Episode 207: The Future of Fashion is Small, with Angela of FABRIC

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that is kinda excited to barely talk about SHEIN this week!

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 207.  This week’s guest is Angela Johnson, co-founder of FABRIC, a “fashion incubator providing programs, classes, services and resources to help fashion designers and entrepreneurs reach their potential.” As I mentioned in the introduction to the first episode in the SHEIN series, I had the opportunity to visit FABRIC in Tempe, Arizona a few months ago.  And I have to say, I was super blown away by what I saw while I was there.  I think this episode is a nice, optimistic palate cleanser after six hours of conversation about SHEIN, because Angela and everyone else at FABRIC are trying to create a future for fashion that is the antithesis of fast fashion: small batches, minimal waste, and fueled by small businesses. As you know, I believe that small business IS the future, and yes, I know that some small businesses are owned by terrible people or don’t pay people well or sell bad stuff that they buy from Temu. Yes, that really happens.  But ultimately, these bad small businesses are outnumbered by good businesses run by good people who want a better present and future. And you know what? The odds are stacked against them because–especially in the realm of clothing and any other consumer goods–the supply chain is controlled by the big corporations, meaning that small business owners have to work like ten times harder to make things that are good.   FABRIC is working to change that by building a fully circular supply chain here in the United States, powered by many, many small businesses.  Not only is that a win in terms of sustainability (and I mean that in the purest way, per the UN Sustainable Development Goals that we discussed last week), it could also bring the innovation, creativity and artistry back to fashion. 

This week’s episode is a long one, but I couldn’t find anything I wanted to cut.  So you could split this one over a few listening sessions if you want.  We will be discussing:

• Angela’s experiences as a designer, both at the beginning of her career, and as she started her own brand.
• We’ll get a little nostalgic with some conversation about her time working at X-Girl, an iconic 90s brand founded by Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth) and Daisy von Furth. And oh yeah, we’re also going to talk about Days of Our Lives.
• Angelea will explain how everything she learned working in the garment industry in LA (along with her loyalty to her home state of Arizona) led her to create a fashion incubator in Tempe, Arizona.
• We will also hear more about the vision for the Eco Park, a fully circular fashion manufacturing hub  and what it will take to bring that to life.
• And we will round that all out by talking about how important it is to keep up this work, even on the days when it is really hard.

Before we jump into that, I just want to remind you that July 15 (the day this episode is released) is the very last day to buy a ticket for the first and only Clotheshorse Jamboree.  So if you’re listening to this episode on the 15th, go buy your ticket now or forever hold your peace!

That’s all I have to say about that…let’s jump into my conversation with Angela!

Unfortunately there were some major issues with the transcription app this week.

Here are other ways you can access the transcript:

• Apple podcasts includes a transcript when you use the app to listen.
• Listen to this episode (with captions) on YouTube.
• If there is a specific section you need, please reach out to me (Amanda) and I will try to manually make a transcript of that section for you.

Thanks to Angela for spending a few hours with me! I hope that I get a chance to return to Tempe again so I can hang out with her team, because everyone at Fabric is amazing! I want to give a shout out to Amelia for picking me up at the airport in her beautiful vintage car. Leslie for making sure I was well cared for while I was there (and bonding with me over single motherhood). And Angela and Sherri for creating an organization and a team that fills me with so much hope for a better future.

The last thing I’ll say to finish out this episode (because it’s 96 degrees outside and I need to turn that air conditioner back on) is this: there are many reasons why I wanted to feature Angela on an episode of Clotheshorse.  And by now you’ve probably realized most of them while listening to our conversation.  But there is one that you might not have picked up on and that’s this: for so long sustainable fashion and even a lot of the activism around it has been led by people with a lot of financial privilege.  Let’s be honest: the biggest names and even some of the organizations within the sustainability realm feel super white, financially comfortable, young, thin, and cisgendered.  And when I started Clotheshorse, I was acutely and painfully aware of that.  It felt just like working within the normal fashion industry.  There were a lot of days where I felt that someone like me–a nonbinary person in my 40s with a low income background and cancer scars–could never be a part of this.  That no one would want to listen to me because I wasn’t pretty, rich, and young. Certainly it made me feel like an outsider during my career. I don’t think I could have continued to work on Clotheshorse if I had found that the world outside of fashion, this community that was working against fast fashion, was the same as being inside fashion. Fortunately, over the years, I have found so many of you who have felt left out of the sustainable fashion community because you didn’t fit into those boxes, either.  

That’s one of the reasons  I use the term “slow fashion” rather than “sustainable fashion,” because slow fashion is for everyone, everybody, all of us. 

One thing that has struck me time and time again over the last few  years—and was particularly driven home by my visit to FABRIC–is that  WE are the ones doing the hard work of changing the status quo. We are the ones talking to our friends and family. Starting small ethical businesses.  Joining together to build the world we want.  And many of us are doing it the hard way because we don’t have generational wealth to fund our businesses or pay our bills.  Many of us are operating with no safety net as we try to change this world. We have so much to lose, and yet, we know that what the world will lose even more  if fast fashion continues as it currently is. 

So I want you to know that I see your hard work. I see that you get so tired and frustrated that sometimes you just have to cry.  I see those days when you just wish you didn’t know what you know now and you could just cover your ears and stop caring because…it would be EASIER than knowing and wanting to change things.

You matter.  And what you are doing matters, even if you feel like your contribution is tiny. It’s like I always say, one person can’t change the world alone, but when we are all working together, supporting one another, encouraging one another…well, we will change the world.  And we already are.  Look around you. It’s really happening.