S1, E31: Fashion Sustainability Is an Oxymoron (But She’s Fighting for It Anyway)

• makers work unnamed inside the biggest, “dirtiest” companies.
• Luxury brands are ideal partners because they have the most to lose from reputation damage and can absorb recycling costs relative to their brand value.
• Real systemic change requires reaching the highest levels – getting all CEOs of the top 20 fashion companies “in a room” to solve problems collectively.
• Christina’s next goal is influencing policy through industry associations and eventually joining fashion company boards.
• The complexity of the fashion sustainability problem has kept Christina engaged and fascinated for 20 years – her father advised choosing something “so monumentally huge you’ll never get there.”

Resources:

• The R Collective

Transcript

Christina: [00:00:00] The global fashion industry is basically dominated by 20 fashion brands and groups. So the 20 largest fashion brands and groups by revenue taken 97% of the fashion industry’s total revenue. Those 20 fashion groups and brands, that that is it. Okay? And then the final 3% of the fashion industry makes 2.5, let’s call it trillion USD, annually.

So 3% is by the rest of hundreds of thousands of SMEs, right?

Georgi: Did you know the average person will work 90,000 hours in their lifetime? What if you could use those hours to find fulfillment and become a disruptor for good? Welcome to the Work That’s Worth It. Podcast. I’m Georgi Enthoven, and I’m here to demonstrate that an.

Georgi: Vicious, meaningful and rewarding career is not just a dream, it’s achievable. Each episode we’ll dive into conversations with global change makers who crack the code on combining income and impact. If you’ve ever [00:01:00] felt like you were torn between a paycheck and your purpose, or maybe you simply yearn for more purpose, you’re going to be exposed to the ambitious humans who have done it themselves ready to make your work worth it.

Georgi: Let’s get started.

Georgi: Today we have the honor of learning from Dr. Christina Dean, and her story perfectly embodies what I mean when I talk about finding work that’s worth your precious time. Christina has spent the last 20 years wrestling with one of the most complex problems of our time. How do you make a $2 trillion fashion industry sustainable when fashion and sustainability seem fundamentally at odds?

Georgi: She’s the founder and chair of Redress an Asia focused environmental NGO, working to educate and accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Plus, she’s the founder and CEO of the R Collective, a social impact business that rescues reuses and recycles fashion [00:02:00] waste from luxury brands. Her journey has involved some significant leaps.

Georgi: She started as a dentist, became a journalist, writing about environmental issues, and then stumbled into fashion sustainability almost by accident for two decades. Christina’s dedication to solving the environmental waste problem in fashion has been unwavering, even when the financial rewards haven’t always followed, even when the progress feels impossibly slow, even when she admits the industry might be fundamentally broken.

Georgi: What you’ll hear today is someone who’s made a career out of tackling a problem so big that as her father once told her, she’ll never fully solve it. And that’s exactly what makes it worth dedicating a lifetime to Christina is living proof that meaningful work isn’t always easy work, but it’s work that gives you a reason to get up every morning for 20 years and counting.

Georgi: Hi Christina. Lovely to have you here on the work that’s worth it. Podcast, fashion and [00:03:00] sustainability. That’s what we are here to talk about today. Can you tell us how are you involved in this industry?

Christina: Well, fashion and sustainability. Some people think it’s a bit of an oxymoron ’cause they don’t really go together.

Christina: ’cause in some ways fashion is. Inherently quite unsustainable. We buy more and more and more things that ultimately we don’t often really, really need if we are really honest about it. So despite the fact that fashion and sustainability rub shoulders a bit aggressively with one another, it’s really important that somehow we as a sort of global community, whether you’re a consumer, a designer, a manufacturer, or whatever, it’s important that we tussle.

Christina: With this complexity because on the one hand, fashion is incredibly unsustainable and it’s wildly polluting. It’s causing devastation across, you know, land, water, soil, air. Not to even start mentioning about social and [00:04:00] the fashion industry is only gonna carry on It’s set to grow, grow, grow. We’re getting Reed ingredient, we’re getting more and more people, we’re getting more ridiculous the way we buy clothes and we don’t wear them for long.

Christina: We chuck them out. And so as the world becomes more challenged, so too must we continue to battle to make fashion more sustainable. And I’ve been at it for nearly 20 years and I’m looking at my wrinkles, thinking, oh my goodness.

Georgi: So 20 years. So you’ve been thinking about this problem Yeah. For a long time.

Georgi: Yeah. Where are you now? Well, in the problem in my life? No. In your life. What are you involved with to help solve this problem?

Christina: Okay, so where I am today is I’m the board chair of a nonprofit that I founded called Redress. So I’m deeply involved in the nonprofit advocacy educational world of sustainable and circular fashion.

Christina: And then I’m also the founder and CEO of a social impact business that is working with luxury brands to reduce and reuse [00:05:00] and to recycle. Very specific. Luxury, luxury fashion brands waste.

Georgi: Yeah, that is really fascinating. And I was reading a little bit before we talked, and I would love to hear more if you can share more about your niche, because what makes it complicated and why is this the problem that you have decided to target?

Christina: Target to Target? Well, I’ll start with why I’ve decided to do it 20 years ago, why I decided to do it. And then I’ll try and tell you why it’s so complicated. So I landed and arrived in this sort of niche area, even though it’s not really niche actually, because I was actually a working writing journalist.

Christina: I. Writing about environmental issues and public health. And prior to that I was a practicing dentist. And when I combined my sort of the world of dentistry, which I hated, but with the world of public health that I loved, it was the best thing that I learned outta dentistry was public health. And then when I started [00:06:00] writing about environmental pollution and public health, living in Hong Kong and in China, this was like 20 now, years ago.

Christina: I started to investigate and research the textile industry, which is, you know, very, very polluting. And China has a huge textile industry. It’s the lion’s share of the global fashion industry, whether it’s textile or apparel, it’s coming out of China. And so as a sort of nerdy, geeky journalist, I researched the topic, I wanna say to death, I don’t speak Chinese, but I had obviously researchers working with me.

Christina: And really back in the day, there was not much being done to address the. Not just the issues, but the awareness. And so basically that’s why I got into it. ’cause I was horrified and I remain as kind of perturbed, but I’m a bit tarnished now, 20 years in. But I’m as worried as I was from day one, but with 20 years of banging on about it under my belt.

Christina: I’m both a little bit exhausted with the topic, and I suppose [00:07:00] I’m definitely not depressed, but I’ve got so much more industry experience under my belt after 20 years and I’ve gone through these waves of our consumers. They’ll do it. Oh, you know, private sector will do it. Oh, legislation. They will do it.

Christina: Oh, there’s a new buzzword of upcycling, circularity, sustainability. Ooh, have you seen this new brand? Have you seen this new technology? And I was kind of like. I’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt and we’re kind of still in the same mess as we were 20 years ago, if not worse.

Georgi: Okay. So you’ve, you’re feeling jaded from the experience that you’ve had, but you are committed to it nonetheless.

Georgi: Oh

Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah. I dunno if I’m jaded. I just think it’s experience, you know, I’ve grown up 20 years. Yeah. And so there’s so many things that come with growing up. Both understanding the industry, the complexity, understanding how the industry truly works, the dance between private sector and consumers and governments.

Christina: And also one does realize that change is impossibly hard to systemically, and I hate [00:08:00] that word, systemic change. ’cause how on earth are we going to do it? But with the longer you’ve been doing it, the more you truly understand the complexity of changing a very, very hard system. So I’m not tarnished. I’m not jaded.

Christina: I’m up in the, every morning I’m ready to go out there, fight the fight. Fight the fight. And I love it to pieces and I hate it to pieces as well.

Georgi: Yeah, yeah. Now, I was reading something about, especially working with brands that have their own unique materials and prints and that being particularly hard to recycle, and that’s an area that you have zoomed in on.

Georgi: And can you share a little bit about that as well?

Christina: Yeah, I mean, I suppose so after I founded and ran the nonprofit for like 12 years or so, doing lots of different programs to educate consumers and supply chain and university and fashion designers and all very halo inducing, you know, educate. We at the nonprofit had more fashion brands.

Christina: [00:09:00] Very graciously, and I’m saying this sort of with tongue in cheek offering to donate to this nonprofit, immense amounts of materials, brand new materials, which were all sorts of kaleidoscope of everything you can possibly imagine that we were being offered and it, it didn’t feel like a donation, to be honest.

Christina: I mean, the one donation request that sort of really slapped me in the face and was the impetus for the business that I started. A fashion brand offering us a million yards of fabric excess. And for me that was a, that was a light bulb moment going, what, how is this possible? And that was in 2014. And so basically that’s how and why I started the R Collective to provide a very win-win collaborative.

Christina: I’m very, very pro-industry solution to these very complex materials, which you’ve specifically landed on, which is the prints, the checks, the logos, the IP materials, which are [00:10:00] so distinctive that if you see them and if you are into fashion, you would know. Which business that they came from. And so those are the very, very tricky materials to handle because they carry such enormous brand reputational risk.

Georgi: Okay. And so you, it looks like actually take them down to the source and then remake a. The threads Exactly. To use into something else. Exactly. So that it’s

Christina: unrecognizable. Exactly. So it’s kind of like a two part, although a 500 part process, first part is to really anonymize it. So like a magic wand. We basically, with recycling partners.

Christina: Disassemble all the bits and pieces of unsold stock, or if it’s garment, we bring it right back down to fiber and then off we go again. We try to, with different recycling partners, bring it back into a usable material again. So. And I think one of the reasons why we’ve become so passionate and sort of expert and nerdy at that one area is because, again, [00:11:00] and you haven’t asked me this question, but let me try and explain where my brain’s going, is that the entire fashion industry is having so much pressure put on it.

Christina: I mean like it’s making a lot of money. That is for sure. Some companies are making a lot of money. And it’s facing huge amounts of scrutiny from consumers to legislators, et cetera. And then tariffs. I mean, let’s just not go into tariffs, you know? Yeah. We’re not gonna talk about tariffs, I think, or we can.

Christina: So where I’m going with that is that the luxury fashion brands have a big role to play because they’ve got a long way to fall. Okay. And so that is why I think, and honestly they are fantastic partners. So again, I’m not critical, but luxury fashion brands that have these incredibly beautiful materials that for many reasons, they’ve got too much of.

Christina: They’ve got a big incentive to deal with their materials. And in dealing with their materials, they are actually accelerating circularity because they have to.

Georgi: Okay. And maybe they have the price cushion for the [00:12:00] consumers Yeah. To be able to absorb the cost of reassembling those materials.

Christina: Yeah. And they’ve got a, as I said, the brand value is so enormous.

Christina: I. That the cost of recycling or be it is relatively expensive relative. It’s nothing on the brand value.

Georgi: Yeah. Now you talk about the pressure externally and where is that coming from? Obviously consumers, the younger consumers are asking more for it, but do they actually care and when it comes to purchasing or is it more in theory?

Christina: I think people do care. I mean, I, I have got great hope for humanity. Meaning that I think we all want the best for the planet. We want to be our best selves. We want to impart our best impact on, or the least bad impact on the planet. So I’m very, very pro what’s in the heart and the mind of the consumer actually.

Christina: The problem is that I just think a lot of consumers and myself included, are not willing to go the distance to display the [00:13:00] actions according to what they’re thinking. You know, we know from so many consumer re you know, if you, if you believe what you read, then I would say most people are a mug because most of what you read in consumer research and surveys is not true.

Christina: Meaning it’s true they said that, but they don’t do that. Yeah. Meaning, yeah, so, so you know, I used to go, Ooh, that’s so exciting. You know, consumers in Timbuktu think this, consumers in wherever think that, and it used to prop me up and think, oh, you know, this is so exciting. But there’s very, very little evidence to show that those amazing ethical consumers are actually doing anything about it.

Christina: I dunno if you remember Rana Plaza, which was a huge industrial catastrophe that happened in Bangladesh. It was actually 2013, so I know that feels a long way off, but it was a huge factory collapse, killing 1,300 I. I think in 27, if I’m correct, workers. And it was the biggest industrial sort of catastrophe at the time.

Christina: Sadly. [00:14:00] Now, it was a very visible thing, meaning we saw people being crushed to death amidst textiles and you know, clothing. And of course there was outro and outrage as rightly, there should have been. However, post that incident, which is the most visceral, the most painful thing to have to look at as a consumer or a Western consumer, any consumer, but particularly let’s just go Western consumer, post that catastrophe of enormous magnitude.

Christina: There is no evidence that there are any ESG related. Negative impacts associated with the brands who were producing in that particular factory that collapsed. Why am I saying that? Because even if you show people a squashed worker, excuse the graphic language, dead in rubble, and even if at that point there were allegations that brands X, Y, and Z might have been producing in that particular factory, there was no long-term negative impact on any of the brands.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. According to ESG [00:15:00] reports. So why am I saying that? And I’m not a social expert, to be honest with you. I’m really not. But I’m just sharing with you that what we say and what we do are not always the same things. And consumer. Yeah. The magnitude of the

Georgi: problem is huge. Yeah. And what people are saying they’re gonna do and what Well, the consequences of not taking the best course of action for our planet are small.

Christina: Yeah. I just think that we are very hypocritical because we all know what’s going on. Yeah, I don’t know you. I know myself. I’m a huge hypocrite. Yeah. All are. And 20

Georgi: years ago, maybe we didn’t have all the information when you started, but now we do have all the information. Yeah. And so what we’re not acting on is a question of motivation, not of information.

Georgi: A hundred percent.

Christina: Yeah, we’re bombarded with information and we know what to do, but it’s just whether or not, quite honestly, we’ve got the energy or, or what is it that we lack that’s stopping us from doing more.

Georgi: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s talk [00:16:00] about you actually wanting to get skin in the game and starting a social enterprise using some of these materials and how that has helped you.

Christina: Yep. Well, you know what? I think with knowledge comes responsibility, and I’m not gonna be all preachy, preachy here, but what I realized was that I was sitting on quite a unique situation, which I’d developed over 12 years. The unique situation is that I knew the Asian supply chain very well, been working deep in it.

Christina: That we had this tremendous access to all these luxury brands, materials, and therefore, you know, if you looked at your plate, I had the perfect dinner of all the components that were necessary to start this business. I. And I didn’t, gleefully started, I didn’t think, Ooh, this is gonna be great. I, I really didn’t.

Christina: From dentist to writer, to entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn’t, I wasn’t like skipping all the way to open the bank account, but I thought, and I still feel it today, that although there are many [00:17:00] competitors to the business that I founded, we do have a, and it never keeps you safe, but we do have quite a unique responsibility.

Christina: We’ve been doing it for a long time in a world that’s very untransparent.

Georgi: Yeah. So in a way, you’re an example for the industry, like you are showing how it could be done.

Christina: I think so. I do, I really do. And you know, of course to date, I’ve actually funded, I am the investor for this business. It took me much, much, much, much longer to sort of prove that MVP, that people talk about, you know, multiple viable product.

Christina: It’s taken me la much, much, much, much longer to lift the business out of the gutter in terms of revenue. But we’ve done it and we are doing it. And so. The legacy of our work is proving that it can actually be done. Can be done. Yes, it can. Definitely. You’ve got

Georgi: skin in the game, you’re not just talking it and you’re able to show people a pathway to do it and Yeah, exactly.

Christina: This goes back to responsibility and when I wrote my book work, that’s worth it. I interviewed [00:18:00] Vincent Stanley, who is one of the first employers at Patagonia, and he said to me. You get to be responsible. You don’t have to be responsible, but you get to, and a lot of the people that I interview and talk to have that same calling of I choose to.

Christina: And with that, you do get some benefits. And I was wondering if you can talk about like what does this give you and your life?

Christina: Well, it obviously gives me purpose. And purpose is another buzzword, you know, like purposeful business. Purpose? Purpose. Purpose. What does it give me selfishly?

Georgi: Yeah. I mean,

Christina: the first thing is I’m really interested in the topic.

Georgi: Yeah. For 20 years this lasted, and actually, I’ll just make a side note on there, that so many people I talk to wanna start businesses and I always ask, could you imagine yourself doing this for 10 years, 15 years? And they say, no, no, no. I’m gonna start it and then I’ll get someone to run it.

Christina: No.

Christina: After I’d started the first redress I was on as like a [00:19:00] social entrepreneurship accelerator, let’s just say. And I had that same question like, would you in 10 years time, and this was many years ago, you know, would you still be doing this? And I like, no, I would’ve solved the problem by then, you know? Yeah.

Christina: And I laugh because, depends what you wanna do. Like if you wanna make quick money and it’s tech and it’s VC and you wanna flip something, go for it. Like, but this deep, dirty waste, filthy supply chain. Sustainability in fashion. It is slow burning and you have to have a tremendous interest in it. So to answer your question, selfishly, I love it and I really, really enjoy it because even though I’ve been doing it for so long, I still think, you know, I’m still completely confused.

Georgi: Yeah, say that. So the

Christina: complexity of the problem is fascinating for you. It is. And proving the solution is that I am a, the classic dog with a bone. Back when I was young, young, young teenager, I was a very long distance swimmer. And I’ve got that meaning like I’ve got staying power to just [00:20:00] pound up and down that pool, pound up and down.

Christina: And that’s what I’m doing in my work. And you know, I also have to say like, I haven’t earned much money. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And this has to be addressed. ’cause I often think with responsibility, right? So what is responsibility? I now feel that I have a really big responsibility ’cause I’ve amassed so much information access to relatively that small teams, but high impact teams, connections galore with the fashion industry and with that, you know, I’m really genuinely not trying to big myself up here.

Christina: I swear to you, I’m really, really not. But we’ve come on. No, no, I’m really not. But after 20 years, you know. You’ve grown up with people who are now 20 years senior and big companies. So all of the influence and the access to gets bigger and bigger the longer that you do something. So why I’m saying that is that.

Christina: I think it’s just beginning the fun and games is just starting now. Yeah. Yeah. ’cause now I’m in like, I’m in my sort of power years. I’m 47 and I feel like I’ve got some stuff to do now.

Georgi: Yeah.

Christina: That said, I [00:21:00] was not able to pay my children’s school fees with anything that came through this work, and so. I feel very privileged and blessed in all these words to have been able to really dedicate sweat, blood, and tears and like frustration and hard work.

Christina: Like, oh my goodness, like I’m not gonna burst out crying now. But you know, we’ve worked like dogs at both of these organizations with the team. It has, nothing has come easy. And I’ve been able to do that quite honestly, because I haven’t had to worry about the school fees because I’m on the side. I’ve had a very gentle every now and again doing properties, which is paid for staff, and I had a spectacular divorce and so I’m okay.

Christina: And the reason I’m saying that yeah, is again, I’m trying to be very honest that it’s No, that’s helpful. You couldn’t survive. You could not survive at the startup game.

Georgi: It’s unfortunate and really helpful for young people to know what it really takes to be able to make something work in this industry, because it sounds [00:22:00] sexy, interesting, you know, dot all the i’s, cross the T’s.

Georgi: But what you’re saying is you’ve been doing this for 20 years and you’re still slogging away with all the contacts, with money, with everything behind you. Yeah.

Georgi: And

Georgi: are you able to save other people? Are they able to stand on your shoulders? And start where you are now without having to spend the 20 years.

Georgi: Obviously they don’t have all the contacts and everything else. Mm-hmm. But what about what you have created, either in the knowledge sector or in the direct experience, can people use to get ahead?

Christina: I have got no clue of the answer of that.

Georgi: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, I just don’t know the legacy of like all of the people that we’ve reached directly, indirectly, how much has that truly helped them on?

Christina: Climbing on our shoulders. I just do not know the answer to that.

Georgi: Yeah, but that’s what you’re pioneering away is like how to create this model and make it successful so [00:23:00] that others can follow suit.

Christina: Yeah, I think that is the goal. There’s an inherent clashing of that, because ultimately I’m running a business and I do actually have investors, so I, I’m not for the business.

Christina: I’m not running, you know, a playground.

Georgi: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. I’m running this and you’re not

Georgi: giving it away. You are trying to be the category leader in what you do.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what does that company produce? I. So for the art Collective, what we do is we rescue, reuse, and recycle complex luxury fashion brands, waste materials, and with the materials that we rescue, reuse, recycle.

Christina: We create a range of products and they are either branded corporate gifts, totes, pouches, travel bags, leather goods. Or they are very complex recycling solutions and circular solutions for fashion brands. So essentially we make corporate gifts. It sounds extremely unglamorous, but there’s a [00:24:00] tremendous market for it.

Christina: And corporate gifting and sort of corporate merchandising and products like that are relatively simple to make, and they are a great way to use waste materials in a simple product. With the core purpose of eliminating virgin materials. Yeah,

Georgi: so what we wanna

Christina: do is displace any corporate branded packaging materials that is produced with Virgin.

Christina: That’s our goal.

Georgi: Yeah. And you probably have an endless market, like I’m thinking even airlines and all those kinds of companies who are giving stuff away for free, that’s usually goes straight into the garbage and you are producing something that’s circular and also ideally, design-wise, interesting enough and user-friendly enough to keep.

Christina: Exactly. I mean, you’ve nailed it on the head. Yes. That’s the goal. Yeah. Airlines are really, really big and super, super complicated the way because their orders are so huge and an airline would be quite a dream if they’re only out there

Georgi: putting it out there. [00:25:00] Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so what is coming up next for you as far as like, what about this problem do you still want to try and solve?

Christina: What I would like to do more of is join more policy. I’m not a lawyer and I’m actually not very good at policy, so this is a great advert. But I would like to, and I am joining more sort of industry associations and if I may say, think tanky type groups on policy. And that is, again, leveraging this quirky experience that I, we have on the ground.

Christina: To bring a murky world into a sense of transparency, to help bring in the right types of actions.

Georgi: Yeah. ’cause

Christina: you know what’s just amazing. So what I’m trying to say is what I want to do is spend more time on advocacy in working groups.

Georgi: Yeah. In a way, you’re moving up the food chain to change policy, not you writing policy, but using [00:26:00] your hands-on experience to help design policy that actually can work.

Christina: That’s the next step for me. Yes. And I think I’m the board chair of the nonprofit that I started, and I think in 10 years time, when I’m 57, I always think, you know, when I’m 57, will I still be able to get up at 5:00 AM and work like a slog, like a dog probably. But I would like to in the future, and I have no time right now, but again, using that advocacy in 10 plus years to go on boards at fashion bar and groups.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, no one, perhaps I’ll never get invited, but

Georgi: it should be the conscious. You would need to be there to raise the flag to say, hang on, who’s thinking about X?

Christina: Yeah, because you know, when you start an organization, you don’t even worry about a board. You think, oh, I can’t, can’t be bothered with a board.

Christina: You know, they’re paying you for, you might think, okay, I need a board just to sign the documents. But actually, if we really want to have big, big, big change, you have to go right to the tippy, tippy top, which is obviously the board or legislation and policy.

Georgi: Yeah. Yeah. I love that you said that because part of my mission is to, [00:27:00] how do I get the people with a generous spirit in the work that they want to do?

Georgi: How do I get them to play bigger and to play bigger? They need to be able to last their 90,000 hours, which is the average career, which you may be well over, that if you are working as hard as you are. And then to get a bigger stage and to have a larger voice. And how do we get those people in boardrooms and in C-suites?

Georgi: Because you know, these are the people who will raise their hand and say, hang on, why are we not considering X? Whatever the problem is. So I love that that is the pathway that you see to influence an industry further, because that’s definitely part of my mission to get people, the people who already care, how do we get them to have a bigger voice?

Georgi: And that does mean playing big.

Christina: So what, yeah, I mean, I’ve stumbled upon this without reading it. It’s a, it’s a sort of natural maturing of self and awareness and, and experience and stuff. So I guess, what’s the answer to your own question? [00:28:00]

Georgi: I. Yeah, I mean, part of it is just letting people know, like yourself is like, how can you play big?

Georgi: How can you be rewarded for your work so that you have energy to keep going? And understanding that it’s not just giving, and you think about circularity and I think about that as energy to keep going and the work that you’re doing. And so what do you need as the payoff for your work to keep at it? And it sounds like there’s days probably where it is clear for you, and there’s days where it’s a real slog, but overall you’ve stayed in it for 20 years and you’re still going and you still have aspirations.

Georgi: Well, I’m actually just

Christina: starting. Yeah. I’m only just starting actually. You’re only

Georgi: just getting started. Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. Well, no, I mean, my dad, before he died, gave me this book that was written post World War ii. I can’t remember who wrote it, but it was about how not to worry, and it said. Choose something that is so monumentally huge as your target of what you wanna work in.

Christina: And you know, it’s so [00:29:00] big you’ll never get there. And I’m grateful that I actually found something or those 20 years ago because if I think what it’s given me, it’s given me a whirlwind of a career. And I’ve never had like mental health issues about being bored. Obviously doesn’t come into it, but yeah, feel like I’m so lucky.

Christina: Your worse. I’m so lucky. Yeah. Yeah.

Georgi: Yeah. Yeah, you have a direction every morning that you wake up and you know something you can contribute towards. So if you were a young person interested in retail fashion, what are opportunities that you think would make sense or areas that you would encourage people to look at where they are able to have an impact but also.

Georgi: Have income to be able to live.

Christina: Yeah. Lots of people say, oh, I want to start a nonprofit. Obviously I’ve done that and I always think, well, why do you wanna do that? I wish I hadn’t. I should have just gone and joined somebody else’s life. I did that, so I didn’t. Yeah. So I’m [00:30:00] saying the first thing I’m saying is it’s not always necessary to be the entrepreneur.

Christina: I want to start my own thing and my own charity and my own this and my own that. I just don’t think if you wanna create impact, you don’t often have to do that. You can go and join, join and. Save yourself the slog and get, you know, but then ego comes into it. Because a lot of people want their stamp over their thing.

Christina: So what I’m saying is, to answer your question, if I were a young person wanting to have impact in fashion and retail, I would just go and get a job. Yeah. Christina: Yeah. And I would work from the inside and you know, some of the greatest fashion activists, if I can call them that.

Georgi: Yeah.

Christina: Or working inside some of the biggest brands whose, they’re always in the negative press.

Christina: I know the most amazing people who work. Tirelessly. They’re unsanctioned. Unnamed. They are absolutely incredible. Leaders in the dirtiest of the supply chain doing the greatest of work, never, ever recognized, [00:31:00] and so therefore, the answer is go everywhere and go with intent, because you can do good everywhere.

Georgi: Yeah. I also really believe that, and especially in the world where we are today, where a lot of companies are freezing, not hiring. You know, if you are somewhere and you want to be doing great work, you don’t need to move. You can bring it to where you are, especially if you have a management team that’s open to good suggestions and suggestions that may.

Georgi: Potentially build customers or the bottom line, or Ideally both. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any brands out there that you can flag as to say, these are interesting companies to watch?

Christina: You know, I couldn’t, but how I would possibly try to answer that question is to say how the global fashion industry is basically dominated by 20 fashion brands and groups, so the 20 largest fashion brands and groups by revenue.

Christina: Take in 97% of [00:32:00] the fashion industry’s total revenue.

Georgi: So go there and go there. Yeah. Get the experience and understand problems you could solve in those particular places. I mean, ’cause it sounds like carrying the businesses is really difficult financially. You had the opportunity to, but most people don’t.

Georgi: So go to one of the houses that are already large and can pay you. Yeah. And then find where you can have an impact.

Christina: Because they are the fashion industry. There’s 20. Yeah, fashion groups and brands, that that is it. Okay. And then the final 3% of the fashion industry makes 2.5, let’s call it trillion USD annually.

Christina: So 3% is by the rest of hundreds of thousands of SMEs. Right now, there are countless, they’re all brilliant. Well, that’s not true. There are many, many brilliant businesses. So that’s why I couldn’t answer the question of like, which ones to watch. But I would say what my dream is, is that we could get all the CEOs of those top fashion in a room.

Christina: Yeah. And it’s a lockdown. No one’s leaving. Yeah. Until we solve the problem.

Georgi: [00:33:00] Yeah. And by the way, like let’s just do it. 20 of you, 20 CEOs. Here we go. Yeah. All gonna do it together. Yeah. Changes the industry overnight.

Christina: Yeah. Honestly. So to anyone listening, if you want to inflict beautiful change, go and get an incredible job.

Christina: Or start your own thing. ’cause again, I didn’t listen to my own advice, so who am I to say?

Georgi: But

Christina: be prepared. If you start your own thing that after 20 years you might only just be starting to get going, and lots of people don’t want to hear that, but at least it was my experience. I could be horribly wrong.

Georgi: Yeah. Well, you have shared so much great insight and I really appreciate the raw and honest take on what it takes to be sustainable in fashion and how difficult it is, and also how this problem has captivated you for so long and has really sort of become part of your identity. You will be remembered for this, and so it’s lovely to be able to understand more about your world and thank you so much for being here.

Georgi: Absolute [00:34:00] pleasure. Yeah, we’ll be in touch. Thanks. Bye-bye. Mm-hmm. Now let’s talk about the takeaways from this episode First, her work is hard. One of Christina’s biggest pieces of advice is don’t always start your own thing. Some of the greatest change makers she knows, work inside the biggest, dirtiest companies, unnamed, unbanked.

Georgi: By creating real impact, you can often create more change by joining an existing organization with resources and scale than by starting from scratch. Ask yourself, where can you have the biggest impact with your skills and passion? And that leads us to the second point. Christina’s brutal honesty about not being able to pay her children’s school fees from her work is crucial for young people to hear.

Georgi: I. Building sustainable change often requires financial cushioning or alternative income streams. This doesn’t make the work less valuable. It makes it more important to plan strategically so you can last your [00:35:00] full 90,000 career hours and eventually reach positions of real influence and perhaps even the boardroom too.

Georgi: And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of work That’s Worth It. Remember, every conversation we share is designed to empower you to build a career that’s truly worth your time and energy. There are future disruptors out there just like you, who would appreciate the conversations in this podcast. Please support me by spreading the word and sharing this episode with a friend or two, or visit my website@georgienthoven.com.

Georgi: That’s spelled G-E-O-R-G-I-E-N-T-H-O-V-E_N.com. Until next time, ask yourself, what problems am I solving and are they worth my valuable time? Your intentional choices today can lead to exponential impact tomorrow. Thanks for listening.