Safia Minney MBE is an award-winning, international social entrepreneur, speaker and advisor. She has over 20 years' experience as a Global CEO of the company she founded, People Tree, developing the first sustainable and Fair Trade supply chains and standards with advisory roles with industry bodies.
It is a good overview of sustainability and great to see that the
book is coming to this from lots of different angles, from fibres
to case studies. We hope to make the students fully engaged with
this as it is key to becoming an informed designer.
*UAL*
A great overview of leaders within design and manufacture within
the responsible fashion space.
*NORTHAMPTON COLLEGE*
An excellent resource... I love the depth and explanation the book
provides - especially all of the examples. The interviews with
different people and brands/companies are extremely insightful.
*INDIANA UNIVERSITY*
Safia's latest work builds on her incredible insights and
leadership as one of our world's foremost sustainable fashion
pioneers. Regenerative Fashion is honest and clear, while also
being exceptionally polite and accessible. It appropriately
articulates the urgency of regenerative models as well as the
beauty and joy of a better way. The examples across the fashion
industry also make this vision clearly actionable for brands, and
the book's conclusion offers practical advice that enables anyone
to support the regenerative revolution.
*Rebecca Ballard, Founder of The Fashion Connection and Maven
Women, US*
I came to the conclusion some time ago that I pretty much hated the
fashion industry - or, at least, most of it. Its negative impact on
people and the planet (notwithstanding the hundreds of millions of
jobs it creates) has been clear to us all for more than 20 years.
It's only marginally reduced those impacts during that time. Its
marketing and advertising presence in people's lives is huge - and
equally dishonest, devious and exploitative. Its 'greenwashing
capabilities' are limitless, as is powerfully revealed in
'Regenerative Fashion'.
And because governments won't regulate the industry in the way they
should (in both rich importing countries and poor exporting
countries), and most consumers are either unwilling or unable to
use their purchasing power to transform this malevolent force on
Planet Earth, and most companies and their investors are stuck deep
in volume-based, lowest-cost business models, it just goes on. And
on.
Safia Minney has fought against those oppressive forces for decades
- with courage, compassion and creativity. 'Regenerative Fashion'
is wonderful - as if all that success and failure, pain and joy,
false starts and breakthroughs are distilled in one beautiful,
hard-hitting burst of inspirational insights and shared
experiences. Her brief 'Editorial' introductions to each of the
three sections are packed full of analysis and thoughtful ways
forward.
But no-one goes alone in an endeavour of this kind. Safia has
sought out 36 co-creators of sustainable, ethical fashion brands,
providing a platform for their own astonishing stories, working
alongside ten campaigners and thought leaders to amplify those
practical efforts.
The combined effect is hugely invigorating. If, like me, you
sort-of hate this industry and what it stands for, 'Regenerating
Fashion will make you fall in love with what it could stand for in
the future.
*Jonathon Porritt, CBE*
Recent books like Alyssa Hardy's Worn Out (2022) and Dana Thomas'
Fashionopolis (2019) explored the fashion industry's excesses,
decrying such practices as the enslavement of clothing workers,
the overuse of fresh water and non-renewable resources, and the
disposal of tons of clothing which sits rotting in warehouses the
world over. This book offers hopeful, ethical, and sustainable
alternatives gathered through interviews with nearly 50 clothing
producers, designers, and craftspeople hailing mainly from the U.S.
and the UK, but also from India, Egypt, Vietnam, Iran, Nepal, and
Ethiopia. Some of the individuals run small family farms and local
collaboratives. Others are suppliers to major international
outlets. All have committed to methods that value the well-being of
humans and our planet. There are discussions about returning to
traditional crop rotation and herding techniques and reinstating
the use of natural fabrics and dyes alongside explanations of
emerging research on new sources for sustainable fabrics, such as
seaweed. It's both refreshing and reassuring to know that these
initiatives exist; hopefully the fashion industry will use
them.
*Booklist*
A call to anyone out there who still believes that a better future
is worth fighting for.
*Andrew Morgan, director of 'The True Cost'*
This book is very important. Safia articulates the urgency with
which we must act to transform the fashion industry and save our
planet with both authority and optimism.
Her vision for a holistically regenerative model is truly inspiring
and touches on every part of the garment-making process; starting
with the soil and good farming practices through to design,
production and distribution.
I share Safia's vision for a nature-based approach to fashion and
have been putting this into practice through my work at Bamford,
Daylesford and Nila for over twenty years. Reading this refreshing
new perspective serves as an important reminder that we all have a
responsibility to make better choices - shunning damaging
synthetics and supporting livelihoods through craft while helping
to restore all that we have taken from nature.
Fashion can - and should - be a force for good, and Safia's key
commitments are a viable way for us to achieve this for the sake of
future generations.
*Carole Bamford, founder of Daylesford*
This book is written by someone who knows their onions and has been
campaigning, through the lens of the fashion industry, for a fairer
world for a long long time. [...] Safia Minney lays down the
gauntlet, from experience, with intelligent and well-thought-out
arguments backed up by hard-to-argue-with facts. [...] This book
nudges the reader and the fashion industry to understand the
consequences of ignoring the facts.
*Wayne Hemingway, MBE, Hemingway Design*
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