Listen Now

Do we always need to mend? How can mending help to nudge us towards significant behaviour shifts? What are the materials innovations that might help? Are there self-healing materials – or even self-destructing materials? In this bonus episode, I’m leading a panel discussion with TOAST, including amazing insights from Seetal Solanki, Tom van Deijnen, Celia Pym and Bonnie Kemske.  We discuss: - The art of kintsugi and what it means within Japanese culture. - The fine line between repairing invented holes and using repair techniques as embellishment. - The stories and conversations held within the damage and the process of repairing. - How a lot of the world’s fashion waste comes from fast fashion and why this is so problematic. - Who gets to decide when something is ‘broken’ and what that means.  … and more! Here are some highlights.   How stories come through during the act of mending something “What I discovered very quickly was that if you ask someone, ‘do you have a hole in your clothing?’ you very swiftly discover an awful lot about a person that you weren't expecting to learn. You learn who their relative is, how the thing got damaged, you learn about maybe someone who's important to them who's died. And I thought, I'm onto something here, 'cause I'm fundamentally quite a nosy person. I'm always, if I'm on a bus, the person who wants to talk to my neighbor. I was very excited and moved to discover that clothing and this invitation to repair clothing would invite all this conversation.” - Celia Pym Why the cycle of fast fashion is so problematic  “There are so many reasons, and I think a lot of it really comes down to the fact that we don't really care or respect these textiles, the clothing that they become and how they actually adorn our bodies. Because we haven't really formed a relationship to those pieces of clothing in a way where we build a relationship towards care and respect. We actually don't know where they have been derived from because the supply chain of a lot of the textiles being made for clothing is really convoluted and complicated, and deceitful. So it's really quite challenging to understand where things are being made, how they are being made, and where they end up even. We're so disconnected and so far removed from what things are made of, simply.” -  Seetal Solanki Things aren’t meant to last forever  “Not all materials will have a long life span, and I think that really stems down to the fact that there are materials that are meant to naturally bio degrade. And that's actually okay. And we need to be more accepting of the fact that things die. Everything has a birth, a life, a death and a re-birth, and that exists within the material world, human world, animal world, and plant world. We are so fixated on the fact that everything has to be long living, and I think there's a sense of renewal that needs to be understood a bit more, and that really comes down to the natural cycles of materials as well, that we need to kind of address rather than forcing our material to do something that maybe it's not meant to be doing.” -  Seetal Solanki Connect with the panelists:  Celia Pym Bonnie Kemske Tom van Deijnen Seetal Solanki The books we mentioned: Why Material Matter – Seetal Solanki Kintsugi: The Poetic Mend – Bonnie Kemske Wasted: When Trash become Treasure – Katie Treggiden Homemade Europe – Vladimir Arkhipov (sorry we could only find the follow-up to Homemade, the book Celia mentioned, and only on Amazon!)  About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

Is there a trade-off between affordability and disposability? Can we go back to a mindset of mending and repair, without pricing ourselves out? How do we overcome the objections of time, money and skillset to get more people involved in this movement?  On today’s episode, I’m talking to Tom van Deijnen – a self-taught textiles practitioner, founder of The Visible Mending Programme, and a volunteer at the Brighton Repair Café. He says that he likes ‘doing things that take forever’ because that slow pace gives him a deeper understanding of material qualities and traditional techniques. We discuss: - Why visibility in mending is important. - How wearing mended clothes still has associations with poverty for some people.  - His time with Brighton Repair Café and its values and purpose.  - Why mindset shifts are important as we try to move towards a more circular economy. … and more! Here are some highlights.   What interests him in the visibility of the mend “Originally, I was of the very traditional mindset of, ‘Oh, if I repair something, it needs to be invisible, nobody should be allowed to see it.’ It turns out that it is really, really difficult to repair something invisibly! It's just very, very difficult to do that. So I was thinking,  if you can kind of see it anyway, then just turn it into a feature and let's not try and hide the fact that it’s mended. I started changing my mind a bit about that, and then I started to enjoy adding something visible and highlighting the fact that my items have been worn. I love the patina of use anyway. I buy shoes that I really like, but I only find them really beautiful once I've worn them in and you get all the nice creases in the leather, that's when I find my shoes most beautiful or my bag or what have you. I enjoy seeing the patina of use and lots of people, for instance, with denim, they wanna see that used look. In fact, you can buy jeans pre-distressed. Obviously, there's a big interest in that. And for me, it's also a way of showing that I care about this item, highlighting the history of it. It's sometimes a conversation starter.  I'm not gonna shout “you must mend,” but if somebody asks me, “Oh, I see you've got this patch on there, what's that all about?’ Then I'll explain that I like to look after my clothes and make them last for longer, and this is why I do it. Look, we've had a conversation about it now, maybe if you fancy it, give it a go yourself.” The popularity of the visible mending movement on social media  “It's great to see. I really like seeing other people's repairs, and I really like the social aspect of social media. The Internet has really allowed people to come together from all over the world, and that's something that I really enjoy. I've met quite a few people through that. People I would never have met otherwise, and yeah, so you start sharing ideas and hear about how people in their own country or their own family look at these things and what they might do and not do, or how they view repairs. Yeah, I find it really interesting and it's very nice to see that so many people have embraced it.” The importance of understanding how things are made  “I think it's important to realize when I say we should go back to an older mindset, I'm not saying we necessarily need to raise prices, it's more about the way that people would treat these items that I think we should go back to. And the other thing that people often confuse is price versus ethical production. You might spend a lot of money on designer clothes, but that doesn't mean that they have been produced more ethically than a t-shirt from H&M or Next, they can be made even in the same factory, there will just be given higher quality materials to sew with, and they are allowed to spend more time putting it together or use different techniques that are a bit more expensive to use. I think for me, that means even if you did only spend five pounds on a t-shirt because that's what you can afford, try to look at it as if you have spent two weeks worth of wages or a month of wages on it, so you look after it.  And I think it is really difficult for people to understand. All clothes are made by hand. They are made by people.”  Amy Twigger Holyroyd's book Folk Fashion in which she talks about open and closed objects/systems/structures: https://amytwiggerholroyd.com/Folk-Fashion IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ Connect with Tom van Deijnen here. Follow Tom on Instagram here. About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram  @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here  and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here . If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

How does conservation differ from repair? How is it similar? How have the tenets and ideas of best practice with conservation changed over time? On today’s episode, I’m talking to Lauren Chang,  a textile specialist, who spins, dyes, weaves, and writes about textiles on her website interstitial-spaces.com. She holds a B.A. in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University and an MA in Textile Conservation from the Textile Conservation Centre in the United Kingdom. Lauren worked as a textile conservator at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the British Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. We discuss: -  How attitudes to repair differ between Chinese and American cultures. -  How the tenets and ideas of best practice with conservation have changed over time. -  The power dynamics at play in conservation between the people orchestrating the conservation and the people deciding what gets conserved and what doesn’t. - How we can start to repair some of those power imbalances within museums and within conservation. - The importance of ‘sitting in the discomfort of not knowing’, of holding two conflicting ideas at the same time, of nuance. … and more! Here are some highlights.   The difference between textile conservation and domestic repair  “Conservation is quite a rigorous and practical and theoretical discipline. So practically speaking, there are specifics like when you're stitching, you always move your needle or you place your pins through the interstices of the textile., so the spaces between the warps and wefts never split a thread. There’s also really stringent parameters around the material you select, so they don't cause damage just by sitting next to or how they age and degrade. There are also philosophical differences. You don't often choose what you repair. So for example, perhaps you work in a museum, it's usually exhibition driven. So you might be consulted for the choice of them looking at the condition, but the selection is really made by curatorial staff.” How opinions towards mending and repair have changed  “There's a point in conservation where you learn everything. You learn different techniques, but you realize that no action is neutral, right? So you do one thing and that causes all these other problems, then you do another thing, and it causes another problem. But you still have to move ahead. Maybe you’re repairing to be thrifty or to be respectful of the environment, and I'm learning that my actions have all these different repercussions, but it doesn't mean we just stop. I feel like that's where the conversation is going, and I think it's really important because if you sit in the complexity of the discomfort, I think you understand the frameworks that lead us to this point.” Preserving the soul and culture of an item (in this case, dance regalia from Northern California) “It was really tense. But I remember Loren saying, ‘Oh, these pieces haven't been sung to or danced to in a really long time, and that's why they're in such bad shape. So he sang to them. He started telling me about the history and how they were made and how they were used and how that relates to the contemporary traditions in the community. And he moved the pieces as if they would be danced. And towards the end they dressed me in his aunt's regalia, which was such an honor, but also so incredibly moving. And I think these were all acts of preservation and care. And the power had really shifted because I only learned as much as they were willing to share. And they also brought up a lot of ideas about conservation for me because it was clear that I could learn to care for the materials, the physical aspects of the dance regalia, but it was also clear that I could not care for them in a way that actually preserved them. So it raised the question of what is my role as the conservator? What is best care or best practice?  What are we conserving? And how do I fulfill my role in providing the best care?” Connect with Lauren Chang here.  Follow Lauren on Instagram here.  About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

Can mending and repair be used as self care? How can the traditions we’ve studied impact our current actions towards sustainability? Are we too disconnected from our past? What drives the culture of mending?  On today’s episode, I’m talking to Ekta Kaul, an award-winning London based artist. Her artistic practice is focused on creating narrative maps that explore places, history and belonging through stitch. A pared back aesthetic coupled with a considered use of graphic marks and lines form the core elements of her work. These are underpinned by a thoughtful approach to making with meaning, a deep interest in heritage and a firm commitment to sustainability.  We discuss: -  What role mending and repair can play in mental health and self-care. -  Her time both at the National Institute of Design in India and her MA in Edinburgh. -  Portrait of Place and why maps interest her so much.  - Her forthcoming book about kantha coming out in Spring/Summer 2023. - How she learned from her mother and grandmother, and how traditional skills can be modernized.  … and more! Here are some highlights.   Mending as an act of emotional repair “I feel that it is also an act of emotional repair. Sewing is so much related to catharsis and this idea of emotional repair for me, particularly within my own practice, this is something that I have come to realize, and I'm kind of reflecting more and more on this. When I am working with stitch, I am instantly connected to my mother, and I'm instantly connected to my grandmother and although they are not here in this world, it just feels that I'm sort of honoring their presence of what they handed down to me.” Stitching makes meditation accessible “It is about finding joy in creativity. It is about finding that space, a meditative space where all your worries begin to melt away and you're just focused on the journey that your needle is taking on the cloth. And really, I feel stitching makes meditation so accessible. This idea that sitting down for 20 minutes and listening to an app or focusing on our breathing, I know I do it and I find it so hard as do many people. But I feel that the cloth, the intimacy of the cloth there is something about that, and just this act of holding a needle and making a very simple line can help us access that state so very easily. And also it has a tremendous impact on our sense of well being.” Teaching our children traditional skills  “I also feel that there is the need to be teaching our children and young people how to mend things, and I imagine that the national curriculum should have a module on that and how they can fix the things that they use every day. And also, I feel that there’s much to be learned from the wisdom of ancient cultures, which at the moment, we have somehow, almost like an amnesia, has happened since the industrial revolution that everything done before that was somehow not right. Or could be improved upon. I'm not against progress, but what I'm saying is that we can re-imagine tradition in contemporary ways. We can apply that wisdom to today's problems.” Connect with Ekta Kaul here.  Follow Ekta on Instagram here.  About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

Do we only repair the things that we cherish? Is there a place for visible mending in our built environment as well as our clothes? Can a repair add value to the object that is mended? And do we always need to intervene with repair – or is 'curated decay' sometimes a better option?  On today’s episode, I’m talking to Caitlin DeSilvey, a geographer whose research explores the cultural significance of material change and transformation, with a particular focus on heritage contexts. She has worked with artists, archaeologists, environmental scientists and heritage practitioners on a range of interdisciplinary projects, and is one of the most inspiring academics I have ever come across. She has worked with artists, archaeologists, environmental scientists and heritage practitioners on a range of interdisciplinary projects, supported by funding from UK research councils, the Royal Geographical Society, the Norwegian Research Council and the European Social Fund. We discuss: -  The overlaps between cultural geography and history of design. -  Her book, Visible mending: Everyday repairs in the South West.  -  Using visible mending in stonemasonry in heritage sites. - Why she uses visual imagery and storytelling as well as participatory activities to engage people in imagining changing environments and places. - Why damage and decay captures her imagination. … and more! Here are some highlights.   How value can be created by repair: “One of the things that we became really interested in the project was how the objects that people were bringing to be repaired and then the stories that the repairers told us about these objects, were as much about people's identities as they were about the objects themselves. There were stories about the woman who would bring her all blown out slippers and say ‘Oh, I need you to put the new souls on these,’ and the repairers would say 'But it’s not economical. And the response would be, ‘No, no, but you really need to do this because they're the only slippers that are comfortable’ or ‘You need to fix my porridge pot because I've been making porridge in it for the last 50 years.’ There was always a little bit of a narrative attached to it.  And that sense of value and what we value, and that being often uncoupled from economic valuation became really central to the project. We also became quite interested in how value is created by repair, so by attending to something, and extending care, we actually produce value. So it's not just about a thing that we value and therefore we get it repaired, there is actually this much more dynamic relationship with the things that we repair.” Our impulse as human beings to fix things: “I've been really interested in the value in actually not repairing. What happens when we have a structure that is probably already on that path, something that is falling apart, ruining, however we wanna describe that process, and instead of pulling it back from the brink and making intact again, we just let that process play out? And the stories that become available when you allow that to happen are interesting and worth telling. But it's an approach that only applies to specific contexts and that way of thinking around that. You can find heritage value in something that's falling apart as well as something that's held together. It really came out of that work at the Homestead – it was the decay and the dereliction and the interplay, the way in which animals had occupied the buildings and the way in which there was this real blurriness around nature and culture that actually was so rich about that site. But to be honest, my interest in damage and breakdown and decay is partly about the moments when we can allow that to play out and learn from it, but also partly about the moments when we just can't resist intervening and why? So it's not necessarily about always stepping back, it's also about trying to understand our impulse as human beings to fix things.” The importance of storytelling  “One of the things I'm preoccupied now with is the fact that we really need better stories to move us into this future that we're facing. And we need ways of knowing the world and watching it change that are not all about loss and despair; where there's some hope, which can be difficult at times. So for me, I think it’s just trying what works.” About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind-the-scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three.  Waste: A masterclass is a 12-week programme conceived to inspire, educate and empower designer-makers to create circular products from waste. Click here to find out more or visit katietreggiden.com/masterclass.

Is repair and restoration limited to the things we own? Can it be applied to other facets of our life? How is repair correlated to poverty, and can that change for the betterment of our planet? How is community related to all of this? On today’s episode, I’m talking to Justin South, a 32-year-old bisexual fashion student. Four years ago, Justin went into rehab for drug and alcohol addiction and has been in recovery ever since. During that time, he has worked with several charities that support recovering addicts and discovered the power of repair – as both a literal skill and a helpful metaphor.  We discuss: - How restoration and repair played a role in his recovery . - His time learning at Restoration Station.  - The idea of living with mistakes and how restoration helps to build that confidence. - Why mending and repair is so important from a sustainability perspective. - How mending and repair play a role while studying Fashion Pattern Cutting at London College of Fashion. … and more! Here are some highlights.   How repair and restoration can heal “These ideas of repair and restoration, I think, are not just limited to the things that you own, it can also be yourself.  And having an LGBTQ+ community, it creates this space where you can be accepted and you can air your “brokenness,” as it were and find within that community a way to heal.” People’s reactions to restoring for the first time at Restoration Station  “I think people were really, really surprised and almost in a way that was unbelievable, that they couldn't even envisage this piece coming back to life. You get so used to – when something is broken – to it being always that way, and for them to see it go from simply being broken to being fixed without any of the in-between process, I think people got a real kind of shock and surprise and enjoyment out of how different their piece of, whatever it is they brought in, looked.” Mending and its assumed correlation to poverty  [Katie adds] “I think there’s a real hierarchy sometimes between the different things we enjoy, and all the different things we like to do. I think it's interesting that you mentioned that you're from quite a middle class background and therefore mending and repair didn't necessarily come up. I think it's another thing that it’s interestingly often associated with poverty. We mend something because we can't afford to buy a new one rather than because we love that thing and we just wanna keep it in our lives.” Learn more about Restoration Station: https://www.sct.org.uk/social-enterprises/restoration-station/ About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three.  Waste: A masterclass is a 12-week programme conceived to inspire, educate and empower designer-makers to create circular products from waste. Click here to find out more or visit katietreggiden.com/masterclass. 

Do we really have the right to repair the things we own? How can broken items be given new value? Is repair only to be used when an object is spoiled or broken? Can repair be aspirational, playful and creative?  On today’s episode, I’m talking to Janet Gunter, the co-founder and outreach lead at The Restart Project and a leading Right to Repair campaigner. The Restart Project is a social enterprise that aims to fix our broken relationship with electronics.  We discuss: - How attitudes to repair differ in the various places she has lived and traveled. - How The Restart Project is a ‘people powered’ project.  - Why mending fell out of favor and how to re-ignite people’s interest in it. - The laptop donation project she undertook during the pandemic for school children without access to the right kit for home-schooling. - What other levers government and big business could be pulling to allow or even encourage more home repairs.  … and more! Here are some highlights.   The systemic issues at challenge repair  “I think the other important message that we always tell people is that the barrier to repair is often systemic. So it's not on you to figure out how to change a battery in a mobile that just was designed not for that to happen. How are you going to change the battery in your Airpods when Apple itself cannot change the battery? So I think when encouraging people to make a change themselves, we need to also always reinforce that it's not only on you. And if it makes more sense for you to campaign to change the system instead of darning a sock, then please go ahead and do that.” What manufactures can do to make repair easier “Look at the thriving second-hand market of Dualit toasters, the high-end ones, people actually do really want your high-end ones and they don't even care if they would necessarily get it second hand. Look at a company like Patagonia with its “worn wear shop.” [Look at] this idea that you can reinforce your brand and actually take advantage of the fact that people want your products second hand. Use that to your advantage instead of [producing cheap things]. Patagonia, as far as I know, doesn't have a cheap crap line for people that don't want to pay. Instead, what they've done is they've made it easier to get their product second hand.” Hope for the future of repair  “I think things are changing. We’ve seen big YouTubers come out in favor of repair and reuse and basically saying that shredding something, recycling it is the absolute last resort. And these are YouTubers with millions and millions of followers. So it's really brilliant to see that we are moving past recycling and that there's a real sense of change and critique in relation to our stuff and the way that we're buying stuff. The question is whether policy makers are going to keep up with the public outrage and interest, but I guess that's our challenge.” Connect with Janet Gunter here. Check out the Restart Project here. Check out an interview with Felipe Fonseca about repair in Brazil here, All We Can Save by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K Wilkinson here, and the podcast How To Save a Planet here.  About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three.  Waste: A masterclass is a 12-week programme conceived to inspire, educate and empower designer-makers to create circular products from waste. Click here to find out more or visit katietreggiden.com/masterclass. 

How can broken items be given new value? Is repair only to be used when an object is spoiled or broken? Can repair be aspirational?  On today’s episode, I’m talking to Hans Tan, Tiffany Loy and Hunn Wai from the R for Repair exhibition, which ran from 13 January until 6 February 2021 at the National Design Centre, Singapore. The exhibition, curated by Tan, shone a timely spotlight on global waste by showing how broken or discarded items can be given new value. We discuss: - R for Repair, the exhibition and their approach to researching and curating it.  - How sustainability can be articulated and practiced in an attractive, purposeful way.  - How opinions towards mending and repair are changing. - Their perspective on repair in Asian culture.  - How repair helps us appreciate the way things are made.  … and more! Here are some highlights.   Hans Tan’s approach to R for Repair   “I think one thing that I reflected on was the fact that in most Asian cultures, mending is seen as something you do only when you can't afford to replace something that is spoiled or broken or torn. And so that's why buying something new on a festive occasion, like Chinese New Year, was something important, and a sign of prosperity. In the Asian context, I think mending is also not a profession that anyone would want to aspire to do as a professional. For me, it was really important to reposition repair as an aspirational activity that could generate an inspirational outcome. And what better way to do it than to work with designers in Singapore?” Why repair and mending contributes to sustainability, according to Hunn Wai “I think it gives a lot of ownership and autonomy to the user. It shows you, ‘Oh, I never knew you could do it that way.’ I think that there's quite a nice sense of renewed ownership and also confidence in your own capabilities. I think repairing also helps you to appreciate the amount of work and engineering and ingenuity that has gone into that object. I think one part of the equation for sustainability is the appreciation of how things are put together and how things are made. I think a huge part of why the world is not sustainable is because we’ve become so numb to these things. We don't appreciate these things.” Tiffany Loy’s approach to the bag she repaired for the exhibition  “I think flipping something inside out, just to continue using it seems very much aligned to Arnold’s attitude. Like, you just wanna keep using it until it's not possible to use it anymore. So when I first received it, I had a good look at the bag just to get to know it and to highlight all the areas that were fragile, areas that I need to take care of. I did iron on some tape just to patch up the holes, just so they didn’t get bigger. But then when I saw how well maintained the inside was, surprisingly, I decided that we should just show that instead. But then, of course, I couldn't just end there. I think Hans might be disappointed if I just stopped there. And because the inner lining was quite delicate, I definitely added an additional material. Again, I could have just stitched a piece of fabric all over it, but I thought that might be a bit boring and I wanted to do something a bit more fancy and be a bit more indulgent, so I decided to make it mesh.” Connect with Hans Tan here. Connect with Tiffany Loy here.  Connect with Hunn Wai here.  About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three.  Waste: A masterclass is a 12-week programme conceived to inspire, educate and empower designer-makers to create circular products from waste. Click here to find out more or visit katietreggiden.com/masterclass. 

What are the differences between repair, restoration and conservation? Is maintenance also repair? And how are these processes viewed along gender lines?  On today’s episode, I’m talking to Bridget Harvey, an artist who uses making to ask critical questions, generate new understanding and add meaning through craft. Investigating processes and concepts through making: she asks what we make, how we make it, and why that matters.  We discuss: - What we make, how we make it, and why it matters. - How mending and repair are loaded words with material and gender implications. - The differences in textiles that age well versus those that don't. - The benefits to the planet of repairing lower priced items. - How the circular economy has to be about more than just upcycling. … and more! Here are some highlights.   Repair is often multidisciplinary.  "I've never felt comfortable to sit just with one material, because I'm always interested in the processes more than the materials themselves. So in trying to understand repair extremely deeply, which is what I've been doing for the last eight years or so, it's just been a natural fact that I will be multidisciplinary. I was before and I still am. Breakage happens across different materials across different objects across different scales. Even breakage itself is really a scale. The idea of just being with one material, just isn't natural for me. And also, one of the things that I've found through my explorations is that you don't necessarily mend an object with the material that it’s made with. So repair quite often by its very nature is in some way, multimedia. Mixing and melding just kind of happens along the way." Using the word repair rather than mending  "I tend to use the word repair because it means to make something work as you need it to work. And that is quite important to me because I don't think it needs to go back to exactly how it was, which is the kind of formal definition of mending. And 'restore' is quite a loaded word. I mean, once you start looking at restoration, as opposed to say, conservation or preservation, you know, you start getting into all these areas, which are really sort of lumped together. But actually, they're very different. And the differences are quite important. Once you start digging through them in gender terms, and again, this goes a little bit binary. But that's maybe because the internet is a little bit binary… if you google ‘mending’, you get textiles, and you get women. If you google ‘repair’, you get vehicles, maybe washing machines, and you get men. And that, I think, is inaccurate. So repair work was done by all people on all things. Soldiers mended their clothes and we know men were heavily involved in textile mending." The repair movement “There's a lot of discussion on the right to repair movement. And that idea around something called "optional durability.” You can decide how long your thing lasts, if you don't want to change your phone every year, you're quite happy to keep using it until it properly conks out. A part of that is that ongoing maintenance or care for those objects and that there's those kinds of choices rather than being forced into someone else's timeline, which you can almost guarantee it's not for your good, not for community good, not for planetary good. It's money up and choices out." The visible vs the invisible "They try not to hide conservation work, they try to make it subtle so it doesn't disrupt your view of an object, but not to hide it. The object is viewed as perfect with no life story as per pure restoration. And that, to me, was very interesting with that visible/invisible, because it starts to show you it as a scale rather than a split. And you start to think 'I might not be able to mend this perfectly, but I don't have to make it really in your face visible', you know. I can do it sort of subtly, or decoratively or with some other kind of nuance compared to the original object and material. And that is a really interesting route to the accessibility of repair for those of us who aren't incredibly skilled makers, who can’t properly do invisible repair work.” Bridget’s PhD document Connect with Bridget Harvey here. Follow Aya on Instagram here. About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

I’m talking to Aya Haidar. As a self-described 'mother, artist, and humanitarian,' her creative practice focuses on found and recycled objects, through which she explores themes of loss, migration and memory. She has studied art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, The Slade School of Art – part of University College London – and School of the Art Institute of Chicago, before undertaking a Masters in Non-Governmental Organisations and Development at the London School of Economics and Politics Science. She has exhibited all over the world, with international solo and group shows in London, Berlin, Jeddah, Paris, Dubai and Turkey – as well as being involved in charity and social engagement projects. We discuss: - How life and resources were not disposable in previous generations.  - What are some of the connotations of the word 'mending'? - Work that is politically and socially engaged, but not necessarily political. - How we are living lives that are so fast and disposable there isn't time to slow down. - Why social media is giving us the chance to connect with mending and sustainability topics. … and more! Here are some highlights.   The notion of repair has often been out of necessity, not choice. "Because my parents fled during the war they left everything behind. My mother is very frugal, I think because they had to leave everything behind. The sense of not wasting anything is so much a part of her. And she definitely passed that on to me. And my grandmother, right through her whole life until the day she died. I think it is a generational thing, being born in 1920 in Lebanon, I don't think it was a choice. Life then wasn't as disposable as it is now. You mended things. You knitted a jumper and if it got too small you took it apart and you re-knitted it in a larger size." Terrible things should not be forgotten. "Terrifying things need to be remembered because they can still affect people very much emotionally because it's their childhood, it's everything that they've lived. For me it's about embellishing this and filling in these cracks with all these beautiful threads. And in a way these colorful threads also highlight it. These bullet holes and these cracks cannot be forgotten. The problem with that is you can go back into a cycle where you cover it up and you replace these old buildings with these beautiful new buildings we have and in some way the new generation forgets what it's been through." Mending has a unique place in environmental sustainability. "One thing I've learned is that if you look at these refugee communities, every tiny bit of scrap is used. You have a bed sheet that then becomes a wrap and then becomes a dress and then becomes a head scarf and then becomes a bag. It becomes so many things before it's ever thrown away. Then it becomes a little doll for the child because it can take on so many forms and I believe there is a lot that can be learned from that. We live in such a disposable society now with such cheap clothing and it's so dangerous and it's so unsustainable. Looking at these communities and how they respect their materials, honor them, and constantly breathe new life into them, it's something so positive and something I hope will influence whomever it rubs off on.  Her work is politically and socially engaged, but not political.  "With all of my work I am not interested in the bigger geopolitics. What I'm doing is picking the stories that are silenced and have fallen through the cracks. What comes out are these incredibly raw and personal stories of mothers having to choose between their children at border crossings. Someone is sharing with you and entrusting you with these stories. I'm interested in the mother who had her baby ripped from her hands and thrown into the sea so the whole boat doesn't get caught by police patrols. This is a story that gets re-shared every time I tell it because these personal stories are what humanize these political situations. My work is politically engaged because it engages in stories and issues that are rooted in politics and social issues but it's not about the 'politics' of it." Books mentioned: The Invention of Craft – Glenn Adamson All We Can Save – Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katharine K Wilkinson Connect with Aya Haidar here. Follow Aya on Instagram here. About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind-the-scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

In this episode, we’re talking to Daniel Charny, a creative director, curator and educator with an inquiring mind and an entrepreneurial streak. Alongside Dee Halligan, he is co-founder and director of Forth, a creative studio, where he works with clients from Google to the Design Museum. Describing themselves as ‘part R&D Lab and part consultancy, small, connected and serious about finding better responses to our changing world,’ their most recent initiative is a large scale European research project exploring the potential of ‘Open Schooling’ to enrich childrens' creative engagement with science curriculum. Daniel is perhaps best known as the curator of the influential exhibition Power of Making at the V&A, which drove him to establish the award-winning learning programme Fixperts, now taught in universities and schools worldwide. Other projects include the Aram Gallery, the British Council’s Maker Library Network, the open-source exhibition Future of Fixing and the Design Museum’s permanent exhibition Designer Maker User. And, as if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, Daniel is also Professor of Design at Kingston University and guest lecturer on the Master in Design for Emergent Futures at IAAC, Barcelona. He lives and works in London. We discuss: - The mindset around fixing and the impact it has.  - The importance of ‘applied creativity’ in education.  - Why young and older makers need to come together to create change.   - The differences between formal, informal and non-formal education and why all three are important.  - His time spent working with  Zeev Aram and The Aram Gallery - Fixperts, an award-winning learning programme for applied creativity and social sustainability. … and more! Here are some highlights.   The connection between making and mending “I think they are completely connected, but there are different values sometimes behind them and different reasons for doing them. Menders have material intelligence, they have acquired skills. Making is, I think, completely integral to mending. I don't think it works the other way around. I think a lot of makers can mend, but it's not necessarily their driver. There are lots of tribes of makers, and some of them are interested in innovation. And so improving is more of their state of making. And yes, they are mending something, but not in order to mend it back to what it was. We then just think about it as a kind of access of care, and you think about conservation, you think about maintenance, you think about care in daily life and repair, and then hacking and then adapting and so on.” Waking people up to remember that we have making “It was kind of like, ‘Okay, let's open that cupboard and remember we have it.’ We don't have to invent it, it's there, we just kind of forgot about it. Too many people forget about it. And Fixperts, Maker Library Network, they really are taking that notion with a social agenda together. So there was an area in ‘The Power of Making’ that was very much about communities making together, so it wasn't so much DIY culture, it was ‘MIY’ culture, and it was very much the early 3D printers. […] Or materials like Sugru are about fixing but also inventing and maybe doing repair for someone else, and there was this whole notion of the social of communities doing things for themselves and for others.” The importance of engaging with young people to create change “When you think about the challenges we're facing with the environment, it's not just about coming up with how to clean in the ocean or how to reduce carbon footprints, you need a major cultural shift to support young people to even learn to think like that.  We have to engage much earlier with younger people at the stage when they are thinking about what their values are, how they understand themselves and creativity. It becomes a different kind of premise for me than teaching design.  It's not just the sense and the mindset, it's actually enabling. The idea is not enough, they also have to have the skills. It's the imagination and the skills together in order to achieve these shifts.” The book Katie mentions towards the end of the episode, from which she has taken the term ‘stubborn optimism’ is The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, which you can buy here. (This is an affiliate link and both Katie and a bricks and mortar bookshop will get a small cut if you purchase this way.) Connect with Daniel Charny here. Follow Daniel on Twitter here. This episode is dedicated to Zeev Aram: https://www.dezeen.com/2021/03/22/zeev-aram-obituary/ About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind-the-scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

In this episode, we’re talking to Celia Pym, an artist living and working in London. Working with garments that belong to individuals as well as items in museum archives, she has extensive experience with the spectrum and stories of damage, from small moth holes to larger accidents with fire. Her interests concern the evidence of damage, and how repair draws attention to the places where garments and cloth wear down and grow thin. In clothing, this is often to do with use and how the body moves.  Pym was shortlisted for the Women’s Hour Craft Prize and her work has been exhibited all over the world and is held in the permanent collections of the Crafts Council UK and Noveau Musée National de Monaco. We discuss: - How working with people’s garments opens the door to learn more about them.  - The importance of craft and why it should be a priority in education.  - Why colour contrast is creatively interesting when considering yarn and string.  - The reason mended pieces deserve to be displayed in museums.  - How mending showed up in her previous careers as a teacher and a nurse.  - What the future holds for mending and repair.    … and more! Here are some highlights.   Why Colour Contrast Matters “There are two reasons I love contrast. Number one, it's easier. You can see what you're doing, so you can see the stitch that you're making. I also have always felt that I wanted to see what was missing. So I've always sought to mend with a contrast because I want to be able to see the actual damage in a way. But the other thing that I think about a lot is that I'm following the damage. The bit that's interesting to me is the damaged bit of the garment and the mending is the work to understand that and sort of reconstruct it, so you need to be able to see that. The color is where it gets fun. I love the way that yarn is colour in your hands, it's in your fingers, like it's a physical material colour, and so when you're mending with it, it's like drawing... You're colouring in with the yarn.” Why mended pieces deserve a space in museums.  “I like the shift of value that things that come from your home might be held to have value within a museum context. And this idea of a skillfulness that gets practiced at home has a place in the conversation about what craft and skill is, which is what a significant museum, a really important museum is sort of saying. It’s sort of saying ‘this has meaning in our culture, and I really do think the craft from within Home spaces does have a place in our culture.” The importance of material literacy from a young age “I also just think there's a general richness to understanding the differences [of materials]. They’re sensational. They feel different against your skin, and that's something that's full of pleasure and excitement and memory, and we’re denying our children that. It would enhance their imagination. And then as we say, from a sustainability point of view: they are the designers of the future, and they do it completely differently in ways we can't imagine. This morning, I was actually thinking, what if you had as many lessons on materials as you do on English, or Maths? What if they said: ‘this is as important, knowing where wool comes from, or how to spin it, or how it can be reused. Or knowing the whole life of one material, like wood or ceramic? You can tie in politics, history, all the rest of it, but it would be wonderful. It would be absolutely fantastic.” Connect with Celia Pym here. Follow Celia on Instagram here. About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three. 

This season is all about repair and in this episode, we’re talking to Chris Miller the co-founder of Skinflint – Europe’s leading vintage industrial lighting website. Skinflint scours locations across the world to source historic vintage lights, which are restored with a gentle touch by UK-based lighting experts, ensuring their stories shine through.  We discuss: - How a life-changing experience in Sri Lanka set his life on a new path - How his company, Skinflint, got its start - The interesting places he sources lights from and why.  - His ‘Full Circle’ buy-back program and how it’s helping his clients. - How his approach relates to the circular economy.  - How he is aiming to be carbon-free by 2025.  … and more! Here are some highlights.   What Inspired him to start his company Skinflint. “I’d become disillusioned with the manufacturing side of the industry. This constant loop of production, consumption, a reinvention of the wheel. I was also rapidly becoming disillusioned with producing lighting schemes for predominantly second homes, both in London and Cornwall. However, the project in Primrose Hill, which was back in 2007, offered a completely different perspective and  it was, excuse the pun, a ‘light bulb moment.’ The whole building fabric was to be designed around reusing existing materials, not just from an environmental perspective, but in order to create what they wanted, which was a well-worn interior. We're used to seeing that with floorboards, and this, that and the other, but every single item in the property, this is an extensive property, had to be in existence. The end result was magnificent. Over those two years, it became apparent that there were a number of respectable salvage companies throughout the UK selling lighting, but there weren't any lighting companies selling salvage, if that makes sense. So we recognised the gap and a growing trend toward sustainability, more importantly, provenance and a return to well-made items being built to last or to be repaired and as such we built a company from the product up.” Why they source from the 1920s-1970s. “It’s bookend by the widespread adoption of electricity in the 1920s and the advent of plastics in the 1970s, because you start to see documentation coming into the language there of planned obsolescence and valued engineering, and effectively engineers were handling a material they didn't fully understand. Yes, it [plastic] was seen as the be all and end all at that point and I think we know where we've gone with that, but effectively, we can't refurbish products from that period because we can't do anything with the plastic. It does end there but we've restored somewhere around 50,000 products, and we have about 5000 products in stock at any one time. I'd like to think we can cover any of those styles from antique to art deco to industrial right up to the retro period or early 1970s. In fact, many of the pieces, especially the early ones, they’re massively over-engineered rather than value-engineered. I liken it to the Victorian railway bridges, they'll still be there in another 100 years without any problem and they're pretty indestructible, so they're a pleasure to refurbish and to handle the materials are magnificent.” Carbon neutral by 2025 “The carbon-neutral piece I struggle with a little bit because for me, it's become something that's been green-washed by larger companies. I don't really care if Heathrow airport is carbon-neutral. That kind of ignores the elephant in the corner there, the building may very well be carbon neutral, but...yeah. From our perspective, we're doing a lot of things right, but there's always areas to improve upon. Our company emissions for the calendar year 2018 were actually relatively low. They may not sound low, but they equated to 16 tons of carbon dioxide, which roughly translates to two tons per employee. That is an extremely low per capita footprint for a UK retail company. The embodied carbon of our product is very low because they're being reused and going into the circular economy rather than going for disposal or to recycling. The bulk of our carbon footprint, and this is a challenge 'cause it's about 70% from scope-1 is from diesel emissions used in transportation of goods in the operation. So although all of our contractors are obviously based in the South West, we are bringing products predominantly from the UK, but from Europe and further afield. We’re trying to reduce this within the UK by switching over to electric vehicles. But again, it’s a challenge. It’s not black and white.” Learn more about Skinflint here. Follow Skinflint on Instagram here. About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind-the-scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three.

Welcome to Season 2 of Circular with Katie Treggiden. We’re kicking things off with Jay Blades, a modern furniture restorer, upcycler and eco designer who is passionate about sustainability and community. In this episode we discuss his history with furniture restoration, the importance of investing in the next generation of creators, why helping people you may never meet truly matters and lots more.  Jay Blades is now best known for presenting the BBC’s Money for Nothing, The Repair Shop and most recently Jay and Dom's Home Fix.  I’ve known Jay for a long time, so it was lovely to catch up with him for a proper conversation about a subject that is so close to both of our hearts.  We discuss: - His earliest memory of repairing things.  - His former non-profit Out of the Dark and teaching young people to repair and restore old furniture.  - The reason future proofing is so important.  - The end of his marriage, his experience with homelessness and how he came back from it all.  - His experience of The Repair Shop and meeting Mary Berry   … and more! Here are some highlights.   How ‘Out of the Dark’ Came To Be.  “My ex-wife Jade and I were running the charity called ‘Street Dreams’ which was basically about getting young people away from crime, so it was a fresh approach to old problems. The council, police, social services, fire services would come to us and say, ‘we've got a hot spot area where young people are committing crime and we need you to go in there and sort it out.’ Funding started drying up and we needed to continue working with those young people. One of the things that we operated when we started running all these charities, it was a case of working yourself out of a job which basically means that you work with a group of young people who are disengaged, then they become engaged and where do they go with all that energy? Then we employ them, and then they start to become the new youth leaders. So,as we wanted to continue with these young people, Jade came up with the wonderful idea of restoring old furniture.” “About 50% of them have gone into restoration or furthering their education. They’ve gone on to upholstery, restoration, project management, interior design and things like that. A lot of them have just gone on to normal jobs. I think with the group of young people who used to have them just getting out of bed was a bonus, them not smoking or doing some low-level crime is a winner.” Why investing in Young People through Restoration Matters.   “One of the things that I love about restoration is it brings so many elements for people who have been put on, let’s say the scrap-heap. If you go into the educational system, if you don’t get the A star plus or you don't get the grades, you're really gonna amount to nothing, is kind of what they're saying to you. If you get the A-star, you’re going to college or university, have 2.5 kids and live happily ever after, you've got a brilliant job. Whereas the way that I look at things, I look at sustainability as a whole. Some people look at it as: you've got to separate your plastics from your paper and your glass and this and that. Sustainability includes people and these young people need to have something put into them that allows them to see themselves as sustainable and as a valued member of society, so that’s what it was all about.”  Why Future Proofing is so Important. “I think people and the planet are very important to me, especially when it comes to community work. I worked in the community sector and really there is no profit in the work, you're doing it for the love, and you're kind of doing it for people you're never gonna see. So I have this kind of way of functioning now. I'm here on this planet to influence people I'm never gonna meet, and that means that I have to leave a legacy, create something that can be taken over by someone else or re-designed by someone else, and then they would say, ‘Well, I kind of got that idea from that person, but this is what I've done with the idea. And that to me is what future-proofing is all about. Let's make sure that the future is bright for people who are not here yet, because if we continue the way that we're continuing on this planet, we're not gonna leave them a pretty problem. It's gonna be quite messy.” Learn more & connect with Jay here Check out Jay’s book ‘Making It’ here About Katie Treggiden Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.  You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind-the-scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three.

In the ninth episode of Series 01, Katie Treggiden talks to Christopher Ræburn, founder and creative director of ethical fashion label RÆBURN, about how his discovery of unworn 1950s jackets – still in their original packaging – as a student led to a career exploring reuse, surplus and repair, and Christopher reveals that making nothing at all for his latest collection, RÆFOUND, is an intentional provocation for the industry. As recommended by Metro, The Week, Wallpaper and FastCompany.

In the eighth episode of Series 01, Katie Treggiden talks to artist, designer and director of textiles studio, Working Cloth, Lauren MacDonald, about dying clothes using food waste. Lauren explains why she finds the term ‘natural dye’ problematic, how a box of penises put her off studying art (yes, you read that right!), the magic tricks she performs with red cabbage, and why avocados will turn your clothes pink not green. As recommended by Metro, The Week, Wallpaper and FastCompany.

In the seventh episode of Series 01, Katie Treggiden chats to London-based designer Yinka Ilori about his early exposure to reuse and upcycling in Nigeria, his penchant for collecting discarded chairs off the street and bringing them home on the bus, the first time he created a collection he could truly see himself in, his most meaningful collaboration to date, and why he now has legacy and reuse written into his contract. As recommended by Metro, The Week, Wallpaper and FastCompany.

In the sixth episode of Series 01, Katie Treggiden talks to co-founder of Studiomama, Nina Tolstrup about the impact her Scandinavian childhood had on her approach to sustainability, meeting her husband and co-founder Jack at Doors of Perception, their eco-criteria for every design they create together, and the moves towards circularity they’ve seen in the last decade within the manufacturers they work with. As recommended by Metro, The Week, Wallpaper and FastCompany.

07–11 September 2020 is Zero Waste Week, and with this year’s focus on food, who better to have as our guest on the fifth episode of Series 01 than author of Waste: Uncovering a Global Food Scandal, Tristam Stuart? He and Katie Treggiden explore how his early freeganism got him punched in the face, and how he fed 5,000 people on 13 tonnes of unwanted ‘ugly’ fruit and veg on a snowy day in Trafalgar Square. As recommended by Metro, The Week, Wallpaper and FastCompany.

Ahead of Zero Waste Week next week, the fourth episode of Series 01 is a conversation between Katie Treggiden and ‘Zero Waste Warrior’ Ander Zabala (@goxuboys on Instagram), who can fit his weekly household waste into a single jam jar. They talk about how Ander found his calling while still at school, the importance of making waste visible, and how starting small can produce big results. As recommended by Metro, The Week, Wallpaper and FastCompany.