REBECCA BURGESS on Soil to Soil Fiber Systems /200
Photo by Martin Schmidli
Up until this year, the global fashion industry was responsible for producing 150 billion items of clothing each year - items composed of carcinogenic and mutagenic dyes, items responsible for 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and items that require the outsourcing of atrocious working conditions and environmental degradation beyond our purview. However, fast fashion does not have to be our predestined future. This week’s guest, Rebecca Burgess, shares how regional and regenerative slow fashion is possible. In lieu of the behemoth that is fast fashion, how might regional textile communities strengthen our agricultural systems? How does the re-emergence of cottage industry ensure healthy environments? Or how does cultivating soil-to-soil fashion strengthen our belonging, connection and responsibility to place? How can our clothing become a mirror and homage to the places we love, the kin that can cloth us and the flora that colors our world?
“Our clothes should be able to go back to the soil.”
Rebecca Burgess by Paige Green
Rebecca Burgess is the Executive Director of Fibershed, and Chair of the Board for Carbon Cycle Institute. She has over a decade of experience writing and implementing hands-on curriculum that focuses on the intersection of restoration ecology and fiber systems. She has taught at Westminster College, Harvard University, and has created workshops for a range of NGOs and corporations. She is the author of the best-selling book Harvesting Color, a bioregional look into the natural dye traditions of North America, and Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy, released in 2019. She has built an extensive network of farmers and artisans within our region’s Northern California Fibershed to pilot the regenerative fiber systems model at the community scale.
Rebecca begs the question; if much of our clothing originates from the soil, why don’t we interrogate the fashion industry the way we do the agricultural industry? In order to answer this question, we begin by exploring the rise of industrialized fashion and its global impact – when did we start to rampantly consume clothing? With this groundwork understanding, we learn about the history and harm of synthetic dyes and plastic-based textiles, as well as the shortsightedness of “sustainable” fashion innovations. Working to make her experience accessible to others, Rebecca shares how we can begin transitioning to a bioregional textile culture and make choices that facilitate the ability to take our clothing from soil-to-soil. The invitation to participate in slow fashion is here.
♫ Music by Gun Outfit & Crispy Watkins & The Crack Willows
Take Action
Download Fibershed’s free Clothing Guide
Sign up for Fibershed’s Newsletter
Connect with your regional Fibershed Affiliate
Shop directly with regional fiber producers through the Northern California Fibershed Cooperative
Donate to directly support carbon farming practices
Episode References
EARTH LOGIC: Fashion Action Research Plan by Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham
May West: Milkweed Based Textil Innovation
HABERDASHEMERGENCY | Kate Fletcher
Fibershed’s Clothing Guide: A Menu of Actions and Options
Mending Matters: Stich, Patch, And Repair Your Favorite Denim & More by Katrina Rodabaugh
Recommendations
Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy by Rebecca Burgess
Coronavirus offers "a blank page for a new beginning" says Li Edelkoort
EARTH LOGIC: Fashion Action Research Plan by Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham
Drawdown by Paul Hawken
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson
Raw Material: Working Wool in the West by Stephany Wilkes
Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert
Mending Life: A Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts by Nina and Sonya Montenegro
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For The Wild is a slow media organization dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. As we dream towards a world of grounded justice and reciprocity, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.