to The Guardian where she writes the column Closet Clinic about how to care for your clothes. While living in Paris, she founded a showroom and consultancy for high-end, sustainable designers from the United States, Europe and Australia. In October 2020, she launched the sustainable fashion site Prelude, which was profiled in Vogue as ‘paving the way for a slower, “gentler” fashion industry’.Here is a summary of Sundressed:Why beautiful clothes in natural fibres are the answer to fashion's climate crisis. Lucianne looks beyond sustainable fashion to a future remade by natural fibres. An exploratory dive into the art and industry of clothing and an ode to the possibilities in nature, Sundressed is an accessible, engaging and optimistic challenge to designers, farmers and business to think bigger. If we grasp their potential, natural fabrics will revolutionise more than the way we dress. Regenerative farming of fibres like cotton, wool, flax and cashmere can restore biodiversity, soils and water cycles, making it possible to create beautiful clothes while improving the environment. She introduces the farms and fashion houses that are changing the industry. Luc uncovers a growing hive of activity worldwide, from mulberry groves in China and cotton collectives in California to Mongolian goatherds and Australian sheep farmers. Her extensive research in sustainability is interwoven with her insights and personal experiences in fashion houses internationally. With a designer's eye for detail and an insider's understanding of the market, Lucianne shows us where our clothes come from and why it matters.@blackincbooks #sundressedbookYou can find Lucianne on instagram @luciannetonti or to contact her for consultancy and writing you can head here and to purchase Sundressed head hereYou can find more from Claire Tonti at www.clairetonti.com or on instagram @clairetontiShow credits:Editing - RAW Collings and Claire TontiMusic - Avocado Junkie Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak, and write today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respect to their elders past, present, and emerging, acknowledging that the sovereignty of this land has never been ceded. Hello, this is Taunts, a podcast of in-depth interviews about emotions and the way they shape our lives. I'm your host, Claire Tonti, and I am so glad you're here. Each week, I speak to writers, activists, experts, thinkers, and deeply feeling humans about their stories. And this week, I have my sister. She's my little sister, but I've never really thought about her that way because she's such an incredible force and

an intellect. Her name is Lucy Ann Tonti and she is now an author. Her first book, Sundressed, has just been released and you can buy it in all good bookshops, just like a very good older sister. I'm shamelessly plugging it, but it's very easy to plug because it is a joy to read. Now, the book looks beyond sustainable fashion to a future remade by natural fibres. It's an exploratory deep dive into the art and industry of clothing and an ode to the possibilities in nature. Sundressed is an accessible, engaging and optimistic challenge to designers, farmers and business to think bigger.

If we grasp their potential, natural fibres or fabrics will revolutionise more than the way we dress. Regenerative farming of fibres like cotton, wool, flax and cashmere can restore biodiversity, soils and water cycles, making it possible to create beautiful clothes while improving the environment. Luce introduces the farms and fashion houses that are changing the industry and uncovers a growing hive of activity worldwide from mulberry groves in China and cotton collectives in California to Mongolian goat herds and Australian sheep farmers. Her extensive research in sustainability is interwoven with her insights and personal experiences in fashion houses internationally. With a designer's eye for detail and an insider's understanding of the market,

Lucy-Anne shows us where our clothes come from and why it matters. Aside from all of that, Luce talks to me today about our lives growing up in our house, about my extraordinary parents. She talks about why she's dedicated the book to our dad. And it's just a lovely deep dive into her love affair with clothing and what it means to her and womanhood as well and how it shapes who we are. She has some really big challenges for us, I think, to change the way we view our clothes and to create a world that is more beautiful and more sustainable through them, which I think is really inspiring. She also writes for the Saturday Paper and is the fashion editor there. And she has a closet clinic in The Guardian, which is all about just this, how to care for our clothes, which I think is at the crux of what I

struggle with. I feel like I don't wash my clothes well and I don't look after them well enough. And so I do end up buying more clothes because I haven't cared for them in the right way. So she's over there educating us in the practical matters of how to care for our clothes. And Sundressed is also just a beautiful look at those kind of inside stories of the fashion industry. And she tells us a few juicy tales in this episode. If you loved the film Devil Wears Prada, you might just find this episode really fascinating too. All right. Here she is, my little sister, and I'm just so proud, Lucy Antonti, author and journalist. I know. How are you feeling about everything,

about the book launch and all the things? Good. I think I'm just going to try and stay in a space where I'm not overthinking it and I'm enjoying it. Yes, because this is the bit where you should enjoy, right? Yeah, and just remember that for tonight, anyhow, we're talking about my book and I know. Because you wrote it. Because I wrote it.

I know it, so it should be fine. It'll be great. You're going to have a great time. Yeah. Yeah, you wrote it. Because I wrote it. I know it. So it should be fun. It'll be great. Yeah. You can have a great time. Yeah. Yeah, you can have a great time. And also you have a fabby dress. I do have a beautiful dress, which helps a lot.

It does. I'm really excited about it. Although my instinct, of course, now is to like wear something like a boyish and so it looks like I don't care. And not this like beautiful gown. That's a funny instinct because I have that too. I go I don't know what it is I always lean towards that and feel much more comfortable in that yeah because it it means you feel like you're going to look cool and relaxed and like nonchalant you know as opposed to want everyone to pay your attention

because you're comfortable in it right yeah totally which is super important when you're as opposed to want everyone to pay you attention. Yeah, I know what you mean. Because you're comfortable in it, right? Yeah, totally. Which is super important when you're dealing with fashion. And I do have an amazing coat to go over my dress, so I've got the best of both worlds. You do. Yeah.

And it's so chic what you're wearing. It just floats around you. Thank you. Even the draping, which is something I've always really noticed about you with clothes, it's even the draping, which is something I've always really noticed about you with clothes. It's not just the feel, is it? It's the lights, the way the light plays on your clothing as well. It's a big one. And also the, the drape for me is huge. And that's why I never understand when people want everything to like fit them tight. And like, you know, it looks,

A, it looks so uncomfortable to me to me and b you want to see the way the fabric moves that's the art of something well cut is when it's not like to your body yeah not bodycon yeah yeah and that i think is the thing i find hard about fashion with that is flow floaty and oversized it's the balance of not making it look like you're wearing a muumuu as opposed to something i mean i have described the dress I'm wearing tonight as a muumuu, but it, yeah, but look, if the fabric's beautiful and the draping is done well, then it shouldn't be like that. It's when it's cut very square and there's no kind of tucking or, um, all the fabric is particularly stiff that it makes it hard. But I also just think we always look the best when we feel

good in our clothes. So if you feel like you're wearing a muumuu and it doesn't look good, then, you know, that's not something you should wear. You should wear something that makes you feel good. Yeah. Cause that comes out then too. Yeah. You look, you know, uncomfortable. Yeah. A friend of mine once said that if you wear, actually her mum said to me when I was a teenager, if you're wearing uncomfortable shoes, it'll show on your face. Oh, that's interesting. I love that. That's really true.

Yeah. There's this designer that I talk about in the book, Albert Elbaz, who was the creative director of Lanvon for a really long time, and he used to talk about dresses that would make a woman shine like she had just met someone new and exciting. Oh, I love that. Yeah, he had lots of really great clothes. Yeah. Any others? The one in the book that I love the most is that he wasn't interested in designing a dress that made a man fall in love with a woman. He was interested in designing a dress that made a

woman fall in love with herself. Oh, stop. It's so good, isn't it? It's so good. It's so good, yeah. And isn't that the essence of getting older and understanding that actually what makes you a person that someone might be attracted to is actually that? Yes. You being in love with you and knowing yourself. Yeah, exactly.

So he was always like it's not about a sexy dress that might show off the body. It's about a dress that makes a woman look intelligent and interesting. And that's like a completely different, you know, that's about the self-perception of the wearer. Completely. And also the way a fabric feels, because that's also sensuality as well, right? Yeah. The way it falls and feels on your body ultimately then allows you to move in a way that you fall in love with. And then that draws people in, not that that's the goal, but you know, I do think that. Well, it is kind of, you want to like exuding that kind of like being comfortable and charismatic and, you know, people respond to that. So it's,

it might seem superficial to be like, oh no, I want to wear something that draws people in because that will make me feel good. But actually you're drawing someone in because you're making them feel good too. And that's a really, you know, beautiful part of life. And I do think I always think when people, when polyester comes up in these conversations, because inevitably it always does, you just never feel that good about yourself when you've got like a clammy armpit because what you're wearing is sticking

to your skin or you move and you get a whiff of your own body odour because polyester makes you sweat and it stinks, you know. Like it's all of these things come into play when we're talking about feeling comfortable and desirable and intelligent. Yeah, and enjoying being in the world, I guess, because at the heart of it, I mean, reading your book, it's about connection to our earth, really. Yeah. Well, it's yeah, exactly. And also just that ability to go back to this time, which we had not that long ago. Like pre-industrial revolution, the worship of the natural world was quite widespread.

Like we think of it as something inherent to Indigenous cultures, but animism and that way of thinking was actually all over the world and then it was just that the Western countries industrialised and changed and moved away from those values because we learnt how to exploit the earth's resources for profit and then, you know, I don't need to give you a lecture on history. No, but I love it. It's really interesting.

But I do think like when you start to pay attention to nature and when you think actually look at a flower, like we just walked into the studio past Claire's daffodils that were growing in the garden. And like it's pretty amazing that this little seed in the ground gets the right combination of sunshine and rain and organisms from the soil and then will sprout and grow. First this beautiful green stem and leaves

and then this amazing yellow, bright pop of yellow flower with its really delicate little petals like and that's actually how that thinking because we learn photosynthesis in primary school and the ingredients are going to making a flower but it had kind of totally slipped from my mind as an adult and when I started thinking about the origins of our clothes, when I was working with designers and talking about sustainability, it suddenly just dawned on me how actually amazing it is that we get to wear these things that are this combination of sunshine and nutrients and air, essentially, and water. And that was where the title came from, Sundressed. It's so perfect.

Advanced photosynthesis. And I should say that my very good friend Sian, it was her idea, her input, because I was like, what about raincoat? It was very gloomy. Yeah, and she was like, no, what about sundress? And I was like, yeah, that's perfect. And she was like, sundressed. Yeah. And it absolutely is. And that comes so strongly through out your book, this love of clothes and fabric, but the awe of nature, which when we start to deep dive into the way that we interact with our planet, at every turn all of the solutions

to our climate crisis actually feel incredibly good for us internally and restorative, right? In this way of thinking, yeah. I think then that's what drew me to it because the other ways of thinking, they're like, oh, we'll just recycle all the polyester which is actually just plastic bottles that have been turned into polyester this way of thinking where you're like drawn back to the natural world and to like kind of being in awe of its power because every regenerative farmer that I spoke to was basically like once I got the landscape working

again like once we'd restored, we'd stopped spraying synthetic fertilizers, which to destroy the health of the soil. Once we got our water systems back in place, once we had, you know, layers of humus, making sure that there were microorganisms and things working in the soil, you can just get out of the way and nature will come back and take over for you. Because if you've got the right species of plants you get the right insects you get beneficial insects and then you get predators who come and prey on them like birds and like all of those like that all of that ecosystem functionality nature knows what to do nature's you know been doing it for you know hundreds of thousands of years so that kind of

deference is so beautiful to me instead of this kind of like dominate and destroy and control because a lot of it is about control isn't it and thinking that we can tame everything which is just so counterintuitive to the way nature actually can function yeah instead of seeing us as human beings, as like this integral part of an ecosystem where we're just one other animal with a role to play, this idea that there's a hierarchy that we can sit on the top of is really gross and pretty toxic. But I also, I'm always think it's important to, like, I'm not a farmer and I think it's important to like, you know, show these people respect who've worked the land for generations

and have been taught, you know, who are out there, you know, actually. At the coalface. Yeah, battling the elements. And so I think it's not helpful when we kind of, and I know it's not helpful because I've spoken to them, you know, to come in and be like, this is how it should be done. And you've been doing it wrong because, I mean, who am I to tell them? And, but at the same time, these farmers, regenerative farmers that I speak to who are in those communities feel everybody moving along and changing anyway, because of course they want to do

the right things by their land. And they're all starting to, you know, see the kind of toxic cycles that they're stuck in and they'll, they'll call it different things like responsible stewardship, as opposed to regenerative agriculture or beyond organic or like intelligent systems farming. Like there's many, there's many, many different names and that's really exciting too. Absolutely. I wanted to read this quote by a particular Australian farmer and author, Charles Massey, from your book. And he says, it is clear we are now in a new dangerous era for life on earth. Human activity has begun to overwhelm the great forces of nature, placing virtually all life, including humanity, at potential grave risk.

Can you tell us his particular story of regenerative farming? Yeah, I hope I get it right. He's a very special person, Charles Massey, and his book, Call of the Reed Warbler, was one of the first books on regenerative agriculture that I read, and I found it very inspiring. So he is a sheep farmer and he inherited his property. His family had been set stocking for generations on the landscape and it was really run down and quite barren and the soil was very, very depleted. And he inherited the property when his father passed away quite young, so he was 21. And he'd studied biology at university, but when he inherited the property, he inherited his father's

way of farming, which was spraying, set stocking, and kind of this cycle that farmers get into where they are in debt to chemical companies, in debt to machinery companies, because you need more and more nitrogen fertilizer because you're depleting the soil. So you kind of like, I've had other farmers describe it to me as kind of like being addicted to drugs. And so it got to kind of a breaking point. And this is kind of what happens to most regenerative farmers when they need to make a change. I don't think there was a specific incident for him. Sometimes it's a wildfire. Sometimes it's just almost losing the property because you're in so much debt and your farm's not making money anymore. And he's on the Monaro Plains, which is particularly difficult landscape. It's very, very dry. And obviously he's Australian.

So there's a huge amount of, you know, our climate's tricky and there was long periods of drought up there. So yeah, he was at a point where he almost lost the farm and he realised that he needed to take a different approach. And so he went and did some courses and kind of it all brought back his understanding of, you know, biology and that he'd learnt about at university. And so he started putting more holistic processes in place. And he has told me that it took about 10 years for his landscape

to come back. So what you do, so you stop tilling so you don't need like diesel to be running those big tractors. We can talk about holistic grazing in a minute, but you basically move the sheep around the farm in a different way so they're not depleting the grasses. You stop spraying synthetic fertilizers and nitrogen and you reintroduce this idea of cover cropping and multi-species planting, which is more beneficial for the health of the soil. And over time, it doesn't happen immediately, but over time,

the biological exchange between like the sunshine and the water and the plants in the grass start to basically rehabilitate the landscape. And then I haven't been to his farm. I'm still waiting for my invitation. Hello, Charles, if you're listening, Luz wants to go farm. I'm still waiting for my invitation. Hello, Charles, if you're listening, Luz wants to go. But I've been told by my friends who are there, who have been there, that it is just completely wild because you stop trying to tame nature and you brought back all of these different kinds of plants. So it's like this rolling, he's described it to me

as rolling like orange grasses that were there when, you know, pre-settlement that have come back. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, so these grasses can have seed banks stored away underground. And when you give them the opportunity, the landscape will heal itself. So it took about 10 years for his to come back. But he says now he knows farmers where he was one of the first.

So he was kind of trial and error and you make a few mistakes and you figure out what to do, but he thinks it can take just three to four years, which is amazing. Yeah, that is completely wild. And the other benefit I should say as well is healthy soils, when you're restoring the health of the soil this way, they store more carbon. So these farms, when they start to operate like this and they're not spraying

synthetic fertilizers that emit nitrous oxide, you're actually able to have a landscape that's pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and reversing some of the damaging effects of the last 70 years of farming. Wow. Yeah. This is a question I have. Is there anything about First Nations culture and people that you've discovered in this talk of regenerative farming? So all of these principles, well, not all, you can't speak about Indigenous people like they're a monolith, but these regenerative agriculture principles, broadly speaking, draw on Indigenous principles of land management. And it's important to pay respect to that. And I

thought a lot about this when I was writing the book and the correct way to handle it was because, you know, sheep farmers are white settlers. Yeah. And all of the other fibres that we're farming this way are not farmed by indigenous groups, except for some cotton farmers in China and India who are native to the land and they're growing native seed cotton in those ways. And so I quote Robin Wall Kimmerer who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass in the book, which is an amazing, she's a native American who is also a botanist and she talks about the way that they view the land as kind of like their older brother or sister. And so it's not like the land is teaching them and it's not something that you can exploit.

It's like something that you're there to take care of. And the Indigenous Australian principles are very similar. Obviously there was, I think it was like 500 different clans and nation groups that were here when we came. So again, I don't want to say that they all had the same principles, but basically they were like the younger brothers of creation as well. And in my reading, my understanding is that it was, you had to leave the world the same as that you found it. And their ancestors would, were like

represented in mountains and rivers and streams and trees. And so those principles are, you start reading about it and you just get completely lost in the, how wondrous this other world is. But I also felt like it was important to tell the story that I knew that I could tell and leave space for those stories to be told by an Indigenous person. Yeah, not a white lady, you know. Yeah, yeah. But also it's important to me to understand more about that

as I go further down this journey and, like, I would love to stay open to the possibility of working with somebody if, not that I have a huge platform, but if I could ever be helpful with my platform to help someone else tell their stories. Yeah absolutely I think that's a beautiful perspective to have because there is an element in talking to First Nations communities and I used to work in one too of not just leaving it to them to educate us but us seeking that education ourselves to be informed. So it's not always just their work to be constantly, because that's an exhausting

way of being in the world, you know, from people that I've spoken to. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's important to say as well that also not all Indigenous cultures are great caretakers of the land, you know, like there are examples throughout history of, you know, Indigenous cultures that have caused extinctions in animals as well. So I think it's good to not also like be like, oh, the saviour's over here. And a lot of the principals in Regina Ag have been around in France

for a very long time, you know, so it's also not all just like. From one particular group. It's worth looking at it as a whole planet, right? A whole, you know, thousands and thousands of generations of people caring for the land in different ways in the different corners of our earth, I guess. Yes. In so many ways. I want to take you back now. I want to ask you your very first memory of clothing and fashion? My first memory of kind of like a different understanding of clothes

is probably not my very, very first memory of fashion. But when I was, I guess I was 19 and I got offered a job at Scanlon in Theodore. And I remember being a uni student and looking at the prices of these clothes, you know, it was like $400 for a jumper and, you know, $1,000 for a coat and kind of walking through these racks and being amazed by how precious those fabrics felt and how different was just such a different perspective of clothes. Because at that time, you know, we would buy, me and my friends would shop every Friday to buy a new cheap outfit that we would wear out to the club that night. And then, you know, we would buy, me and my friends would shop every Friday to buy a new cheap outfit that we would wear out to the club that night. And then, you know, maybe never wear again.

And this was a real kind of awakening for how beautiful, beautiful clothes could be. And that has always kind of stuck with me because from that point on, my perspectives changed and the people that I was working for changed and it always really, it hurts me even now, anytime I walk into a big shopping mall and I see piles and piles of jeans and racks squished with so many t-shirts and just like, you know, you look in these stores and like, there's just literal piles of clothes falling over because they're stacked so high. And as soon as you have an awareness of how many resources go into those clothes but also somewhere sitting behind a sewing machine

is a woman, usually a woman, getting paid not very much to make these clothes that we don't care about at all, you know. Yeah. And that really it's like when you start walking through shopping centres with that perspective in mind, you're like, my heart, get me out of here. It's awful, isn't it? I find it so overwhelming. Yeah.

And the trickiest part about it is the price point is I think a huge drawcard for people because not everyone has the resources to spend $400 on a top or a T-shirt, you know? Yeah, it's true. And that's really tricky, a really tricky part of this conversation because fast fashion kind of was introduced and changed around the late 90s, early 2000s. So it's not really that long ago, but it's still two decades, which is long enough for all of our patterns of consumption to have changed.

But before then, clothes were viewed as something special that you took care of. And so while $400 might seem like too much to spend on a jumper, you know, but maybe instead of spending $150, you should be spending $300. And then instead of buying four jumpers in a year, you just buy one and you take good care of it. And because you bought only one beautiful one last year, you still love one and you take good care of it and because you bought only

one beautiful one last year you still love that and you're taking care of that and like you build a wardrobe of high quality pieces rather than you know oh it's not I don't really love it but I'll just get it because it'll solve this problem and then I don't really like it anymore I'll just you know give it away to Vinnie's or, you know, or whatever. And rethinking, cause like, you know, we spend a lot of money on a car or we spend a lot of money on, you know, a table, a house. Yeah. We think about those purchases, like, is this going to serve me? Is this going to get me through the next five years, 10 years? Is the quality there? Can I get it repaired? Like all these factors come

into play with other things we buy. We've just removed those, that way of thinking when it comes to clothes because the price has been driven down so dramatically. And so one of the stats that really scares me is since fast fashion came in around the early 2000s, our consumption has increased of clothing has increased by 60%. That's insane. It's a lot. 60%. Yeah.

But what's even scarier is that it's going to go up by another 60% by 2030. So we're not slowing down. And, like, that impact of, oh, now I can just, you know, now I can shop like a Kardashian even if I'm shopping at Zara. Like I can go out and buy as many new things as I want because the price point is low. Like those levels of consumption, when we talk about people not being able to afford the $400 jumper, I kind of question it a little bit because our consumption isn't being driven by poor people. Our consumption is being driven by middle-class people who buy way too much crap and buy too much because it's cheap.

And we've all started to see it because of, you know, you look at the rise of someone like Marie Kondo who's teaching people how to declutter their homes and everyone's like, oh, my God, I need that. But you don't have to declutter if you don't buy it in the first place. I know. And do you know what, though? I do reflect on this because I think that there's an element

of compassion we need to have for ourselves with this too. Would you agree? Yes, yes, yes. Because there's big systems set up to stop us and, oh, will encourage us to keep buying and it's addictive. Like you were saying with the farmers using chemicals on the land, that's how we've grown up and we haven't been taught a lot of these ways of mending and repairing. And if something is going to cost you $50 as opposed to $400,

psychology suggests that's what you'll do. You know, it's tricky. It is tricky. I think there's something good that's worth keeping in mind too, right, because fashion is so the new thing promises that you might become a different person on the other side, you know? If I just have that dress, then, you know, I'll walk into the room and everyone will be like, who's that girl? But actually, psychologically, so that's why, that's the dopamine hit. Yeah. Oh, I feel that so deeply. When I go to a new thing,

I want a new thing. Yeah. Yeah. But there was one study that found the dopamine hit wears off as soon as you paid for it. So as soon as you walk out of the store, you're like, uh, now I own this dress and I don't think it is going to change me because I already own it. So actually psychologically for the, like, I don't shop like this. I find shopping quite stressful, but I know some people really get a thrill out of shopping. You would get the same dopamine hit if you just carried the item to the counter and then left it there and walked away. Which explains why during the pandemic I got into this terrible habit of

putting a whole lot of things in my shopping cart at websites and never buying them. But I just became really addicted to that. And I spoke to other people and they resonated because it's just the idea of putting it in the them. Yeah. But I just became really addicted to that. And I spoke to other people and they resonated because it's just the idea of putting it in the cart. Yeah. Oh, now I'm going to have it. Yeah.

But I never actually had to buy it. And when I have bought it at Arise, I'm like, oh, I bought this thing now. Now I have to look after it and think about it. Yeah. Now I'm responsible for it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that responsibility of stuff in our lives is something I think that we have both struggled with and resonated as kids too,

coming from the generation of our parents who held on to everything, you know, that wartime mentality mixed with how cheap everything becomes. It's a really kind of big concoction of trying to declutter our lives constantly and being overwhelmed by things. Yes. Do you find that really overwhelming having like clutter and lots of things around you all the time? Yeah. I hate it. I know. I hate it. No, I really am a minimalist and I think that is the result of growing up with like exactly that kind of mentality, particularly. Yeah. It's, and also being one of four kids. And so the house is the result of growing up with like exactly that kind of mentality, particularly, yeah, and also being one of four kids and so the house is always kind of chaotic and so you really kind of like,

you know. Want to have clean surfaces with just a few things. Yeah. And completely understandably for our parents too, right, for the way that they grew up, it makes so much sense. Like I don't think they were alone in the way that their house worked. But for us it's meant that we've tried to seek the flip side of that. What's your relationship like with space and objects,

not just clothes but everything in your life? So I really need a lot of light. Like that's something that's really key to my mental health so it's kind of funny to have written this book called sundress um I don't think it's that funny at all makes a lot of sense to me yeah so that's like number one so I'm the kind of person I sleep with the curtains open because I like to wake up when the sun comes up and I drive some people crazy. Yeah. And then also I really, there's this quote, I think it's Wendell Berry, but I might be wrong. That's have nothing in your life that you don't know to be useful and beautiful. It might be useful or beautiful, but to me,

it's got to be both. So I don't want it in my house. I don't want to own it if I don't get some satisfaction from how aesthetically pleasing it is basically and also how functional it is. And that's something that goes hand in hand with really beautiful clothes because something might look beautiful, but if it's uncomfortable or if you can't walk in it or if you can't wear a bra with it, then it's no good. And that's something that I come up against a little bit with some of the fashion that's around at the moment. And I was in Sydney for Fashion Week back in May and it really annoyed me how many runways there were where not only could you not wear a bra, you couldn't even wear underwear. And I'm just looking at these clothes and thinking about all of the women that I've ever met, and I've worked in retail for a really long

time, and how they wanted to feel in clothes. And like, no one was ever like, oh, great, I can't wear a bra, you know. And then sometimes the designers would come out at the end after having shown these collections of, like, basically air with, like, tiny Georgette straps. And they'd be in head-to-toe heavy tailoring. And I'd just think, like, who are you designing for? Like, this isn't.

Anyway, that's a buy the buy. No, I find that really interesting. What do you think women need from clothing designers to purchase clothes that will walk with them through their life? Pockets. Yes. Yes. Yes.

As many pockets as you can put in. Yeah, pockets I think also yeah so you need to be able to wear a bra you need the fabric to be natural fibers especially in the lining of any jackets never buy a wool coat that or a winter coat that isn't lined you would never ever get away with selling something like that in Europe or even America but here designers put on these jackets that isn't lined, you would never ever get away with selling something like that in Europe or even America. But here, designers put on these jackets that aren't lined. And that's for a few reasons. A, it keeps you warmer, obviously, but also the seams and the internal construction of heavy fabrics will be very rough against your skin and also are more likely to get damaged when you're pulling it on and taking it off and doing all these kinds of things. So a good lining will protect the coat and you as well.

And then I also really believe, I think it's really important to feel beautiful. So, you know, I don't ever want to pull on a dress and that isn't cut well, you know, that doesn't suit my body shape, that doesn't make me feel, I don't know, I guess attractive, but it's more than that because if it's cutting in at the wrong place or if it's exposed at the wrong place, or if I can't walk in it, all of those things don't make me feel like I'm ready to take on the day. And so every woman's body shape is also extremely different. And we're kind of railroaded into thinking that there's only one body type, but learning what styles work for you. And when

I say work for you, I mean that you feel good in and that you think you look good in, but you can also run around in. That's really key. And yeah, that movement and fluidity, that's something key that I find very difficult because my weight has fluctuated a lot through my life. And I think I share that with a lot of women, particularly after I have children as well. And so I love the idea of buying really good quality things and holding onto them. The problem is that my body changes a lot. Do you have a solution to that or a strategy when you're purchasing clothes thinking my body's going to be different? So I like buying everything as big as possible. And for a while it's black. It's really big that you're wearing a dress that isn't black to your image.

Yeah. So, and that's for me, look, but also that works for my build because I'm tall and like, I've got boobs, but I don't have a waist. So it works for me to wear things that are bigger and then, and you know, but on some, a different body shape, like on somebody who's, who's shorter and who's hippie, that's not going to work. So the advantage, the reason why I do that in my head is because I'm always comfortable and I like the way things look when they're oversized, but also it's much easier for a tailor to make something smaller than it is for them to make something bigger. So that's one thing.

Having a good relationship with a clever tailor who might be able to take something in or let something out for you is another way you could deal with it. But then also I think it's okay to have rotating wardrobes, you know, and to have, you know, things that you wear when your body is in one way and then also go back to the other things when your body is another way, because this is something that is across the board for women as we age, as we have children, as we, you know, go through a pandemic, you know, that make our bodies change. And I know I speak to designers who are as more and more, as women become more

empowered and we're thinking more and more about what that looks like commercially, who are very clever and they will work with their customers to make sure the pants can be let out or make sure the pants can be taken in. And I think that as we move away from, you know, this kind of idea that all women need to be an eight to 12 in sizing and these very clever young female designers. And of course, there are some male designers who think this way too, can be more adaptive to body types. We'll see the system changing. And that's really exciting.

It's really exciting to think that women are becoming more empowered in that way because we're designing them for ourselves as opposed to traditionally men designing for us and then we're ending up with there. Yeah. Which kind of makes sense in a way, doesn't it? If you're a guy, you're designing for what you think might be aesthetically pleasing, which is like a half-naked woman. Yeah, and just like you can't factor in, you know,

and we don't want to be too gendered obviously yeah but you know you can't factor in how a bust works if you haven't had a bust you know yeah and men's bodies you know they have naturally less body fat than women and like you know it's like a different calculation but I obviously have I know some you know there are some fabulous men designing for women but I would like to see more women designing for women. Yeah, more women doing things in general, I think. I wanted to share a lovely story because obviously we're sisters, my little sister, and there's a mythology in our family

about when you were born. And I sometimes do think that people's births really reflect them as a person. Yes. Yeah. Do you want to tell us that story of what happened at your birth? Because I find it so funny. Well, the story goes, it was a Saturday night and I can't remember if I was early or whatever,

but, you know, mum went into labour and then called the obstetrician and he was at a dinner party. So he arrived to deliver me in a tuxedo. Which is just the most perfect origin story, isn't it? For someone who then goes on to have a love affair with your clothes. And the other lovely story I remember is as a three-year-old you threw a dinner party, which is very you because you've been throwing dinner parties since then. And you wore this gorgeous pink. I don't know if it was satin, but I feel like it was.

I think it was. It was probably satin. Our mum was good at sewing and she used to sew our ballet costumes and everything. Yeah. Yeah. I think mum actually took it in, like made it appropriate for a three-year-old to wear.

Yeah, because it was a full length satin pale pink gown with like some kind of little frill around the waistline and you had pink rosettes or something in your hair. And I was wearing a waitress outfit, which that's very typical of my relationship. And it was just so gorgeous and you had all these little three-year-olds come over for a dinner party. I just think.

I mean, it does sound like mum and dad had a good little three-year-olds come over for a dinner party. I just think. I mean it does sound like mum and dad had a good time with it. Yeah, that's the other point about it. It's not a three-year-old kid like organise all of that. But it's clearly something that you've held on to and is a part of your personhood, you know, from when you were very small. Yeah, it's a funny thing the way that careers go as well because it's not I didn't ever really want to work in fashion. When I left school I studied other things,

but it was something that kept drawing me back in. And then at some point in the last kind of five years I was like, this is just what I do. Yeah. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And that's kind of nice when you like surrender to the plans that the world has for you. Yeah, and it's interesting that you were fighting that in a way.

Well, not fighting it but just you did professional communications and, you know, you studied politics and then you were doing law as well. You've done a law degree and all of that is writing, I guess, in different forms but through that whole process you were working in fashion the whole time and I know being your sister and not being that great with clothes it's always been a joy and also a real like oh there she goes again wearing a cape and looking bloody fabulous just stomping around everywhere just wearing a cape you did but you made it work like that's the thing with it you

just have this knack for putting clothes on and making them just come alive. That's so nice of you to say. But it's so true. It doesn't always feel that way. Well, it looks that way from the outside, which is part of life, isn't it? So I guess I wanted to ask you now, what did it feel like to write a book? I wrote this book during lockdown, so I really loved it. There were moments that

were hard and like moments where you're like, oh God, what, why did I think I could do this? But the actual work itself, like I was really lucky to be speaking to really smart people about solutions to the climate crisis. And that always, I would always walk away feeling so grateful that there are such clever people in the world figuring out how to solve these problems. But also I was really lucky because the content you're learning about the way plants grow and how ecosystems operate and all of that in talking to people who've literally watched their landscapes come back to life and whose lives have changed because they've stopped farming industrially. And all of those messages of hope were just so nice to be immersed in.

Anytime I had to write like the Viscose chapter, which was about deforestation and the last chapter, which is about textile waste, those chapters were harder because the content was much more depressing. So in those moments, it like, oh, God. But, yeah, otherwise I loved it. And I know that may be an annoying thing to hear, but also I didn't have anything else to do. So I was writing a chapter a month and, you know,

that felt quite luxurious and I also was the last time I was working that intensely I was studying law and that was not fun. So this was a real joy to get to do. And, yeah, but, you know, you were on the phone to me in moments when I was like, what's going on? This isn't even anything. I don't know what I'm going to do. Yeah, exactly.

So it's not like it was all roses. But, no, I have very fond memories of being holed up in my tiny apartment, just, yeah, churning out this book. Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell us the story of moving from Paris to Melbourne in that very incredibly fast way that I think a lot of people experienced during COVID? Yeah. So it was the end of March and end of February, the start of

March, uh, 2020. And it was just, the virus had kicked off in Milan. We'd just done fashion week and everyone had been really scared. It was a really dead fashion week because, you know, uh, the world was kind of crumbling and we knew, but we didn't really know what was going on. And every day, I'm sure you will remember, you know, you would, I would wake up and check the headlines and it would be like, so-and-so's shut their borders, flights cancelled, this, that. And the next fashion week wasn't till June and our mum and brother are both doctors and they were both just like, just come home and see what happens. So I was running a showroom and consultancy and I could really be doing it from anywhere except I needed to be in Paris for fashion week. So I packed a suitcase and really honestly thought it was going to be over in a couple of months and I'd be back. And then, yeah. And so I, I booked a flight. I,

I can't remember what night it was. I booked a flight for midday the next day. And that night Macron, cause I was in Paris, Macron came on the TV and he said, I'm going to pronounce this wrong, il s'en gare, which means we are at war. Anyway, il s'en gare, we are at war. And so he said it like eight times or something and that the borders were going to shut, the French borders were going to shut at midday the next day and my flight was at 8am the next day. It was very scary and I I was like, not sure

that I was going to get on the plane, whatever. So I like, you know, got this early cab to the airport and I'd never seen the road so busy because it was still dark because, you know, it was cold and all the Parisians were trying to flee the city. And as I was in the car, my friend Seb messaged me and he was like, last copter out, good luck. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. Last copped out. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And then I, yeah, I got on the plane and everything was fine

and I came back here and I was in, while I was on the plane, the Australian government brought in two weeks quarantine at home and so I, like, spent two weeks in my childhood bedroom at mum's house and then, like, it took probably, it was a few months before I realised that I really wasn't going back. And so, yeah, it was a kind of a blessing. It was a huge blessing. Like I went from working in the industry to writing about it and this work just makes me so happy. And that is something I'm really grateful for because anyone that works in fashion will know that you just don't really have time anymore because you're always there are four fashion

weeks a year and so you're always like working towards the next one and just like next collection next lookbook next line sheet next next season and there was no time to like slow down and we would talk about wanting to change the system everyone I spoke to designers stylists models everyone knew that what we were doing was bad for the planet but no one had enough time to like think and subvert the big ship and the direction that it was going in so so yeah so the slow down of lockdown and I was also lucky that I had a very nimble business because it was new.

You know, I'd only been going for 12 months. So I didn't have financial commitments. I didn't have staff. I didn't have overheads. I wasn't, I lost the business, but it didn't come with a huge financial loss. And so that allowed me to kind of, you know, have this time to think about things. You did leave some clothes over there, didn't you? Yeah.

I still did. My whole apartment was still there. So I got some of it shipped back, but some of it's gotten lost. Some of the clothes I write about in the book have got lost. I know. What's something that you really miss that you wish that you had? Well, the black coat I write about at the start is lost. I don't know where it is. Oh, that's devastating. When I get back at some point, I'll get back

and I will go to my friend Lex's house and like look in his car and see if it's there. And there's a few other coats as well, like a coat. I don't know why I ever took it over, but I had this beautiful coat that I bought for myself for my 21st birthday that was from Scanlon and it was in immaculate condition and it didn't even fit me anymore. So I don't know why I took it, but that's lost too. Oh, that's really devastating. I wanted to read a little section of the start of your book. Can I do that? Because this is what I love about it. For someone that maybe has not been in the fashion industry before and also thinks, oh, this is a nonfiction book that's quite heavy on research about natural fibres. But what's so glorious about it is the language and the love affair that you have with

your clothes. And it makes you want to fall in love with your clothes too. Can I read the start of it? I have a black dress that swings through the skirt down to the mid-calf. It has a slight split on one side that shows a little leg while you're walking and a little more at a run. It is sleeveless. The waist is slightly dropped and sits just above my hips. It's cut on the bias. I can wear a jacket over it when there is a nip in the air. It is the perfect length for my long coats. I wear it with brogues and boots, with sandals and heels. I love to wear it on dates. It is effortless in the best sense, by which I mean it is both comfortable and flattering. Do you still have

that black dress? No, that's in the car. Oh no. I'm so sad. Oh, I love the way you write about it though. I know. It's sort of hopefully you can get back there. Yeah. Why did you choose that dress as the opening? It really was the opening of the book was really important to me because I always know from like the first page whether I want to read something or not.

And I wanted something that would capture like the first page whether I want to read something or not and so and I wanted something that would capture like the dichotomy of the industry because that dress is made of viscose and viscose is really tricky fiber because it's from trees and it's linked to deforestation and all these other things and so I wanted to set up that idea this connect this and this surprising connection to you know but also I wanted something that I had all of these memories of that I could talk about and bring people in in that way that because we live in our clothes and I know that I work in the industry so maybe I'm like more I think about them more than other people but when I look back over my life, like I can usually tell you what I was wearing when big things happened and how I felt in those things.

And that dress in particular, and it's rare to find these pieces. And I think if all of our wardrobes were only made up of these pieces, we'd all be so much happier. But those pieces that you go, I really don't want to go tonight. I feel a bit bloated and I don't, you know, and I'm a bit nervous, but I like, you know, I know I've got to go and I like, I'm going to put on that dress and like automatically, okay, I think I can do this. I've got this. Yeah. Yeah. And that was one of those pieces for me. Yeah. So, but also, you know, you don't know, starting writing was, and often is the hardest part. And I was very lucky with most of the chapters that once I had the first sentence, I had a couple of pages.

And so that line, I have a black dress, it felt like a good like, and we're off. Yeah, off and racing. Yeah. Completely. Do you have a story that for someone who hasn't worked in fashion they would find really surprising? Because you've worked with Burberry in London. You've been to runways and fashion weeks and glamorous parties

and wearing beautiful two-piece sort of linen shirts and pants by the sea. Is there a story from your days in fashion that people would find surprising? There's always little things like one of the designers I worked for in Paris, they were so obsessed with the idea of creating original things that I think sometimes is missing in Australia, that they would, one of the collections that I worked with them for, all the whole inspiration, they didn't have a mood board, they had one photo of Frida Kahlo. And that was it.

And she was sitting on a chair in the sun. It was a summer collection and she had her eyes closed. And it was like that was it, you know, that was all they needed and they could draw the feeling of all the clothes they were making out of that single photo. But they were quite, they were Italian, they were quite purist, which was really beautiful. Once after Fashion Week in London when we'd just done one

of the Burberry shows and it was always like basically we would be in lockdown at Burberry HQ for like four days before and then it was like all these early starts and these really big days and, you know, we'd had a really, we'd had a, I don't know if we'd gone to a party but we'd had a late night. I thought I had the next day off and my boss called me from the other side of London at like 8am and asked if I would bring her a bacon sandwich.

I didn't, I didn't go. I said, I can order you one. I said, I'm like in Stoke Newington, so it'll be, it'll be like an hour and a bit. That is such a Devil Wears Prada vibe. Completely. Is that what it's actually like? Like, do you think Devil Wears Prada vibe completely. Is that what it's actually like? Like do you think Devil Wears Prada is a good insight into the industry or not really at all? Yeah. Yeah. I mean parts of it and I think parts of movies like that,

like they're self-fulfilling prophecies in a way. And it's not all like that, absolutely not, but there's definitely been moments in my career that have been like that. Absolutely not. But there are, there's definitely been moments in my career that have been like that. And I've heard stories about the Anna Wintour and, you know, how it is like that for her too. But, and also there's a part of that is just what's happening, the nucleus of a brand, what's happening when there's one person that's designing everything and they're this, you know, creative genius or, you know, super creative person and a lot is riding on the way they're operating. And they may not necessarily be the best business person or the best manager, but they are creating an environment and it kind

of has to be this way, although it would be nice if we could balance it out a little bit, but they're creating an environment where everybody believes that what they're doing is important. And you're buying into that narrative that this little world that you're operating in with the next season and the sales and the press you know is changing things and there's something really exciting about that even if it's a little bit cultish and it can be a little bit can be very toxic and fashion is famous for exploiting. You know, the wages aren't there.

There's no union. Often there's no HR team. And, you know, it can be a bit problematic. But you kind of have to understand all of the things that are feeding into that perspective. And then I would also say that it's changing where like the generation that's coming up, when I come up against bitchiness in the industry now it feels very passe and it's very to me it's not chic to be like that it's not chic to be a drama queen it's not chic to be snooty because that is the feeling that I think

sometimes comes across it's elitist like there's a club and you're either in it or you're not. Yes. Yeah. And it does, it thrives on that because it's thriving on being cool and desirable. But I also think that's changing too. So you watch the really talented young designers that are coming through and they're inclusive and they're making extended size ranges and they're not cutting for just one body type. And gender too. Are they kind of catering for almost an androgynous look or a variety of genders? Yeah. And I think also if you've,

if you're sitting outside the industry and you feel like you want to be a part of it, and there's a group of people who are not being, not including you. And I still feel that sometimes I still feel like I'm not at the cool kids table or, you know, like that also, it's good to just remember where those feelings are coming from, from their side, you know, and like, you know, trying to practice as much radical compassion as possible. And just, you've got to go to the people, got to go where the energy feels good for you. Yeah. And I hope that is changing because we're not, there's no changing this industry if we just try to make it for only the coolest kids, you know?

Totally. A thousand percent. Here's a question. You're a very opinionated, intelligent, outspoken person in a lot of ways. I know you're introverted too, but through your life, you have been that kind of woman. Have you always found it easy to be that kind of woman in our culture? I guess yes and no. Like I think part of that is innate and I am lucky in a way that we were brought up in an environment where opinions were encouraged and being outspoken was encouraged and it was good to have an independent thought and it was good to kind of challenge and go against the grain. So yeah, so in a way it has come innately. Is it easy to operate in a world, in the world like that?

I don't know, because on one side, I think it has brought me into, it's given me wonderful opportunities and brought me into rooms with really exciting and wonderful people. And that's also given me the courage to write a book when you kind of would sometimes, especially just before it was released. I was like, who let me do this? I thought I could do this. But yeah, I guess also I think when I was in more traditional environments like law school, I found it harder. But fashion's like a female industry, even though the gender disparity at the top is disgustingly dominated by men, even though like 90% of fashion graduates are women.

But look at all the creative directors of the luxury houses. It's like the skew is really actually still kind of abhorrent. And I don't know how fashion hasn't had a reckoning about that. And what I mean is even though most of the fashion graduates are women, I think it's like 60% of the creative directors of luxury brands are men. Wow. And the language that's used to talk about female designers is very different to male designers. Like men get to be masters and creative geniuses and women are like, oh, she's designing for her own body, you know. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Designing, a woman designing is a woman designing for women.

A man designing is a man designing for everyone. Yeah. Still. Yeah. Yeah, it's really annoying. But, yeah, so I guess I think that I've been sheltered from what would have felt worse. And it might change now as well, because, you know,

I've operated pretty much in like these little circles and things. But the one thing that I do where it is hard is the financial remuneration in fashion is so woeful, even though two of the richest men in the world own fashion businesses. So it's not that there's no money in these industries. It's just that because most of the workers are women that their wages are not, you know, equivalent. Reflective. Yeah. And so like say you, if you graduated with a master's in commerce or law, you would go into a graduate role where you would be on a salary that was a good salary. You graduate with a master's in fashion and I don't have a master's in fashion, and I don't have a master's in fashion so I shouldn't maybe complain about this,

but I have friends who graduate with master's in fashion from the top schools in the world and they are expected to work for free. That's crazy. For at least two years and then they might be given a junior role on basically minimum wage. And you kind of, it's bullshit. Yeah. It really is.

It's infuriating because we all wear clothes. Yeah. We all do. Yeah. And it's this like huge industry. It's also, it's not like, it's not like there's no money in it. You know, it's just that part of the way they make money is by, it's exploitation.

Completely. Yeah. What are you grateful for? I know you touched on our upbringing. What are you grateful for from, I should love this question, from mum? Yeah, what are you grateful for? Well, she was a really great role model as a feminist. I think she's a really interesting feminist because she's very traditional

in a lot of ways but also she's a doctor, you know, and she's been a doctor since she was 20 and she was the primary breadwinner in the family and this kind of quiet feminism where it's not like overt and outspoken, but it is this like inner strength where she was, that she could wield to have things be the way that she wanted them to be. She also has extremely high standards of us, which I think is a really good thing. And so both our parents loved us and encouraged us and supported us. She still offered now, even now, to proofread my book

and to correct the spelling and grammar. Even after it's published? Yeah. And I said no because there's enough editors. But also, you know, I have memories of being, of practising timetables and spelling and things with her and those, I mean it sounds corny, doesn't it? It sounds like we were such nerds and we were.

We were. But those things, they're a huge advantage and it's such a joy to be given the skill to read and to be encouraged to read and all of us read so much as kids. And I think that we're all really good writers as a result. And so we've got two brothers and, yeah, so that's all, they're all really special, special things I think. Yeah, I would agree with that.

It's interesting because her, it was a very quiet exacting standard. I can't even, some of my friends have come from say migrant families where the standard was avert. You must get the best grades. You must get into law or medicine or something. That was never said to us. I don't remember ever hearing those phrases exactly. No, no, no. And if anything, the law and the medicine wasn't even really encouraged. It was more like you would come home with a B plus and it would be like, well, what happened? Or even an A. You would come home with an A and they would be like, that's an interesting choice that you've made there. You know, what happened? I should so

big to your teacher. You know, just this very quiet, high standard. And even now I'm nervous to show mum things I've made because of that reason because she has such high standards, which I guess you rise to. I think so. And it wasn't like we have high standards of you and we're over here not helping you reach them. Like, you know, there was especially academically lots of time and we're over here not helping you reach them. Like, you know, there was especially academically lots of time and support and, you know, if we wanted help on a project,

we would get all the help in the world. Yeah. If we had an interest we wanted to pursue, they were immediately there. They were buying the violin or the flute or the trombone or the drum kit or, you know. Correct. Yeah, and driving us to whatever sport you know. Correct. Yeah. Driving us to whatever sport it was. Correct.

Yeah. I think as well they both had very high standards of themselves and were very, in a way, harsh inner critics of themselves, which we've also inherited, I think. And that's not so great. No. That's a therapy thing. Yeah.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Give yourself a break. Yeah, just be Yeah, exactly. Give yourself a break. Yeah, just be a little compassionate. Every therapist I've ever seen has said that to me. The first thing they're like, hmm. Yeah, exactly.

Correct. And look, there's duality, you know, good and bad in that. Let's talk about Dad now because you've dedicated the book to Dad. Yes. For my dad. Claire's put a box of tissues very subtly on the table. I know. Why have you dedicated it to dad?

Dad was, well, he was also an academic and a writer. I'm not an academic. He was a writer. And he was a real force in all of our lives. And he was very encouraging of kind of these kind of pursuits and he was writing about the environment when he died. He was in the middle of writing a series of seven books and it felt very like very bittersweet to know that that was the last thing he was working on and to be kind of tackling these similar themes and And also while I was writing it, I was living in Fitzroy

and that was very close to where he started his career as a bioethicist. And I felt, and it sounds really a bit, I don't know, I felt his presence around me a lot while I was writing it and that felt really special. And I think that, yeah, it's anyone who's lost a parent or lost anyone that they love will I think and you know know what that feels like to be achieving something that you wish you could share with them or going through anything in life that you wish you could

share with them and yeah it felt important to me to dedicate the book to him and honour him in that way. What do you think the best lessons he gave you were? So he used to – I used to play a lot of netball and I was a goal attack and he would always, when he came to my games when I was shooting and I wasn't really tall enough to be a goal attack at the level I was playing at but when I was younger I I wasn't really tall enough to be a goal attack at the level I was playing at. And, but when I was younger, I was very, I was a very accurate goaler and that was why I was good. And he would always yell out steady when I was shooting. And it became like a running joke because he had this big, loud, deep voice and, you know, he would yell steady.

And, um, that is something that I think of because I have a habit of rushing things or being impulsive. And that's something that comes up for me now as an adult when I'm trying to be a bit level-headed. And those impulsive and rushing things are inherited traits from him as well. So I think that, but also as he got older in his career, he was quite headstrong when he was younger and he mellowed out as he got older and became much kinder and more compassionate. And I think really watching him, I think there's a really big lesson in trying to exercise that kind of kindness and the real strength of intellect

that he had was trying to be empathetic and understand what people were going through. And I really do feel that that is a sign of a great sign of intelligence to not be trying to wield it over people, but to try to bring people along with you. How good I am at doing that, I don't know. But it's also that kind of humility is always a much easier place to try to operate from too, I think. Completely, yeah. Yeah. What do you think he would think of the book?

I don't know. No, well, he was so proud of all of us. So I think he would be very proud. I don't know. Yeah, I think he'd just be proud of it. It would be hard to disappoint him. It would be though. Writing a first book, I think. It would be.

Oh, my gosh. With this kind of topic anyway, I think. And look, I think Dad was the kind of person that would talk about his kids to anyone for whatever we were doing. Claire's playing the flute. She's done a grade three exam. You know, he would just wherever you were in the world, he would want to talk about you and your achievements

and he was just so proud of us in so many different ways. I don't know. Do you find it difficult that he also politically had different beliefs to you? I think definitely there were years when I found it really challenging, but not so much now. I think that he was such a balanced thinker in so many ways. And the aspects of the church that I will always disagree with him on, I think he struggled with them as well. I feel regret and that there's not more time to talk about some of those more contentious issues that we don't share, because I feel like that some of

my understanding of his attitudes is not as in depth as I would like it to be. No, I think, I also think that he would probably have kept evolving along with us. So, you know, it's just part of, part of life that you don't always share the same beliefs as people around you. And I think something for mum and dad that is very true of their faith is that and what they've passed on to us is this idea of kind of forgiveness and compassion and working to help other people and operate with kindness and all of those values agree on some of the other things that we don't agree on, you know, okay,

whatever, everybody has differences of opinion. And I think that's the really interesting crux, right, of why people have asked me before, why are you the way you are or why are you able to see different points of view? And I think it's because of their encouragement that every thought you have is rigorously debated in your own self. Yeah. And so you have to justify why you think that way.

But because other people think differently, it doesn't mean there's something inherently wrong with them. No. It's about the thought and the thinking and that deep philosophy about humanity and our place here. And that is actually a real gift. And in a way, I'm incredibly grateful for that upbringing, because I think it really does, as you said, give you a depth of compassion

for people from all different sides. And it's quite incredible, really, to think that dad was able to do that, to leave the door open for us all to be who we are in different ways with the kind of in some ways quite rigid thinking he had about particular issues. And I totally agree with you. That's one of the deep sadnesses I have that he's not here for me to debate with him as an adult. Yeah, and just to ask more questions, you know, and that is like, you know, the cruelest thing about death, it's to ask more questions, you know, and that is like, you know,

the cruelest thing about death, it's not having more time and like also that regret of looking back and being like, why wasn't I paying more attention? Why didn't I see that life is so precious and fragile? And that's also a gift of grief as well on the other side of it. It is absolutely. It makes you more grateful for the moments that you do have. Yeah. Absolutely.

You talk about natural fibres in the book. I want to talk back on that before we finish. Yeah. And there's some beautiful stories around each of those. I love particularly the story around silk. Yes. Can you tell us about the mulberry trees and that connection with a Chinese princess really, or the daughter of an emperor? Yeah. So there was this princess,

oh gosh, I don't know how many thousands of years ago it was. I need to read my book. But she was sitting under, she was drinking a cup of tea, sitting under a mulberry tree and a cocoon fell out of the tree and landed in her cup of tea. And the story goes that when she went to pull the cocoon out, it became a single translucent thread and she had discovered silk, basically. So silk is drawn from the cocoon of the bombix mori, which is a type of moth. And then she was so fascinated by it she did experiments and realised that the silk was more beautiful when the worms

were eating the leaves of mulberry trees and she taught the woman of her court how to spin and weave it and basically she invented silk. And the Chinese guarded the secrets of silk making for centuries. Wow. Yeah, and it was like punishable by death if you shared them. My goodness. Yeah, and then eventually, I mean all of this is kind of myth

and, you know, so we don't actually know. But the story goes that someone smuggled some silkworms in their cane, I think it was a monk, and took them to a Roman emperor and then the secrets of silk making were out. But that's why we have the Silk Road because they would traverse the trade of it. The silk had to be carried along this really treacherous terrain from China all the way through to the Mediterranean.

So it's really a special fibre and it kills me because all these, like, companies are investing money in how to replicate the properties of silk and they're, like, using, like, you know, genetics and DNA and, like, all these different things to, like, manufacture synthetic, well, they're not synthetic but they're, you know, different versions of silk but it's this is like miraculous it's miraculous I know and we already have it and it's like it really the a single filament is supposed to be stronger than a single filament of steel it's a protein fiber so it's warm but you know like put on a silk dress and then we can then we have a discussion yeah yeah because that's so beautiful and I love that you're

wearing silk to your book launch tonight yeah it's so exciting yeah how do they make silk now like as in not the synthetic things that they're doing but is it predominantly made in China yeah so most of the world's silk it's like I think 90% comes from China and India, but China's like by far the most dominant. So the way that the silk we talk about in the book, so you have industrial silk farms. So it's like that are operated with not necessarily chemicals, but like lots of machinery and lots of energy because you need to keep the silkworms at a certain temperature so that they kind of thrive. But the type of silk that we talk about in the book is made by a company called Bombix and they're in Nanchong in China, which is where the empress discovered the silkworm in Haiti. And they regeneratively grow the mulberry

trees. So they have small fields of mulberry trees and they've got like animals running through them and the trees are on tiers so they can grow them in ways that restore the carbon to the soil they're not using any chemicals or fertilizers or pesticides and what that means is effectively the silk that they're manufacturing because it's all made with renewable energy is carbon negative but so the way it works you grow the mulberry trees because you need a lot of mulberry tree leaves to feed the silkworms. And then you have huts on the borders of the groves. So the farmers are harvesting the leaves and then feeding them to the silkworms.

And the silkworms have been bred over thousands of years. So they're blind and they can't fly and they need human assistance to mate. So anyway, so you feed them the mulberry leaves and then they grow and grow and grow. human assistance to mates. Oh, my God. Yeah. So anyway, so look, you feed them the mulberry leaves and then they grow and grow and grow and then they spin their cocoons and then you boil the cocoons. And the boiled worms are either fed to animals or actually eaten by the communities that make the silk or they're put back on the land as fertiliser.

And then you take the silk cocoons and they're taken to a factory and they're de-gummed and cleaned because there's silkworm saliva that binds the cocoons together. So interesting. Yeah. And then they, yeah, so you pull on a reel, they're unspooled and someone's got to watch and make sure there's no flaws in the silk. And then you weave the silk together and then there are different chemical treatments you can do if you want to, or you can just leave it natural or diet or whatever. And that's how you do it. So there are people who are like, oh no, that's like not good to kill the silkworms. And there is a kind of silk called pea silk that's mainly made in India where they let the silkworm come out,

but it breaks the strands. And so the silk isn't as smooth. And what I feel about that is, like, look, I'm not a vegan. We eat, I eat meat. So I don't, when these communities are using the silkworms as subsistence for food, I don't really think we can differentiate it from wearing leather. And also, you know, in the hierarchy of the way the world operates, this is part of the natural cycles of life, you know.

Yeah. And when you're making fake silk, what you're doing is, you know, replicating genetics, which takes a lot of energy, and then you're usually feeding that stock with something like sugar cane or which has been grown on in a monocrop that's probably been responsible for some deforestation that's probably actually killed a lot more animals and like is more toxic for the environment so I think when you do like a full life cycle assessment the fact that we boil the silkworms

is very low down on the on the. Gosh, that's so fascinating. Your book's full of stories like that about how flax is created as well and how hemp is such an incredible fabric as well. Why is hemp particularly interesting? So hemp is a fascinating one because it was outlawed basically until like 2018. So it became outlawed with the rise of synthetics in like around the 1950s and that was because it's like the sister plant of marijuana

but also and so basically it was made illegal but it doesn't have the psychoactive properties of marijuana. It's like the chemical component is called THC and in hemp it's like 0.3 whereas in marijuana it's like this the chemical component is called thc and in hemp it's like 0.3 whereas in marijuana it's 20 so it's a big difference anyway so where they've just realized that we should all be growing more hemp and the reason why they've realized that is because it's this really amazing plant it grows it can absorb twice as much co2 as a forest while it's growing which is insane yeah and so it can be used for seed which is a superfood for oil which is also superfood um for fiber and which makes a type of fabric that's very similar to linen in the way it looks

and feels um but also it can be used for biofuel and they've found ways to make bioplastics out of it too. Like it's a very, very special plant, and it grows really fast, and it grows up to like 10 feet tall, so it's really, really big. And it depends like all crops, and so it depends where you grow it. But it usually grows just with rainwater and it doesn't really need pesticides. But also what's most amazing about it is that it's been found to clean the soil. So if you've got like toxic things in the soil because you've had a chemical plant nearby

or something bad has happened, if you grow hemp on those fields, the hemp's roots are so long and deep and strong that they can suck up all of that toxicity essentially and leave you with a clean field, which is, it's pretty phenomenal. That's amazing. Yeah. It really is interesting. And why is it that we're not using hemp everywhere? I know you said it was illegal. It was illegal. That's the main reason. Is that the main reason? Yeah, so it was outlawed in America and the reason why, it was around the time of prohibition when they outlawed it and it's not entirely clear why.

It might be as simple as it was a misunderstanding by the lawmakers of the difference between hemp and marijuana, but there are some implications by some of the people that I've spoken to that it was financial because it was the end of prohibition so they weren't able to make money from alcohol, the banning of alcohol anymore, so they added in hemp and so that meant that they could replace it with other fabrics.

You know, yeah, and also who knows. So it was outlawed by who knows so it was outlawed by america and then it became outlawed all over the world and in even in china who are now the biggest producers of hemp so they make their uniforms out of hemp don't they yeah it's really interesting yeah so in in australia i'm i actually don't we could we are growing it here but I think probably that it will require too much irrigated water because we don't have enough rainfall for it to actually be so good for the environment. But definitely in America, there's a renaissance happening where they're trying to bring it back. To be worth your while to grow hemp for clothing, you need to have manufacturing close by that can actually take the hemp plant all the way through to fabric. And all the manufacturing pretty much has moved to China.

So it's, yeah, that's the other complicating thing. But there's researchers in the UK and Cambridge and there is this movement towards it. And can you tell us about flax? Because flax becomes linen, right? And I didn't know that until I read your book. I feel like I should have known that. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

So flax is amazing. It's grown, like 80% of the world, flax has grown between Belgium and France along the edge of the North Sea. So that's like right up near Normandy where it's like really cold. And they've been growing it there for hundreds of years. And so all of the processing happens quite close by. But in that location, in other parts of the world, it will need to be irrigated. But in that location, it really grows just with the winds coming off the North Sea. If anybody's ever been to Normandy, you'll remember how cold

and windy those beaches are. And it grows with very minimal, even when you're doing it in a traditional way, minimal fertilisers and pesticides. Those farmers, because it's such a low-impact crop, they've got less incentive to move towards regenerative practices because it's like they're almost there anyway. But there is a growing movement towards organic linen. And so it grows like this tall, woody stalk, and then it flowers,

and so it turns like the fields this really beautiful blue. And then when they harvest it, they basically pull it out of the ground and then lay it down flat. And then it lays on the fields for a couple of weeks and it begins this process called redding, which is basically the softening of the outer woody stalks to get to the inside, which is what gets woven into linen. And so then once it's like changed colours on the fields,

they harvest it all up and they take it to the factories and then they do this thing called scooching where they break the woody stalks down further and eventually pull out the strands and then they process them into linen fibres. And that's why it's called French linen? Is that why? Yeah. That's why if it's from France.

If it's from France. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's so exciting. For people listening, it's so worth getting Lisa's book and reading more about this. And we won't go into all of the fibres that you talk about. You'll have to read the book.

But it's beautiful and interwoven with the stories of your clothes and the stories of your life working in fashion is just glorious. So congratulations. Thank you. What's next? Where do you see yourself going next? Yeah, that's so nice. So congratulations. Thank you. What's next? Where do you see yourself going next? Yeah, that's a nice, that's a good question. Well, look, so a part of the work that I do is working with brands

to help them source more fibres that are farmed this way and also working with companies to help tell their stories about the work that they're doing. So, you know, really, we're just at the beginning of regenerative agriculture and the journey and the change that's happening in the fashion industry. I really want to go and visit some more farms and spend some more time on the landscapes and, you know, learning more about how we make all of this happen. And also I write a column in The Guardian about how to care for your clothes. It comes out every Tuesday and that's the other part of this work that's really important to me.

When we're talking about how we change the industry, we have to change our relationship with clothes as well and make them last longer so we reduce our consumption and lots of things. Lots of things. And that column's called Closet Clinic. Yes. Right?

Exactly. And you also write for the Saturdayet Clinic. Yes. Right? Exactly. And you also write for the Saturday Paper. I do. Yes, I do. So I'm the fashion editor for the Saturday Paper and focus on reviewing collections for them. But I also occasionally will write a story about farming, like cotton or wool. Yeah, because that's really your passion, isn't it?

Yeah. The regenerative farming. Yeah. Because it's such a beautiful story to be it? Yeah. The regenerative farming. Yeah. Because it's such a beautiful story to be telling and incredibly vital and important. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for the work that you do. Thank you for coming on, Tons. It's been such a joy.

Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Yeah. And people can find you on Instagram as well. Yes, at Lucy and Tonti. That's probably the best place to go, do you think? Yes. Just start finding all of your things.

Yes, please. Excellent. All right. All right. Well, I can't wait to place to go, do you think? Yes. Just start finding all of your things. Yes, please. Excellent. All right. All right. Well, I can't wait to go to the book launch tonight. We'll have to share a photo of you in your beautiful silk dress made by the Silk Wimps. Yes.

Yeah. And, yeah, it's time to celebrate you. Thank you, Claire. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. You've been listening to a podcast with me, Claire Tonti, and this week with Lucy Ann Tonti.

I'm so thrilled that you listened through to this episode and if you would like to purchase Sundressed, it is available in lots of good bookstores all across Australia and online at Booktopia. There's a link in the show notes. For more from Lucy Ann, you can head to Closet Clinic at The Guardian or her writing at The Saturday Paper or follow her on Instagram at Lucy-Anne Tonti. And for more from me, you can head to my website, claretonty.com, or you can also find me at my

other podcast, Suggestible, which I do with my husband, man, James Clement, aka Mr. Sunday Movies. That comes out every Thursday where we recommend you things to watch, read and listen to and make fun of each other along the way. All right, I'm off to get ready for her book launch tonight. How exciting. I have to figure out what to wear. I'm not as glamorous as this fashion crowd, so we shall see. Wish me luck.

Thank you as always to Roar Collings for editing this week's episode. This is the final episode in Season 2 of Tons. I'm so grateful to everyone that has listened and been a part of this season. I've so appreciated you. So if you have recommendations for guests or topics or just comments, you can email them to tonspod at gmail.com or come along

to Instagram and comment on the episodes. I usually share an audiogram made by the wonderful Maisie over there or some video footage from the episode. So that's a lovely spot to have a chat to about the topics and conversations that we're having here. And while I'm on break in August, we'll be sharing some old episodes from my other podcast, Just Make the Thing, that I made five years ago. The audio quality isn't quite as good, but there are just some beautiful gems and I wanted to share them with you if you haven't heard them before. Interviews with the comedian Geraldine Hickey, where she talks about growing up Catholic

and queer and how her perception of herself and her life completely changed. An interview with the radio host, Fonty Diamond. And that's a gorgeous chat about motherhood, about hustling your way into a career that you love, about focus and lots of other things besides. And I did that in her house. It was just so much fun. Another episode I wanted to share with you is one about failure. Now, this is one of the earliest episodes that I made. It's episode six and it's really all about exactly what the title suggests, the one about failure.

I deleted my episode and I recorded it late one night with James when I was in tears and not sure if I'd ever make anything again. So that's a little episode for people who, like me, and I'm a little bit better now along the journey, struggle with their creativity and getting things out in the world. So you might find that episode valuable. And the last one I wanted to share with you is one of my favorites. It's a chat with the comedian Jess Perkins, who you might recognise from Triple J, and it just talks about being a woman in comedy and her life story and it's just gorgeous. So that one is over there as well. All right, that's it from me.

I'm going to see you in September. Right back on the first Friday in September will be the new season of Toms. So can't wait to start that season. I've got some really great guests coming up. Author Sally Hepworth, naturopath Freya Lawler and a whole lot of others besides. So looking forward to that. Oh, Astrid Edwards, who is an incredible writer and teacher as well and podcaster. So can't wait to share those with you and I'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.