08/09/2026
Perth podcasters Eugene Hooks and Stirling Fletcher invited DBE Senior Lecturer, Emily Wills to talk about the provocative idea that Fashion Can’t Be Sustainable. On this episode, Emily discusses a distinction she's made between the terms 'fashion' and 'clothing'. Emily has spent more than two decades working across design practice and education, challenging many of the assumptions surrounding the clothing industry. Rather than viewing clothing through the lens of fashion, she advocates for a broader conversation about design responsibility, material value, human labour and environmental impact.
Takeaways from the chat:
- the single most important thing that we can do as individuals to combat climate change is to drastically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, which means we need to consume less.
- cutting our own clothing consumption by 75-95% can help to slow down growth and reduce the carbon footprint of our clothing. This translates to buying less than 5 new garments per year, and ensuring any purchases we make are designed to last, and can be repaired.
- tackling climate change does not just rely on personal sacrifice, the responsibility also lies with business and government, and we must demand better initiatives if we want to see change. Sustainability is a long-term goal for many industries, battling with viability as well as future-proofing business success.
- for the fashion and textiles industry to be sustainable it must resolve its ties with exponential economic growth, develop social equity and reduce its use of the world’s finite resources in an endeavour to ensure the survival of our planet and its people.
Listen to the podcast here: https://www.butwhyadesignpodcast.com/p/013-clothing-cant-be-sustainable
