A conversation with Josie Warden
Image by Kenyon Anderson
In The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Malcolm Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point." Aiming to explain the sociological changes in everyday life, one of the case studies charts how the Hush Puppy shoe, founded in 1958, went from selling 30,000 pairs a year in 1994 to 430,000 pairs in 1995. Gladwell accredits this tipping point to them becoming hip in the downtown bars and clubs of Manhattan. Fashion designers in New York, in turn, noticed, and the Fall 1995 collections of John Bartlett, Anna Sui, and Joel Fitzpatrick featured models wearing Hush Puppies and in 1996 Hush Puppies won the prize for best accessory at the CFDA awards. Gladwell puts it down to a word-of-mouth movement; a few influential individuals had begun a meaningful trend.
I have recently wondered how this very potent power to coerce could be used for systemic change. Since the 1990s, the fashion industry has capitalized on word-of-mouth marketing strategies, but what would look like if we were being sold values instead of products? How would the visual merchandising look on Fifth Avenue if we were sold a better way of living? How would the advertisements in a fashion magazine appear if we were not being sold untenable aspirational fantasies but ideology rooted in societal change?
There are many ways that we might fantasize about how we think change might occur. Yet we all know real change is challenging. This week I spoke with Josie Warden, who works at the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA) in London, a social change organization that focuses on how change happens in society. Josie told me that "We think that for positive change to happen, you need to have lots of people involved in making that change, and not only do you need a swell of people, but you also need the ideas and the innovations that will help spread these new ideas." They have a fellowship of over 30,000 people across the world, whom they work with on research. They also bring ideas and people together, running long term projects where they seed and test hypotheses. I asked about policy if that was a root of change too. Josie told me that they had put a large emphasis on policy change; however, "in recent years, we've been doing a lot of reflection," she said. "We realized that policy change itself isn't the only way of doing it and that there's a lot of other things we could also be talking about. For example, citizen action and things that are happening in a business space, rather than a certain policy."
Shonagh: What is your role at the RSA?
Josie: I sit in the Design and Innovation Team, where I'm Associate Director. I'm focused on the interaction between environmental issues and social issues, and I look at the main challenges we're facing. There is climate change or biodiversity loss, and inequality, I focus on how they are linked. I also think through the processes we need to make change, considering if it's through things like policy or design processes. I also look at the more in-depth narratives that may be causing the challenges. I ask questions about growth, and what is it that we're striving for? What is important to us as a society? How do these things fit into how we work in different areas?
One issue that we're looking at is fashion, partly because fashion is a hugely impactful industry and an exciting vehicle for a conversation about what we want from life. Within the context of fashion, it is interesting to ask, what is important to us? And how do we use materials? How do we connect? It becomes a proxy for other conversations.
Shonagh: You studied as a textile designer. Why did you shift direction in your career?
Josie: I was always drawn not necessarily to fashion, but clothing and materials. I loved period dramas when I was a kid, I liked the history, the characters, and it was ultimately about identity. Dress is about where you belong, where you don't belong, and what you're trying to say about yourself. I thought that that was interesting.
When I was studying, I learned about the impact of the industry instead of solely thinking about the cultural aspect, and I found it shocking—the sheer scale of the environmental and the social damage that the industry causes. I became more and more interested in that. I graduated just after the financial crash of 2008 and started working as a textile designer. At that point, the conversation about sustainability wasn't as advanced in fashion. I found it hard to find any roles where I wasn't merely designing floral embroidery, which, although fun on a surface level, I could see all the damage the industry was doing. I wanted to think a bit more about the impact side of things, so I did a master's in sustainability, and that's how I ended up at the RSA.
Shonagh: You wrote a piece in September 2019 that stated, "the fashion industry is having an existential crisis." You were writing before the global pandemic hit; why did you think there was already a crisis occurring?
Josie: I felt there was an issue with the pace of fashion, it had got faster and faster, and I felt it had lost its purpose. It had become purely about the financial, money-making side, as opposed to the creative side. It was no longer about our identity or what was happening in the world. That's what I think is interesting about fashion. It picks up on the significant trends and issues, and it reflects it to us, to help us make sense of them. I felt it no longer was about that and had become a massive mash of so many things that the speed and pace were out of control.
Part of that challenge, too, was the growing consumer conversation around sustainability. Environmentally, people are becoming more and more aware of the impact fashion is having. Initially, I think that was connected to the discussions about plastics; for many people, this was a way to think about the fashion industry's issues. Partly because fashion uses plastics and because it's another industry where there is a lot of waste, and we see its impacts. There was also a growing interest in the social side; people were hearing more about the implications on garment workers due to organizations like Fashion Revolution raising awareness over the past few years.
Consumers were starting to think about fashion, and for the first time, I think we saw the industry genuinely questioning its impact. When I worked as a textile designer, it felt like the industry thought sustainability was something they might have to pay attention to, but they didn't want to. Whereas last autumn, it felt like designers were increasingly reflecting on how the industry didn't feel right anymore. Now obviously, things have unexpectedly changed with the pandemic and added velocity to these issues.
Image by Kenyon Anderson
Shonagh: I don't want to downplay this shift or belittle the power it could hold, but I noticed that caring about people, the planet, and animals became cool again. It was trendy and fashionable—as it had been in the 1990s. I am increasingly interested in the behavioral elements that lie at the heart of these issues. You have written about the effects shopping can have on our brains. What did you find in your research?
Josie: That piece was mainly talking about the kind of hit you get from shopping. This hit isn't necessarily about the clothing itself, it's about a kind of reward mechanism, and fashion acts as an outlet for that, with the sense of newness being so important.
In April, we did some research that looked at the impacts of lockdown on people's shopping behaviors. It was early on in the lockdown when people really couldn't shop as many businesses weren't open. A lot of online shopping was still happening, but at this time some people weren’t familiar with shopping online. We were trying to understand how that had impacted people's shopping habits. It was such a unique time as you have an external force that stops you from doing something and changes your behaviors. Previously it's something that you'd have had to stop yourself or try to do differently.
It was particularly fascinating to capture people's responses to this external halt. Unsurprisingly a large majority of people had reduced the number of clothes that they were buying. But the fascinating thing was the conversations about whether people were going to carry on. Had it changed their reflections on shopping? We found that people were interested in changing their behavior in the long term, and it has been an opportunity for them to stop and think more carefully. They expressed intentions around buying less or buying better quality, buying secondhand, and repairing their things. They were moving more towards sustainable behaviors around fashion, and they said they wanted to keep that up in the longer term.
The other aspect that came up was a growing interest in the social side of things, too. People were starting to hear about the impacts of canceled orders on garment workers in producing countries and logistics centers in the UK due to the Coronavirus. For example, ASOS had workers packing orders without being safely socially distant and therefore being at more risk to COVID. It felt like we received live comments from people. The majority of people thought it was essential that the industry took more responsibility for the social impact, protected workers, and made better workplaces.
It was the younger generation, 16 - 24-year-olds, who were most likely to want to change their behavior in the longer term and would like the industry to take more responsibility for workers in the longer term. It will be interesting to see whether those behaviors have stuck. Now that you can go shopping again, online shopping is booming, so we will see.
Shonagh: Will you do a follow-up poll?
Josie: Yes, we want to do a follow up before Christmas. It won't be the same people, but we want to see how behaviors have changed since the lockdown was lifted. There is mixed research and messaging on this. On the one hand, sales are down, and I don't think we know as researchers who are buying the clothes. For some platforms like Boohoo, their sales are high; then, other brands are low. We are interested in whether on the whole people have reduced shopping habits, but some people have intensified.
Shonagh: We are focusing a lot on the consumer so far in our conversation. I have noticed when speaking about how fashion might move to a more sustainable future; there is a curious blame game. Is it the consumer's fault? Is it the people producing the clothes? Is it a government that is opposed to passing legislation to cull production and waste? Is there one group that you think could and should shoulder the burden of change?
Josie: Good question. We saw this passing blame within the polling. We asked the participants about themselves, but they would bring in that business has to act, and the industry has to act. This idea of who's responsible came up, and it always ends up shifting around. This is the nature of any systemic problem. It's very complicated, there isn't a simple cause and effect; there are so many different things interacting that have created this monster. I think for change to happen; everyone has to work together. If the government acts and citizens aren't ready, it won't work; people will push back. Similarly, if business acts and citizens aren't prepared, it won't work. I feel there has to be an action at all different levels.
The difficulty is aligning all of that, and perhaps this could be through particular influential people in different groups acting. Rather than thinking it has to be government, or it has to be business, it's thinking about who within those different nodes are the most influential people. They are the ones I feel could have a significant impact on tipping the consensus, whether it's incredibly influential designers, a person at a community level, or an enormously influential person amongst a friendship group. Those people would then encourage a more significant shift. I think that's the thing missing from a lot of the conversation so far is the citizen's role, as opposed to business or government being the ones that are always going to solve these problems.
I also think there's a missed conversation about what we want from fashion. This ties into bigger conversations about what we want from the economy, or what we want from our local areas? I am taking this slightly away from fashion now, but the significant shift that's happening is recognizing that the current systems we've got set up don't work. They aren't fit for purpose anymore, but we haven't figured out what that next phase needs to look like. We know that the kind of capitalism that we have doesn't work or causes vast amounts of problems. We haven't had a conversation about what the next thing needs to be. To make change happen everywhere, we need to have those more in-depth conversations about what is this for? What do we want from our lives? What do we want from our society? We need to start focusing on those values. In the conversations we've hosted, we've had huge things come up in the last year. Is health more important than the economy? Whose voice gets heard?
Image by Kenyon Anderson
Shonagh: I am interested in the role that fashion plays in forming this hierarchy of values. Over the past 20 years, it has been very fashionable to buy, buy, buy. We were told we need this house, or this car, or these clothes. We were told they would make us happy. Fashion doesn't only deal in clothes; it sells a lifestyle, it sells opinions on where you should live, the type of house to choose, its interiors, the dream job, the restaurants to dine in, recipes to cook, the schools your children go to, I could go on. My point is fashion media and advertising are not speaking solely about garments and accessories, and its messaging is very potent. I am interested in what might happen to the things that society values if fashion turned around its selling power to promote more sustainable living across the board.
Josie: I think that's an excellent point. When you asked about what I wrote last year, the mounting feeling I had was cognitive dissonance, where you are holding two things together in your mind. You can do that for a long time, but suddenly it becomes too far out of balance, and it doesn't work anymore. It has felt like people are wanting to make change, recognizing that things feel wrong, but are at the same time forced into working with the systems we have--for example, the fashion media writing to sell stuff in a particular way. I agree that the media and the language we use is so important. It permeates all parts of life, and that is where the values conversation comes in. Fashion is so much about values, it's about exploring them and about exploring society. However, it has felt like the conversation about values wasn't allowed or was never questioned within the fashion space.
It's becoming an exciting topic and a bit scary because brands now have to have values. They are asking themselves what are we for? What is our social purpose? Many have not had one before.
Shonagh: This idea of society and what we collectively value is pertinent. I read about the UK Climate Assembly, where 110 UK citizens, from all different backgrounds, came together to make suggestions on how the country could reach their target of net-zero greenhouse gases by 2050. Could you tell me what this assembly is and what it could stand to achieve?
Josie: They've released their results today. It was set up by several different select committees in Parliament, who felt the need for more citizen voices in the decisions made about climate pilot policy. They set up an independent assembly run by organizations that focus on deliberation and deliberative processes. They brought together just over 100 UK citizens who were broadly representative of citizens in the UK, from different ages, areas, demographics, etc. They heard information, digested it, discussed it among themselves, and then came to a conclusion around what they think the government should be doing to ensure that the UK can meet the Government’s legally binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
Groups like Extinction Rebellion have called for a Citizen's Assembly to get the government to act faster because they think citizens will want to talk about the climate once asked about its importance. They also think it gets different voices from different perspectives, which gives ideally a fairer and more backed up view of policymaking usually done by experts. That's not to denigrate experts, but experts have a particular perspective to offer on something. These deliberative processes are designed to not only open up those perspectives but to help build the case for policy among citizens. As I said earlier, if people are not ready for a policy, and it's plopped on them, it will never happen. So it's building legitimacy and trust between those parties, the experts, citizens, and policymakers.
It's a fascinating experiment. Citizen Assemblies have been happening in more places and particularly at a local level. For example, Ireland ran a successful citizen's assembly that helped legalize gay marriage. These involvement processes are increasing in popularity. Other ways of doing it are not necessarily a jury based process. Still, anything that focuses more on how we engage people in conversations about the climate to think through some trade-offs is a critical thing. When it comes to something like climate policy, it's a case of where are we putting money, where are allowing more pollution and where are other things restricted? There's no right answer to that, it's not a technical answer. So if it's going to work, it has to be social and value-based, and people have to think about what those trade-offs are, and weigh them and say, actually, on balance, we collectively believe this is where we need to focus and that we're okay with that. It might mean we restrict behaviors or activities in another area. It's an exciting way of going forward.
Similarly, with fashion, I think it's essential not to leave this conversation to be a technical process that happens in brands and the industry where we decide we will replace this polyester for a recycled one. That only gets you so far. If you can have conversations where you are listening to what citizens are thinking and responding to that, or involving people very actively, you can ask what you want to happen? How might you explore that through fashion? That feels like a more exciting and fruitful way of getting somewhere useful.
Shonagh: You brought up the fact that one solution brands are working on is to replace the fabric with another made from recycled plastics, for example. In your work at the RSA, you focus a lot on the circular economy, and you have a partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. I went on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website, and their sponsors are some of the worst perpetrators, those who are the problem. You have BlackRock, Unilever, H&M, IKEA, and SC Johnson, for example. How does that work? They are a charity that is lobbying for change but is funded by the companies creating the problem. Isn't that just the companies coming up with solutions for the problems they created?
Josie: This comes back to my saying that we feel we need to work in all areas at the RSA. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's remit is to work with big brands and governments to think about their impact and change the policy conversation. It was their 10th-anniversary last year, and they've been incredibly successful in leading those talks. Even to have that conversation with some of these big companies a few years ago was very difficult. Now that is shifting, and I imagine more people will be involved. I think it's necessary, and you have to take a particular approach to do it; Extinction Rebellion couldn't have those conversations, for example. But these are not the only conversations that need to happen. You also need to have people working on much more radical stuff, who are pushing back against it, saying it isn't enough and openly criticizing the brands. All of those things together are the only way you're going to make change.
When it comes to the circular economy as a concept, our thinking at the RSA has been evolving. In essence, I see it as the idea of regeneration. In a fundamental sense, you shouldn't think that things are linear, but that everything on the planet goes in cycles and is connected--energy is transferred, and matter is transformed. Everything is connected to that, and we need to understand and take inspiration from nature in the way that ecosystems build up. And as I said, materials are transformed, and flow between things, waste from one becomes feed for another. That feels like a fundamental thing, but we seem to have lost our way when it comes to the way we're producing and consuming resources. How you apply that thinking is a difficult one. It's been interesting to see climate conversations evolve over the last few years because I feel like it started as a very theoretical, top-line--hang on a minute, shouldn't everything be connected? And now it has moved on to okay, how do you apply that? It involves conversations about using recycled polyester, for example, but that can become entirely mechanistic. I think that's a terrible way of thinking about it because it again suggests cause and effect as very clear and almost linear. We need to be thinking less about the nodes and more about the connections—the relationship between things and how you build them. We're interested in this idea of regeneration, not producing items less poorly, or in a way that can be sustained over time. Instead, create relationships, networks, and systems that allow you to respond to the problems as they happen and adapt to them.
Take, for example, the circular economy idea. You could talk about recycled polyester or a close loop of materials being recovered and reused again. The problem is you could talk about that in isolation from the people who make those products. You might still have a system where the makers are highly exploited and are churning out fast fashion that's making people unhappy in the longer term. So in this sense, it can be very siloed. Instead, you could think back to the values and ask, what is this for? How can we create a productivity system that is creating positive outcomes through the environment? And is creating positive results for the people who are involved? That can happen in the long term. The conversation around it is evolving a lot because the circular economy hasn't often talked about people. It's been quite materials and process-focused, and not centered on how that connects with culture and values.
My critique of the high-level conversations around the circular economy is that they are often devoid of culture. Solutions are talked about as this could work in India or Nicaragua or Leeds. We need to focus much more on context and place and build up the answers from that direction. What works in Leeds will probably be very different from what works in India because you have other resources; you have different cultures. You need to work with people rather than trying to impose top-down ideas—let's design the whole system and then impose it. It's more about how you create the right conditions in those different places for people to find the solutions that work for them.
Image by Kenyon Anderson
Shonagh: Historically, there have been many different groups with "ideas" about how to solve the issues we face around sustainability in fashion. These groups are often fractious and can't seem to agree and work together. My thinking is that much more would get done if all these experts and visionaries came together. Why do you think this is, and what shall we do about it?
Josie: It's the same within like the environmental movements in general, you have all these different factions who have a particular way that they think you should be approaching things. The way I think you do have to do it focuses so much more on relationships, networks, and connections, to look at building the glue between things. This comes back to our perspective on the profound stuff about how we think the world works and our relationship to it. We tend to focus on objects, and we don't see the gaps and connections between them. You have this plethora of people who are passionate and doing exciting things. Still, there aren't necessarily the opportunities or the conditions for them to collaborate, debate, or share ideas to get to the next level.
Often that comes down to money, especially if it's in the third sector where people compete for money. It's better for you to say, "we can do this better than them" than to say, "actually, let's collaborate on this." In this space, funders realize that they fueled that and need to be much better about thinking how they promote and encourage collaboration because that feels like the only way we're going to get past this kind of fractious space. I believe funding people differently is critical, and supporting things we've traditionally not valued: relationship building and network building. It almost comes down to the patriarchal system of seeing, where relational work often is done by women in society has not been valued. The nurturing, relationship building, and caring—that is the stuff that enables things to happen.
Shonagh: My last question is about your vision of utopia for the fashion system; what would be your fantasy?
Josie: I have been thinking and reading a lot about the idea of regeneration and tying that to different ways of thinking and ways of knowing. Something that's being talked about a lot more is about indigenous knowledge. My dad is First Nation Canadian, so I'm also really interested in that as a personal exploration. I have found today we have a different conception of human relationships to the natural world; we have to recognize that we're part of the ecosystems. We're not separate from them and can't control them. I think it is also about having a spiritual connection to that, not necessarily religious, but recognizing the natural world's value, what we gain from it, and what we can give back to it.
When it comes to fashion specifically, I'm interested in local specific thinking. I am not necessarily saying that everything has to be made locally, but more thinking about fashion to connect us to the local landscape. Some exciting things are happening in different parts of the world. Like Fibershed, which started in California and explores how regenerative agriculture and fiber production can connect again. So instead of looking at a landscape in California and saying what can grow here, it asks how we can make use of this land as a way of connecting us to the earth. That's not necessarily a whole vision for the system, but it's a way of beginning to explore what it means to be human and a part of nature rather than the approach to be about extracting stuff from the environment. This immediately brings up conversations around who we're hearing and seeing the creativity from, and hope it becomes much more distributed and accessible for different people to explore. It certainly seems so much more interesting than everyone going to Zara on a Saturday.
Shonagh: This would also potentially nurture the return of local style within different communities. Style has become homogenized as a result of globalization, and this may see fashion culture return again.
Josie: That's what's so exciting about clothing historically, if you zoomed into China, one region would have had a completely different dress style than the next one. This variation occurs when clothing has grown from cultural heritage. As you say, globalization is just spreading one version of things.
