Critical Fashion Studies Podcast · Critical Fashion Studies Research Group

Celebrating Sustainable Fashion with Josephine Rout

·35 min·3 clips

Kenwen Chow's winning garment reimagines Australian summer wear for a future where sun exposure is dangerous.

Dr. Harriet Richards, a fashion lecturer at RMIT, interviews Josephine Rou, the new Senior Curator at Australia's National Wool Museum. Rou's inaugural project is the We The Makers Sustainable Fashion Prize, an international award for emerging designers with under a decade of experience. The prize offers a $10,000 award and challenges entrants to create one original, sustainable outfit. The winning design by RMIT graduate Kenwen Chow reimagines historic Chinese dress and Taoist cosmology into a protective, futuristic hooded garment made from a deconstructed summer dress and towel. Korean-New Zealander designer Stephen Janelle Park created an ensemble using antique wool blankets, walnut-dyed linen, and shoes crafted from fallen tree ash and recycled leather. The Brunswick-based duo Veils of Cirrus presented a deconstructed three-piece suit featuring a lining woodblock-printed with a tattoo artist's design and a button made from an aluminum can. Designer Kate V. M. Sylvester spent 70 hours deconstructing two fast-fashion t-shirts to create an ethereal gown that reveals the volume of fiber in disposable garments. A standout insight is the prize's judging criteria, which evaluated entries on innovative design, deep material understanding, circular lifecycle considerations, and viable business thinking. Rou notes the deliberate inclusion of unconventional materials, like Lily McKenzie's use of woven electrical wires, to challenge perceptions of wearable textiles. The exhibition highlights diverse construction techniques, from traditional Wadawurrung raffia weaving to Jeddah Baloo's method of using textile scraps as visible quilt wadding. Rou observes a significant difference in the Australian fashion scene, seeing a stronger movement toward decolonizing fashion and celebrating Indigenous designers compared to her previous experience in the UK. The conversation is educational and conversational, focusing on curatorial insights and detailed descriptions of fashion as material culture. The tone is optimistic, celebrating designer innovation within the constraints of sustainability. This episode will deeply appeal to fashion students, sustainable design practitioners, and museum professionals interested in material culture and curation. Listeners seeking a highly critical or economically focused analysis of the fashion industry's systemic problems might find the celebratory tone less engaging.

As heard by us

A grounded look at sustainable fashion that stays close to the making.

This episode of Critical Fashion Studies treats sustainable fashion as a practical design problem rather than a slogan. Harriet Richards speaks with Josephine Root about the We The Makers Sustainable Fashion Prize at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, and the discussion is at…

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You want sustainable fashion explained through real garments, not abstract slogans.

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