I'm Christina Binkley. I'm a contributing writer at Vogue business and the Wall Street Journal. This week, it's a new year and a new chance at making real progress toward a sustainable fashion industry. We'll look back at 2022 to make a few predictions about what we think 2023 may have in store for us.
Rachel Kibbe of Circular Services Group is in New York. Rachel, how's it going?
It's going great. Christina. How are you?
I'm good. And the CEO of Thrilling, Shilla Kim Parker, joins us from upstairs in South Salem, New York.
Hi Christina
We're just gonna keep tabs on your location in your house forever :)
It'll never get old.
You guys, I decided to talk about this. This happened last week. I mean, which seems like a million years ago, I guess. But Vivienne Westwood R.I.P. I thought she would never die.
Right? She had that kind of energy and spirit where it was timeless.
What a loss.
I can't think of another fashion designer that did as much to impact fashion. And yet, actually, a lot of people think of her more for activism. I think
That's right.
Her design was almost a means for activism, or it was a means for activism. You know, I knew that she originally had that store in London, from which the punk movement sprouted, but I wasn't sure, I didn't know how that related to the Sex Pistols. The story was that the store started the Sex Pistols, you know, and the punk movement came out of that. And all of her activism came out of that. And it's just, I don't know, anyone who is influenced fashion and activism and music all at once and at the same time, and like interchangeably as much as she has.
For her whole life; and she adopted rap. But you know, when you think of her fashion, I remember one time, years ago, I was speaking with her partner, Andreas Kronthaler. I was curious because there's so much renaissance and medieval design in her clothes that you almost don't notice all that bodice work. And it may be this was early on when I was writing about fashion and he sort of changed the way I saw designers' motivations, because he said that she get obsessed with that she was super into to Oak couture and you know, this handwork and really close, careful work. But also he said she was she didn't like her breasts. She felt that they were too small and that she wanted to enunciate them and those bodices, that's what they did, and that sort of generated her interest in in going that direction. And I thought, that's one of the reasons why I so like women's wear that's designed by women, because they're, there's something very personal in it that often does solve a problem might be their personal problem. And you might not share that issue. But there's always something deeply personal about those designs.
That's, awesome. Rachel mentioned her boutique, which was started with Malcolm McLaren, her co-founder of the boutique and the manager of the Sex Pistols, ultimately, and I love that it started out as a vintage boutique, but she sold a lot of vintage in the beginning, and then evolved into her own designs. And then, you know, I was reading some of her early comments, and I think she had some of some really interesting early instincts about sustainability. She said things like, "I think it's ecologically friendly, that that my clothes are expensive." And she said, you know, if people like my clothes, it's good if they don't buy them for six months, because then they'll be able to afford them. So I'm sure that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way but it is interesting that she is tying the that idea of you know, clothes shouldn't be cheap, right? And it is something that you know, you should save up for or and buy slowly and don't over consume. The other thing that I love about her is that she found success. You know, she was she was successful throughout her life. But in many ways she established mainstream success later in life because I could not believe she had her first runway show in 1981, which was called pirates. But that was when she was 40. And then she won Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 1990, when she was 50, almost 50. And I just think that's awesome.
That is awesome. And rare. Yes. Sadly rare.
She had initially, like, even in 1981, when she was 40, she still felt sort of like an outsider, and rejected by the press, and it wasn't until the 90s that she really started becoming a mogul. And she reached $45 million a year in sales. And it was interesting, too, because obviously, she's totally anti-establishment, anti, like profoundly anti-capitalism, really outspoken about wanting to empower individuals to have a voice and fight again, against injustice is not just climate change, but you know, everything, including human rights, protesting, like actively protesting capitalism, and then she became a dame in 2006. Her earliest clothing was totally rejecting the establishment of loyalty and then like, the Queen just loved her, the more crazy she got railing against the throne, the more the throne sort of embraced her, but for good reason, too, because she, you know, her label is actually the symbol almost identical to that of Harris Tweed, which is a type of tweed that came out of, I believe Scotland, and it was almost dead until she revived that industry. And because she did, she asked if she could borrow their symbol, and that become her logo. Essentially, she she put her own flair on it, but she did it. She's done a lot of good for her country and her area of the world.
I couldn't help but be startled, but I don't know why I was startled by that sourcing journal had a story this morning, saying that Adidas is dropping the Stan Smith Balenciaga collaboration that they had already sold it into stores, and they're just going to not deliver it. And I thought it was curious. I don't know. Do you guys notice this in the story that it says they didn't make an announcement, they just quietly told the retailers? "Sorry, we're not going to, we're not going to do this." I'm sort of curious about why they would not. I mean, they made an announcement they dropped Kanye, right?
Right. You're curious about why they wouldn't announce it or why they dropped?
Yeah. Like, why is such a soft sort of just trying to back out of it and go "Oh, nothing to see here." As opposed to saying we are just continuing our relationship with Balenciaga.
Right. Maybe requests from Balenciaga to not make a big deal out of it? Yeah, in terms of the breakup, potentially.
That would show a lot of respect. Caring really?
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I know that they're trying to balance you guys trying to, we all notice their Instagram post and how they deleted all their past posts, and they're not allowing comments, and I don't know about you guys. I'm kind of over the scandal. Do you think we should all still care, Christina?
Yeah, I do. I think, not just because of one ad. I think we should all still care because it took them two and a half, three weeks, to collect themselves and figure out what they needed to do. And I think that that's a sign of poor leadership. And as a person who's interested in investors and investable companies and things like that. I like to invest in companies that have outstanding leadership, and that aren't swimming and scrambling and drowning in their own messes. So, I'm more looking at the leadership of the company and that doesn't, that's not just Demna that's, you know, are they making wise decisions? You know, their first attempt to blame everybody but themselves, which lasted like a week and involved suing a poor contractor, right. Who is you know, probably can barely make his rent. You know, I just Yeah. So to me it's more a management issue and how they handle it. I think if they had come out and admitted that they made a poor decision in that advertising campaign and taken responsibility for it, and then I found I guess I had totally forgotten about it until they posted that Cristobal Balenciaga was at Christmas or New Year's, they, they posted on their Instagram, a sort of a series of videos of Cristobal Balenciaga when it was his, you know, og tour brand from 1960 to 1967, which has nothing to do with what the brand is today. Right? And likely, only
Right.
Are you now gonna pretend you weren't what you are now?
Right? Remember why you love us? And why are brand has meaning?
Like, none of you remember this, actually? And yeah, we hardly do either. But look over here, right? I mean, the history of the brand has been so far removed from the roots of Balenciaga for a long, long time, right through various different owners before it even became what it is today. So I think that's a little hollow. It's not like this brand is has been so deeply rooted in its roots up until Demna. It's a little, I don't know, it feels like it feels once again, a little thoughtless.
So Christina, for you? What do you think that the brand could do to win your trust back?
Oh, now I'm gonna have to say something really controversial for a lot of people. But I don't think that you can do that with the current team in place. I mean, maybe they know how to do a total rebrand overhaul. I'm not passing judgment on the clothes and the products that they're making. You know, I'm a journalist, everybody should make what they want to make, and what's selling fine. I don't have a problem with that. I just think you've shown such a long series of bad judgments. Like you have to do a lot of good judgments really fast. It's been what is it two months since this all happened? You know, it's not a great, it's not easy to do your listening campaign, go out there and work with child protective charities and things like that. But I think they need to get out there and do that pretty visibly very quickly, and not just have that be quiet. And behind the scenes. I think it needs to be pretty loud.
It's not just an Instagram post...
that they still have their comments turned off
I mean, cowards?
But anyway, Bella Hadid posted a photograph of herself from that same office campaign that had been the second part of the scandal. That was strange. Well, the comments, did you guys look at the comments to Bill. Yeah, people were just, "Oh, my God, take it down. It's a pedophile brand." I mean, just really ugly, nasty accusations that tell you that the feelings are still alive. Now, that was a couple weeks ago that she posted that but it's interesting, she has not turned her comments off. She's not so then nor taking the post down. So you know, at least she stands by her...
She has bigger cojones.
More or less, she might be afraid of any contractual obligation. She has to have that photo up. You know, I that's what I'm assuming.
But she didn't. So she could bet she has no contractual obligation to keep that comments. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
I mean, I don't know if that was weird. They're probably asking, Okay, could you turn them off? A little bit. Delete some of the worst ones.
Okay, anything else on top of your mind? Shall we move on to the section of the show where we thought we'd sort of reflect a bit on things that happened last year. And and by the way, I have to say, as we were pulling this together, I really like the fact that talking about this made me realize that a lot of good stuff happened in 2022 in fashion, and so really and more broadly, just sustainability in general. So let's start. Well, we have to address the the the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is not a fashion story, although there are a lot of fashion stories happening with it with Ukrainian fashion design absolutely amazing things. But outside of blowing the hell out of that poor country and I sometimes can't even imagine how they rebuild all that are the mean that just haven't have you guys seen any estimates on just the carbon that spewing in the atmosphere from all of that war? Oh, it must be... I can't even imagine.
Did we talk about this? I don't remember if we spoke about this last week, but I encourage everyone to watch David Letterman's interview with Zelensky. It's really, really incredible. It's done 300 feet underground in a train station. He went to the Ukraine to interview him in front of largely military audience. And it's profound and it's amazing. And he is he is I know, a lot of people are saying this. He's like, truly Churchillian for the way that he is able to speak and convey a very sort of proletariat message. I am one of you. And, but also lead and be funny. And he's getting interviewed by a comedian who I'm sure he worshipped so and continues to worship. It's just great. He speaks in Ukrainian. Letterman speaks in English. I think there's a translator maybe in the air, and it's feels like they're both speaking the same language.
Wow. Okay. You mentioned that before and I meant to look at it and I forgot. So I'm really glad you reminded me saying I want to say that I watched people where people in Ukraine were posting videos of themselves watching his New Year's Eve address. Do you see any of those? It was one of the group of soldiers in a bunker somewhere with this truly pitiful and sad looking Christmas celebration with like, a little bit of tinsel and some Tupperware with cookies. And they were standing around and they're watching on somebody's phone, Zelensky's address and these big studly Ukrainian soldiers, tears streaming, or like rubbing their noses.
He can move a crowd.
He has superhuman instincts. It's not normal human instinct, just somewhere from somewhere like from the Divine or somewhere else he. He has a vision for how to move and how to act that are beyond what a normal human could usually do in the circumstances. It's really incredible.
It's really true. When he walked into Congress, I found myself like going like trying to zero in on that entrance he made when he walked into the into the room with all the Senators and Representatives in there. I realized that there were people like, just reaching out to touch his arm. Like he's in some crowd in the public. It's like, an entire US Congress like fangirling fanboying.
I think I feel like I am still trying to come to grips with how cool is the Inflation Reduction Act? Sounds like a completely...
I wish they had a cool name. But we love it. Yeah.
It's not a cool name.
But a weird name that helps get it.
Exactly. Whatever gets the job done.
Yeah, I mean, it is without a doubt the most aggressive climate legislation in the country's history. It has $374 billion behind it, and by many estimates that will unlock trillions in additional private capital investment. We're already seeing that happen. A bunch of plants around the country have been announced. I'm hearing people talking about bringing way more US manufacturing. I'm hearing textile manufacturers talking about manufacturing textiles in the US. It's cheaper to cut and sew in Mexico or Guatemala. But we can use the technology to produce the textiles here. So that's very interesting. It's long reaching, this act, it will definitely have an impact on reducing emissions. I don't know if you guys ever gotten all tingly about legislation before?
I can't believe I feel like I still pinch myself that it actually passed. I literally can't believe it. It didn't it was far from certain. And in fact, it was it was everything but dead. And then there was that surprise, surprise, come back.
Okay, we talked about this a couple times on the show this year, big moves at the two COPs we got a loss and damage commitment at COP 27 In Egypt, which I think was was like, the biggest thing that happened in a COP I mean, it wasn't really on our radar for going to be the big thing. But it turned out to be that there was an important biodiversity commitment at COP 15 in Montreal.
That was bigger. I almost think that was bigger.
I think it was more successful. I think it was more well received.
It got some headlines, I guess. That was the one that the US didn't sign on to and I think that I feel like that probably clouded my feelings about success. I don't know. I don't know why we didn't sign on.
Well, we claim. Neither but I do know we claim we have the equivalent,
Whatever that means, right? Well, anyway, so I mean, I don't know. Anybody want to sum up? Are we like really optimistic for the next cops coming out of these ones or no? Oh, Rachel shook her head quickly.
No, I just don't see a whole lot of especially in the carbon space, it just seems like there are more people representing the lobbying interests that are not there to have productive conversations about what we can do to meet our climate, Paris Climate Accord, goals in less than 10 years that we need to basically save the planet. I don't see like drastic movement coming out of these very large conferences that take a lot of money and carbon to get to.
So like Greta Thunberg said, it's more blah, blah, blah.
Yes, whatever Greta says. Yeah, let's take a moment of silence for her murdering of Andrew Tate.
Yeah, that was amazing.
Twitter is still alive. But Andrew is not.
If there's anybody on this planet that missed that Andrew Tate is a kickboxer is British, but he was living in Romania because he was apparently in trouble in the UK or something for he calls himself a self a misogynist. So you can only imagine, so he tweeted at Greta Thunberg. Some boasts about his huge carbon emissions for all his cars and asked her to let him email her so he could tell her more and she responded, "Yes, please. Please tell me, email me at small penis energy at getalife.com."
And the internet rolled over and died.
Yes, exactly.
And then he got arrested. Right? Because of his response to her tweet. It was pretty great.
And then he posted a video, which was the saddest video ever talking about how he doesn't recycle pizza boxes. And he was smoking a cigar.
Well, you know, I have this feeling watching the news at COP that you're right. You guys, would you say that there's too many lobbyists in there. And then sort of everything just slows down and nothing is happening.
Yeah. But let's talk about what what was good this year about fashion.
Well look at look at all these European and Australia. I mean, Norway, passed that act and started hammering fast fashion brands and brands that are greenwashing. Greenwashing became a super hot button issue. So we've been talking about greenwashing for years. Yeah. But I feel like it reached I don't know if it's a climax because I think it's going to be more so in 2023. Yeah, but people are not having it. And governments are not having it, which is a really good thing to say. I wish I could say that in the US. But but you UK Competition and Markets Authority launching an investigation into ASOS, Boohoo. And George at ASDA scrutinizing their green claims, they have a green claims code now in the UK, which holds brands or you know, is appearing to begin to hold brands' feet to the fire. The French passed the climate and resilience law. I think that goes into effect this year. Right. So at some point, I don't know a lot about it. But it's you know, again, trying to hold brands feet to their fire, the European Union passed its Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, I think that kicks in in another year. It gives brands some time, but I'm already hearing signs that European brands are paying attention realizing they have to have to come to the plate. I think that's one of the reasons frankly, why that group of Italian brands that we talked about two weeks ago, or have come together to form a coalition, because they know they need to support, you know, they need each other support to meet the demands of the there's a lot. I mean, I don't know, you think I'm wrong, to be optimistic about what's happening?
Yeah, it was funny. We were sharing that poll done by Vogue where consumers apparently are not optimistic about sustainability. Right.
Or they were they were negative about the progress made last year was that yeah, was that the framing?
Yeah, negative about the progress made or or ambivalent. But I actually know, I was thinking about this lot. And actually, I think it's a good thing. Because while I disagree with them, I think it means they're interested.
You disagree with consumers feeling negative.
Yeah, I mean, having been in this for what, 15 over 15 years, I think we've made more progress ever than ever this year. I mean, and I'll name some of the things I think are indicative of that, but I think consumers are now hip to like, what a mess we're in. Right? And of course, like when you stick your head out, you know, out of the sand and see what a mess we're in, you're like, Oh, my God, this is awful, like, fix it. But there's so many complexities to it, as you know, that's why we have this whole podcast dedicated. And so parsing out those complexities and understanding what is progress, what's not, is very confusing. And there's they're also seeing all this. Like, there's legislative action being taken by consumers and, you know, against brands for greenwashing. And so that is, you know, putting a microphone where there wasn't in a more significant way and drawing more people into the fold, to understand sort of the, the crimes against the environment our industry commits. But that said, I think the industry is like finally facing its demons in a way that we haven't before.
I mean, for years and years, we would have conferences where we would say this is a problem. There are key indicators that this is a problem. We need to discover the levers to pull solve for this problem. And that was that happened for like a decade, like that kind of talk, and it was exhausting. It's a long time. It's a long time to keep going and it's only the small wins that have kept me going and, and lots of people who are working really hard to keep, you know, momentum and finally this year, I mean this year for me when I see like $250 million commitment from AII, H&M $283 million a year now to launch decarbonisation programs; we had ThredUP reported 3x growth from 2021 to 2022 for the number of resale launches there. 2021 had 35 resale partnership launches announced this year, we had 121 resale launches, and I think there are well, but those are just who they're reporting. And then I mean, Vestiaire is banning fast fashion, ThredUP is now charging for its clean out bags; calling out Shein. These are actionable steps. These aren't just conferences where people are saying something needs to be done. And we need to understand more about what the problem is. This is people are putting their money where their mouth is.
Is it enough now? Is the progress slow? Yes. Is it very not transparent? Yes. But it's like something like we can point to something we can point to a lot of things and policy to I mean, we've got two bills. We had one bill passed in California, we have one bill on deck and in New York, the fashion act we have a federal bill, the fabric act? Yeah. I mean, this this would have been if you would have asked me two years ago if we'd have one bill that was passed for labor rights here in the United States, a federal bill that would improve that would onshore manufacturing, and improve labor conditions for garment workers here and a New York based bill that has global implications on sustainability in the fashion industry. If you would have told me two or three years ago that this this was gonna happen like this, these policy efforts, I would not have believed you I would have said in the next 10 years maybe
Kirsten Gillibrand, are you listening? Will you come on hot buttons and tell us about this fabric act? She will? I think she will. I hope so. I hope so the fabric we have to talk about that more, because that's big. And that's another one. The talks that you know, talk about onshoring more, more fashion production. I've spent so much you know, the last 15 years of my career talking about fashion designers manufacturing overseas trying to design overseas. It's a nightmare for everybody. It's a nightmare for the ateliers, the designers, it's no good for the consumers. It's so expensive, crazy. And we have a we have the capacity here. By far. I mean, foreign once had a massive apparel industry. But I want to ask you something, you and you're talking about all this, in that you've been doing this Rachel for 15 years, I just so so when you're like sitting on a plane chatting with the person next to you, and you tell them what you do, or when you go into a party where you don't know people and they say so what do you do Rachel and you tell them? It's so hard? Has the response changed from like when you did that 10 years ago? And when you do that today?
Oh my gosh. So at my house the other night, I had a New Year's Eve party and someone was telling me about some sustainable fashion thing. And I was like, well, actually, that's my job. And they're like, "Oh, really?" and I have people telling me about sustainable fashion before I tell them I work in it, which is like 10 years ago. 15 years. When I said, you know, there's this thing called ethical and sustainable fashion, it's a movement. People would say that doesn't that's not a thing. But that's about like, how does that even no one cares? And now people tell me and I say, Oh, well, that's actually that's, that's my job.
That's awesome is great. And then they fangirl on you.
I don't know, I don't even know if they fangirl it's just so big. It's like, Oh, of course, you work in fashion, you work in sustainability? You know?
Yeah. Well, I think that's such helpful perspective about, you know, putting all the efforts and achievements last year in perspective. And just in terms of long term perspective, there's so much progress accelerated last year. And I'm curious, Rachel, for you, do you feel like that translates to some of the things that you hope to see or that you think we will see this coming year?
I do, I think that things are really moving. Now we have a lot of smart people. We have the the financing efforts, the creative financing efforts that are starting to go into this that are a lot of which we probably haven't even heard about yet, that take a while to sort of formulate and get together, I think we're going to start to see some really big, I mean, the fact that Patagonia gave away its company, they were probably planning on that for a really long time, like those kinds of like, whoa, like these people mean it, they know there's a target on their backs, there is consumer pressure, there's regulatory pressure, there is existential and non existential, real climate pressure, like our communities are disappearing. Being in the business of making a product right now is one of the most tenuous businesses I think you can be in because you have to stand by that physical item. And I just think the gig is up and people are just trying to figure it out.
Yeah, I agree completely. I think for me, you know, when I think about this year coming up ahead, I don't really have predictions about what will happen, because I feel like it's just so hard to predict what's going to happen. But I have kind of wishes, that of things that I hope will happen. So I think on the retail front, I agree, Rachel, you know, it was exciting to see that Thredup report about how many more brands have now adopted resale as part of their business models. 121 brands now. And I think that will accelerate this year, I think almost every brand and retailer is already discussing how if they haven't already announced a resale strategy they're planning to and I think you'll see, even almost every brand and retailer announce some sort of resale strategy. But what I think what I hoped for, you know, the other piece of that Thredup report is how many items are offered across these resale programs. And they have about 146,000 items offered up for resale across 121 brands, which is about 1200 items per brand. And that's tiny. And you know, each retailer makes, you know, millions, collectively that globally, we create 100 billion new items of clothing approximately every year. So this is a drop in the bucket. And what I really hoped for is for retailers and brands to move more deeply into resale and to make a bigger commitment to it, to supporting circularity and to make resale more fundamental part of their core business. So that's my wish. I think it's a great starting point. They're all experimenting, and they're piloting. But I think so far, it's pretty surface. And I want that I want it to be deeper.
I'd love to ask you a question Shilla about that, and maybe this goes back to some things we've talked about before with between, like consumer and regulatory pressure, but like, how do you hold brand's feet to the fire? To do so to get deeper into this and not just use these partnerships as a marketing campaign?
Yeah, I loved Selfridge's announcement where they said, 50% of our revenues within 10 years is going to come from repair, resale, refill, or rental. And I think that it's as simple as that from the top. Yeah, it has to be a commitment that, that a core percentage, and it has to be a top line revenue goal is going to come from this program, and then you figure it out. And then you work with your lieutenants. And there's a lot of operational logistical complexity, as Rachel knows really well. But I think that you have to make a commitment like that from the top, from the board and from the C suite. And then the rest of the organization has to figure out the logistics to support it. Leadership. That's what it is. Exactly, exactly. The other thing I was also excited about, you know, I feel like people are being held to task for greenwashing. Google published a study last year that 72% of North American executives agree their organization's overstated their sustainability efforts.
That's the honest one. Yeah, exactly, actually 99.9. Exactly.
And then back to the whole thing. You know, I would I didn't say when I was giving my little optimism speeches like, it's also we have to, or someone, I mean, public can't be totally accountable for this. But there has to be accountability in commitments. You know, there. There have been a lot of big commitments, but then what?
Exactly right. So yeah, so I think words will continue to matter this year. And, and I agree with you, Christina, it wasn't the climax last year, I think that's still yet to come in terms of accountability for greenwashing. But I think that just continues to accelerate. I hope, I don't know if we're 100% there yet, but I hope people will take ownership for their clothing waste. And I think, rather than thinking we can dump our clothes off of at a donation center, that we either hold on to clothes for longer, we give them a second chance, we try to work with them, tailor them, upcycle them, or we try to give them to a friend, or we try to sell it ourselves, and make sure that sale happens ourselves. And I think you know, taking ownership over our own clothing waste helps reduce our consumption cycle, because you're you start to take it you start to take control and real accountability for your purchasing decisions. So that's my last hope for this year.
Well, it makes me wonder, I'd be curious to hear what you think about something that I started to do lately, I had I, after the pandemic, or you know, in toward, you know, in the last year or so I've just completely changed the way I want to dress and I've been getting rid of a lot of clothing that I've been wearing for I mean, I've some of it's expensive stuff that I purchased for my work to wear to fashion shows and interviewing executives and things like that, and just not going to wear it anymore. And I did I had the real real come over several times. And I you know, I sold a bunch of stuff that they were willing to take, but there was a lot of stuff that they weren't. And I was thinking, "Oh, I should do Poshmark or this." And I finally thought poor Goodwill. They're awash and fast fashion. I shouldn't give them this stuff. I know I could make some money, selling it. But it's a huge hassle to do that. I don't know, maybe I'm just trying to give myself an excuse for taking the lazy way out and giving it to Goodwill. But I have given a lot of really expensive clothing to Goodwill. In the last six months. Is that bad?
No, the biggest question I get is what should I do with my clothes. And to be truthful, any, whether you're mailing it somewhere or giving it to someone, it's all the same routes, someone's going to try to sell it, whether it's supporting whether their profits go to supporting job programs, or their for profit public company, they're going to try to sell the good stuff, which is good for everybody that this good stuff gets sold and doesn't go to the trash. Okay, but then the stuff that's not great is either going to be turned into rags and or exported to other countries and, and some of the good stuff will too. And whatever can't be sold is someone's trash, generally, some of it will be down cycled, but we don't have recycling yet really at the scale we'll need and that's the answer. So whatever is most easy for you and for your life, try not to throw it in the trash, try to give it another life, try to get some money for it if that benefits you. But don't feel bad if you're sending it to ThredUp or giving it to Goodwill, or sending it wherever because the routes for everyone is pretty much exactly the same.
Okay, so it's like it's not a bad thing. I mean, I don't have a lot of fast fashion to give away. But by the way, I also give to Out of the Closet. I don't want to just say Goodwill, because those are my...
Is that like a Dress for Success?
No, it's similar to Goodwill, but it's it's supporting LGBTQ.
Right? Yeah, yeah. And I do it because of that. But also, they're actually really well run. So it's good. I think they do a good job with having locations and merchandising them and things like that. I have no idea how they decide what they sell them what they don't sell. I mean, I do worry about because we read so much about that they get more than they can deal with and they're having to sell things off to rag sellers and whatnot.
I'm going to make a slightly nuanced addition to kind of what Rachel said, which is, you know, I've definitely engaged in dumping bags of clothes at Goodwill. And I think donating high quality clothes to Goodwill is always great because they're currently awash in very low quality clothes. And for people who are shopping there for need. It's great when they can get access to high quality clothes. So you know, it's not really about, like, transferring guilt on us because it's not really our fault. It's really we got to hold companies accountable for producing so much stuff in the first place. But, you know, I do think that there there's an element of being able to take a massive amount of clothing, put it in a bag and just dump it somewhere. There's a there's an element of it that's like conscience laundering.
I totally agree.
I think it's uncomfortable to admit that but there is an element that is that it makes us feel better. We're, we don't have to deal with it. It's a hassle. And we just want someone else to deal with it. And what ends up happening as Rachel, I think, wrote or said recently about, you're really just conferring on somebody else how to manage your waste. I think it is a pain to sell your stuff individually, or to try to figure out which friend or family member is really going to use it or to try and figure out okay, how can I rework this item, so I might actually wear it, that is a pain, but I think adding more friction at the end, might help us also add more friction to the beginning, and maybe potentially be more thoughtful about what we consume.
Beautifully put.
Yeah, well said. Which comes back to if you buy less than you don't have to figure out how to throw it all away then.
Right. Exactly. And your friends will want it more if you don't want it. You know, it's just more valuable.
That's true. So I thought this is interesting Pintrest put out a prediction for this upcoming year. And they said for the last three years, in their predictive Trend Report 80% of their predictions came true, which I was shocked by.
What? I didn't know about that.
But if you think about the way people use Pinterest, I'm actually like, that makes sense. Because people use Pinterest to plan future purchases. Weddings, interior design, etc. So I thought actually, maybe it is true, I don't know. But I thought it was one of their one of their predictions that people will mix more vintage into home decor. They said 850% increase in an eclectic interior design vintage search on the on their platform, and 530% increase on mixing modern and antique furniture. So hopefully, we'll see more of that trend. And then I thought this was fun that they said they predicted y2k Fashion is coming back with a roar in 2023.
I don't know there any trends coming around anymore? I'm completely overwhelmed. I look at trend reports and I'm like, "Did I read that five years ago? Or is this the one that just come across my desk?" I can't even tell anymore? 10 million microtrends means there's no trends? Didn't we talk about that a little bit? I think yes. Sort of discussing that.
So many trends means no trends. And did you guys see on Pantone's color of the year?
No, what is it? Okay.
Viva magenta. It's super red. Yes, they called it a boundaryless shade that is manifesting as a standout statement.
Do you want to say anything about your personal goals? For 2023?
Do you have a good one? Christina?
I guess I have a personal goal. And that is to buy very little new fashion at all, like, and if it is, it's going to be a really amazing piece, I'm going to take all the money that I might have spent on other things and do that. So that's part of it. But also I realized that I have a husband and two children that I've also been shopping for for years. And, and I want to instill in some of them some of the sort of the lessons that I've internalized out of talking to the two of you for the last six months, nine months, however long it's been long, not long enough, but I've enjoyed and I've learned so much from the two of you, and I want to spread it in my family. I don't want to be proselytizing on sidewalks about it, because that'd be weird. I think I think I have to get that out more in my family. Some of whom still buy fast fashion.
Mine we're more we're not kind of related to the topics of this podcast, my personal ones are about I'd like to prioritize health and mental wellness for myself. And, also I'd like to say yes, I think you know, I often feel very stretched and time starved you know, with with kids and work and everything else and and I actually want to say yes more to connecting with friends and acquaintances. I think that you know, our time is precious. And you I learned that more and more every year and you really want to be present for the people you care about in your life, so those are mine.
Those are beautiful. I think mine is I want to work more efficiently, like I want to focus on the growth of my business so that I have time to have a work-life balance. I've spent a lot of years kind of very busy, very surviving. And I think I've gotten to a place where I'm really excited about the work, I'm doing: the podcast, the policy work, I have some great clients. And I'm thinking about what I would like that to look like, as it gets, as it grows. And what a what a, what that would enable for my outside life because I'm 100% a workaholic. And, and it doesn't work for me anymore. Like, it just I think to your point, Sheila, like, life is so short, especially as you get into your 40s you've got all these babies being born and you have a lot of people getting sick and passing away. And it really gives you this like window of there's just like, a few years, we have to like, yeah, you know, do the things that we love with the people we love. And a lot of times it's not work. And I think that when you think about sustainability is is the most sustainable thing you can do in your life. Yeah, you know, how to be a full full human, which is hard when you work in our industry. Fashion is cutthroat and nonstop sustainability is the same, maybe worse. And you live in New York, and you can get trapped in the rat race and to what end? I think when you work in sustainability to you're also a public servant in a lot of ways and to be a public servant, you cannot be burnt out constantly. Like, you have to be available. Otherwise, because the best laid intentions can go really wrong. Like there's a lot of ancillary consequences to to doing sustainability in the wrong way.
That sounds like you guys are I don't use the term quiet quitting because it's not at all what you guys are doing but but stepping back and balancing.
Yeah, absolutely.
So we're we're going to be skipping the next few weeks of the pod. (laughter) Scott, our producer, is like "what?"
"You guys don't have time off!"
Christina, I know you have a really, you have a burning hot button this week. We'd love to hear more about it.
It is on fire. And I want to say that I never watch American football. I am completely a soccer fan. You guys know that. But I was I was looking at my Twitter feed last night and I saw all of the stuff coming across it saying that a player that I honestly I you know, I don't follow football so I didn't know him but a player named Hamlin who's a safety for the the Buffalo Bills had been under CPR for nine minutes was on the field of the game. And I walked out of the room and I said to my husband "Have you ever heard of this guy and what's going on?" and my husband's like "what?" and turns on the TV and we then watched like two hours of what is like a horror show of this game. Hamlin tried to tackle he's he's he's a defensive player. He tried to tackle an offensive player in Cincinnati, the Bengals, and apparently it looks like at the very moment of when they impacted the guy's a chest or helmet hit Hamlin's chest and caused a heart attack. And they brought him back. He's now in the hospital. And last we've heard he's on a ventilator. And you know, I mean, the game was ended. Nobody knows how they're going to work all that out. They did the right things as much as they could. But as I was watching and reading and thinking about there was another player whose name I forget Tua somebody who has had three concussions since September. The second one that he had two months ago. He went down he'd been he'd been cleared to play went down and went into this thing that's called fencing, fencing maneuver or something where his brain caused his hands to go up like this. And in these weird, like, splayed thing apparently when you have severe brain damage, your hands will freeze like this. So he's on the football field like this and they cleared him to play two weeks ago. And he landed again and got a third concussion. What? What is? Is this some sort of Gladiator? I'm yeah, I'm not the first to say this. But it's very frustrating to me that we have a culture that is supporting people being injured. It's awful and killed potentially.
It sounds like they didn't make the right decision for too long. In the game that you're referencing from last night. I didn't watch it, but I followed on social media what was happening. It sounded like it was it was a little bit too long that they didn't actually tried to restart the game until the players and the coaches, and the players refused. Yeah, I said absolutely not. And I you know, it's it's wild to me that I definitely wouldn't let my son's play. And it's it's it's hard for me to imagine people putting profits over people's health and lives but here we are.
People were saying that the the other player, the offensive player for Cincinnati, was feeling terrible. And you have now looked at the at the replay of what happened a billion times and no, I mean, they both did what they're supposed to do. You know, one is trying to gain a few yards and the other was trying to tackle him. It didn't look that crazy what happened. It's just that they're trained to put their bodies at risk.
The problem is the game's design.
I mean, a lot of people think it shouldn't exist it as it is today, right? Just because of the brain injuries alone. That can happen not from extreme accidents, but just concussions over time.
Good hot button, Christina. Yeah, I don't think we can follow that.
That's all for the show. Please support us by following us on Twitter at @hotbuttonspod, and now on Instagram at hotbuttons.pod or send a link to friends or colleagues and go to Apple or Spotify and give us a rating please. We're also streaming on Amazon Music and we really really appreciate your support.
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Hot Buttons is hosted by me Christina Binkley, Shilla Kim-Parker and Rachel Kibbe. The show is produced by Post Script Media. Our senior editor is Anne Bailey, our engineer is Sean Marquand. Steven Lacey, Scott Clavenna and Rachel Kibbe are our executive producers. Post Script Media makes podcasts at the intersection of climate with culture, politics, business, and tech. Post Script Media is supported by Prelude Ventures. Prelude is a venture capital firm focused on climate solutions across energy, food, agriculture, transportation, logistics and advanced materials. Thanks for joining us. We'll catch up with you next week and Happy New Year.
