15/07/2022
Professor Becky Earley guests Garmology this week to talk about making the industry of fashion more circular, and what circularity actually means. We cover topics such as how much we wear our clothes, the problems charity shops face, the pros and cons of user-to-user reselling, how the production of clothes has been steeply increasing and the interest from the garment…
08/07/2022
The magic school bus of Garmology stops today in rainy Manchester to take onboard Joe Schindler for a salty chat about denim, small-scale production, making in the UK, how to stumble and keep going in business, how being your own boss means working all hours and the value in making only stuff you really like yourself. You can find Joe…
01/07/2022
This week Genevieve Sweeney stops by to chat about the easy path of starting her knitwear brand. Or rather, how wanting to start making knitwear led her on a tour of discovery of discarded and obsolete machinery, meeting contacts in run-down pubs, locating expert knitters that had been put out to pasture, her husband becoming a trojan horse to get…
24/06/2022
Today’s guest is Alice Sherwood, author of the new book “Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture”. We have a fascinating chat about the counterfeit goods and how brands are actually helping the fakers, storytelling in marketing, how almost all fashion design is an incremental process, influencer culture and how AI is making is both enabling the theft of information…
17/06/2022
This week’s guest is David Courtney of Courtney & Co, arguably the last of the traditional button makers in the UK. I was keen to invite David for a chat about how he happened into what is a rather unusual business, requiring as it does both a plethora of machinery and some rather special source materials. Not to mention the…
03/06/2022
Today’s guest is Chris Hewitt. Chris started out in 2008 wanting to make a pair of sustainable jeans. He’d been dealing in vintage for a while and had a mate that had briefly worked in the fashion industry, so how hard could it be? Harder than he’d imagined, as it turned out. Tune in for the twisty tale of trying…
27/05/2022
In this episode, I’m visited by Tim Little, owner of traditional shoemaker Grenson. We chat about how Tim initially planned to be an accountant, took a turn into marketing, found his passion for shoes while working for Adidas, and went on to own one of the grand old names of Northamptonshire shoe making. Topics include the need for considered progress,…
20/05/2022
This week’s guest is Molly Martin, author, illustrator and mender. Molly’s book “The Art of Repair” is a wonderful combination of techniques and illustrated garment stories and real garmology material. We chat about the historical necessity of repairing garments, how wartime and rationing made it important to be able to repair what you wore, the Japanese techniques of Sashiko and…
13/05/2022
Continuing down the path to the doors of small makers, today we find ourselves sharing time with Becca and Ben of Pajotten. Established in 2016 as a midlife change of pace and direction, Pajotten makes workwear inspired garments one at a time, to order and size, building a loyal customer base along the way. We chat about their background and…
06/05/2022
This week Janelle of White Weft in London drops by to talk about her life in the denim industry as a designer, how she is now upcycling worn out denim into new products, the joy of repairing broken jeans, how stretchy jeans and elastane are the banes of recycling denim, designing fits, how the industry is a greenwashing nightmare, oh,…