Authenticity, Voice, Trust: my 3 Little Words for Success and why they are so important
PLUS: The exciting rise of natural dyes in fashion
This weekend I offered my social media ‘Sunday Ministry’ before dashing to a Core Control Pilates class at The Good Rooms. Yes I am that North London cliche, who does hot yoga, drinks oat matcha lattes and has a million ways to marinate tofu. But you see, anyone who knows me would know that I a) started doing hot yoga in the last century, b) hate the cold and love heat and c) I have been vegan since I was 23. I.E. Those weaponised monikers of the wokerati are in my case certainly, reliably truthful personal traits, not just quick fix January wish list cures, or media luvvie cliches.
Anyway, back to my ‘Sunday Ministry’, I spoke about the 3 little words I believe to be intrinsic to building a brand and relevance in what can feel like a saturated market, whether that is creating your own kitchen top business, or building a community on social media to market your book/TikTok/YouTube/music/film/legal firm/Accounts firm/advertising agency/PR agency/shop/online platform (edit as appropriate). These are: Authenticity, Voice and Trust.
Authenticity: let me give you a quick example. On Friday evening I was at the spa in the gym while my son played tennis. In the sauna I often overhear a number of totally random and frequently hilarious conversations. Men talking football, crypto, girls and shit. The heat seems to get to them and these men - and it is generally men for some reason who feel the need to chatter in the sauna - seem to get more real, more surreal, more authentic. So last Friday I was in the sauna for 30 minutes ( I had a massage in Antalya to combat cellulite and as well as telling me to stop drinking fizzy drinks, she said staying in a sauna for over 20 minutes would help. Being me I have upped this to 30 minutes, as I tend to not only want to hit a target, but then beat it. I guess I am authentically competitive?!?). Anyway these two men start talking about football, a subject I have very little knowledge of, or interest in, but my son’s third name is Hotspur, so I do try to keep up. One of them is a Spurs fan, the other asks him about whether the team needed someone like Harry Kane (their former record breaking goal scoring striker who moved to Bayern Munich, like I said I try to keep up). The Spurs fan replies, quick as a whistle: “We don’t need Harry Kane, we need Jesus,” before delivering a series of quick fire jokes. Tottenham Hotspur are currently 15th in the League. Walking on water might therefore be their best way to score some miracles.
So what has this got to do with authenticity? You might be wondering where on earth I am going with this? Well it turns out the sauna Spurs fan is a TalkSport presenter, and social media influencer. The point being even in heat, after hours, and definitely not at work, this joker of the sauna was genuinely funny, 100% genuine and relatable. The delivery off-air is just as banterish as that on-air. Like I said, authentic. You never know where you might meet a client, your audience, or a fan, and if you are the same with the person driving your bus or taxi, as you are with your customer or fan base, I guarantee this will increase your market share and business conversion rate, as they will believe in you, what you have to say, what you have to sell or say.
Which leads me to voice. I never take for granted that I live in the UK, and while there are things which get to me here: the weather 6/8ths of the time, the cost of living, the food (though that’s better than it was, thank god!); I fully recognise that I do not live in a country where there are power strikes and payola at every election, women have rights and you can say what you think as a writer, thinker and not be tortured in jail. These rights are hard won and easily lost. There is not a day of the week when I do not think of women in Afghanistan and how let down they have been by all of us: from the US who still pay money to the Taliban (and yes that shocked me too, when the staff at my local Afghan supermarket told me. I didn’t just take their word for it, I did my research and was disgusted to discover that they are right), while the Taliban terrorise women and girls, who now cannot even look out of a window, let alone go to school or do many jobs. My sense of outrage about this, while the Iranian Foreign Minister visits Kabul and promises to return 3.5m Afghan refugees. You can imagine how those refugees might feel about that.
The Taliban and the plight of Afghan women is an extreme example of what I mean by using your voice, or its alternative of being silenced, and not living in a world with equity. But I think it highlights why I feel so passionately about the need to speak your truth when you have the agency to do so. This has taken me from being anonymously comfortable behind the scenes calling the shots (literally directing shoots as a fashion editor), to learning and honing the skills of campaigner, agitator, CEO and now commanding an annual media reach of over 2.2bn every year for the last 4 years, with no PR agency, marketing, or massive social media skillset. Why? Because I feel it my duty to use my voice to speak not only for myself, but also for those who might be less confident, not be a Whatsapp message away from journalists, people who might feel as I do but not have had my education, my training, my support networks. I never take those for granted, which is why I feel voice is so crucial.
How on earth does this translate in business? I would say voice is crucial to business. In my previous life as a stylist I would know just by looking at the first page of an editorial who the stylist was, the hair, the make up, the photographer. Why? Because I knew their visual voices, I understood their language, and what they were trying to communicate. Looking at brands, it is those with a ‘voice’ who tend to succeed. Alessandro Michele’s geek-chic aesthetic boosted Gucci to a £1bn a year turnover, reversing their fortunes. I was interviewed by the BBC about the recent death of Oliviero Toscani, the photographer whose shoots for Benetton were groundbreaking, pushing boundaries on race, gender, Aids, religion, every contentious topic under the sun. The result? Advertising budgets were used for social commentary, Toscani set up Colors, a radical multimedia approach to magazines, photography and art direction, and Benetton whose owner Luciano Benetton said, “The purpose of advertising is not to sell more, it’s about communicating the values of the company,” was running a global empire started from scratch by him and his 3 siblings, which at their height in 2005 had 5,550 stores in 120 countries. Voice equates with values.
The last of my three little words is Trust. My son is 13. He watches YouTubers to relax after school, sports (he’s very sporty) and homework. If I am honest, I don’t get it, men in their late teens or early 20’s talking in zany upbeat voices, with primary coloured graphics sitting in darkened rooms cracking jokes about football, their travels, or pranking each other. But then I am not meant to get it, I am the very antithesis of their audience market share. I am the mother of their audience market share! My son looks out for particular creators, whose content he enjoys. He watches them in the same way I watched what is now called legacy media, i.e kids programmes on BBC or ITV. He tells me he watches the BBC for news, but for content it's YouTube, or what is shared by friends on Snapchat. The whole point of being 13 is to have different activities to those of your parents. If your trusted peer voices are the same as your parents something is going wrong, I would argue. You should want to see, feel, hear something new and relevant to your social group. Today at the gym (it is basically my second home), my son met Chunz, a YouTuber who is part of the BetaSquad. They have over 10.3m subscribers. Recently (at the same gym), he met Chewkz another YouTuber, who has 4.35m subscribers.
This is the kind of reach brands are desperately trying to tap into. Generation Alpha are just starting to throw their weight into the consumer boxing ring, but as the mother of one I am not convinced that they (the brands) are going to know how to build their (Gen A’s) trust. So far, Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger and Givenchy have invested in Roblox (with more than 70 million daily users you can see why), but to build a relationship with these new consumers I am not sure a heritage fashion brand dumping skins into a digital game is always going to have the desired effect. Fortnite collaborated with Balenciaga in 2021, Blvck Paris in 2023. I am again just not convinced that this will work, long-term. The trust is not there just because the brand drops a logo sweater or joggers. That’s just a merch drive, and my sense is this might build name recognition, but the brands the Generation Alphas are buying (on Vinted) are newer, such as Protect London, or my 90’s memory lane brands such as Maharishi and Vexed Generation. Both brands had a trusted authentic voice.
Trust then, is hard to win, but easily lost. If you build trust with your audience, you will see a conversion in sales, growth, market share. In business I would say the trick is to stay authentic, but to be that trusted friend who pushes your customers to try new things. Whether that’s a brand you did not know anything about, but because it is being sold in a shop you love, you choose to buy it, and in fact cherish it for years to come. Or if the communication of aligned values (these could be sustainability targets, DEI ethics, or a brand doing something finally, to meet your needs), as we saw with Primark last week the launch of their adaptive clothing range in collaboration with former FR Representation and Inclusion committee co-chair Victoria Jenkins.
Relationship building is so important in all this, if you trust them, then year on year you become what is the holy grail for business, what is called a repeat client. The repeat client is the most desired customer for any successful business, the one invested in you and what you do. Build a trusted audience and they will be your fiercest advocate, and loyalist ally.
Authenticity, Voice, Trust.
Sounds so simple, but is it?
What are your three little words?
The exciting rise of natural dyes in fashion designers such as LFW’s Paolo Carzana: natural dye garden movement and how our relationship with colour is changing
Many universities are now establishing natural dye gardens in their grounds and on their campuses, to address the many pressing global challenges and fashion's overall commitment to sustainability and better end of life practices through both fibre and dye traceability.
One of the earliest and pioneering institutes to establish a dye garden was the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York, when three marketing students attended the 2014 Clinton Global University Conference (CGI U) and proposed an idea for the FIT Roof Top Natural Dye Garden with the aim to address global challenges and FIT’s internal commitment to sustainability.
Since then we have seen an uprise and boom in natural garden development, from the London fashion leaders such as Central Saint Martins (CSM), London College of Fashion (LCF) and The Royal College of Art (RCA) to more rural areas such as Cardiff Metropolitan University (CMU) and Nottingham Trent University (NTU).
You will now struggle to find an Art-based university without at least the basic plans in place, with more students requesting this as an important part of their learning, development and engagement. This also suggests a push from the creative industries aligning holistic thinking and well-being with design based practice and craft.
By encouraging students to get practical with the land and soil, this allows them to have a better understanding of where their colours come from and how long it takes to produce results from harvesting to dyeing and finishing. This means that they become more in tune with the materials and matter that they are working with, which is something that is non-comparable to synthetic dyes that can be applied in hours, and extract vast amounts of chemicals, promoting water damage and toxicity. This also re-establishes the long lost connection between nature and craft.
However, with the rise in natural dyes for both Fashion and Textile applications this can present its own challenges with common struggles associated with colour depth and intensity, which can lead to an overall lack of satisfaction when compared to synthetic dyes which offer quick reliable finishes and easily repeatable results.
That being said, with the Slow Fashion Movement and more consumer awareness around the fashion industry's significant contribution to pollution, this has led to an interesting re-evaluation of our relationship with colour leading to a change in consumer perception and overall thinking. Areas such as colour depth and intensity are becoming less of a driving force, with kinder and more holistic practices offering full traceability and biodegradability taking priority.
This is particularly prevalent in the work of the Welsh fashion designer Paolo Carzana and CSM alumni, Carzana works with plant based, organic, repurposed materials and natural dyes including a hand finished approach exploring the tensions between strength and fragility. His collections embrace the natural imperfections and nuances of natural dye processes, celebrating organic colour variations and run offs as an element of beauty and charm adding to the overall ‘sustainable aesthetic’.
This is an exciting space for the fashion industry because it rejects the common narrative that we are used to, the idea that garments need to be perfectly finished with solid colours and mass produced finishing to be classed as good quality and well-made. This also challenges the common and misleading aesthetic that the industry has led or conditioned us to believe.
This presents an exciting approach to colour in fashion, challenging our expectations and perceptions around colour fastness and longevity and how we relate to the wider world through areas such as identity, culture and social meaning.
It’s interesting to see the impact that these gardens are having on the wider fashion industry by encouraging young designers to think outside the box, slow down and re-evaluate the colour narrative. Although placed as an initial experimental tool, it’s interesting to observe how these gardens are creating a trickle-up effect driving cultural shifts for both style and trends, steering away from the fast-fashion paradigm and moving us towards a kinder and more responsible industry.
To hear more about natural dye gardens and their impact on supply chains listen to our recent podcast HARRIET FLETCHER-GILHUYS in conversation with #24 KATE TURNBULL
Fashion and the fashionable: Bath as a city of consumption
Best known for its graceful crescents and public spaces, its Roman Baths and its rooftop spa, Bath is not easily associated with ‘fashion’, and certainly not with fast fashion or cutting-edge design and innovation. In many ways, Bath, a heritage city, is the antithesis of fashion and of the newness and edginess that so often accompany it. That drive it, and our desire for it. Yet this characterisation obscures the paradox that all ‘heritage’ was new and innovative once, even if, in Bath’s case, the new also looked to the past and to half remembered histories and distortions.
The city’s Georgian architecture drew its inspiration from ancient histories and traditions; and formed part of the consolidation of an emerging national identity – England in the world, and the ways in which buildings lent legitimacy to this. Looking back lent authority; looking ahead engendered ambition and aspiration.
In the late 18th century, Bath became a stage set for fashionable Georgian society, and focal point in a wider network that connected the city to London, landed estates in other parts of the country, seaports and small shops, trade and commercial transactions. Less making fashions than mirroring them, modifying them and passing them on, Bath society was served by connections which went round the globe and a network of skilled artisans who made up their new dresses or remodelled older ones.
Two centuries on, Bath’s Fashion Museum holds one of the world’s finest collections of, mainly, European haute couture and represents the tastes of one, very discerning, collector. It, too, looks forward and back, inwards and outwards, at the same time, and connects the city with Dior’s New Look and Mary Quant’s London; the catwalks of the 1980’s and 90’s; the counterculture of punk and its commodification. Threads run through it, literally and metaphorically, to China and India and back again, from street style to Parisian ateliers.
These connections, imaginary in some cases, sometimes second hand, and paradoxical in others, are profound.
This is less about ‘fashion’, and more about reinvention, identity and culture, finding or not finding a place in the world, the difference between material presence and intangible meaning. These connections, manifest in architecture and in a museum, speak to the city as a place of consumption, its celebration and now, of the need to find alternatives to it.
The consumption of art, architecture, fashion, food, and entertainment in historic and contemporary Bath served and continue to serve as markers of status, ambition, rise and fall, and of a much wider set of relationships, geographical connections, forms of validation and exploitation, public performance and private sensibilities, a sense of place and of alienation from it. To consider ‘fashion’ in this context is to open a dialogue about all these things, and about how the city might also re-imagine itself for the second half 21st century.
Bath has an opportunity with the redevelopment of the Bath Fashion Museum in the city centre (in the former Post Office, opposite the Waitrose!), to revitalise its reputation as a fashion capital, integrating this ambition with a partnership between the Museum and Bath Spa University which tackles these questions. How does a UNESCO city where almost every vista is like a scene from a Jane Austen adaptation, contend with debates about identity, deconstructing the legacies of slavery, colonialism and its undercurrent of wealth creation built on the blood, sweat and tears of others thousands of miles away, is threaded into the very DNA of the city and our fashion legacy. Arguably the 21 st Century overconsumption issues are also embedded in all of this and the work of the National Centre for Fashion and Sustainability at Bath Spa University will be in unpicking those knots in vibrant research, collaboration and impact.
By Alison Hems, Head of School of Writing Publishing and the Humanities, Bath Spa University.
WEC evidence session: Misogyny in music: Is the music industry changing for women? Tuesday, 28 January at 2.20pm
The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) will hear from women working across the music industry during its follow-up evidence session in Parliament on Tuesday, 28 January, one year on from the publication of its report into Misogyny in music.
The evidence session will explore whether anything has changed in the sector's treatment of women over the last 12 months, following the committee's inquiry and examine what further challenges remain.
WEC’s report warned women pursuing careers in music face “endemic” misogyny and discrimination in a sector dominated by self-employment and gendered power imbalances, recommending wide-ranging improved protections and reporting mechanisms.
Discussion is expected to touch upon female artists’ representation and safety, non-disclosure agreements, expectations on women and intersectional issues, the work of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA), maternity and the music industry and support for women.
Fashion Roundtable Library: Cradle to Cradle: (Patterns of Life) by Michael Braungart & William McDonough
Michael Braungart and William McDonough propose a plan for our planet in this stunning new edition of their radical ecological manifesto. This book proposes a new vision for modern industry.
Instead of our current wasteful and polluting methods of manufacturing, we could be taking nature as a model for making things.
With the right redesign, objects that have come to the end of their useful lives should provide the basis for something new.
In designing and producing products we need to stop worrying about being ‘less bad’ and start finding ways of actually being good.
Online Event: Modern Slavery and Child Labour in the Ready-made Garment Sector of Bangladesh, 10th February 8am - 9:15am
Whilst efforts to improve working conditions in Bangladesh’s RMG (Ready-made Garment) sector have advanced in the last decade, there is still little understanding and evidence of worker exploitation in hidden, subcontracted tiers of supply chains. This session will provide first-hand insights into lesser-investigated topics of forms of modern slavery and child labor, home-based work, and outsourcing linked to global RMG exports in Bangladesh, and offer actionable recommendations for more effective due diligence uptake.
Session Highlights:
Presentation of findings from community-based research conducted by GoodWeave International and the Rights Lab across 20 industrial clusters in Dhaka and Chattogram in 2023-2024, funded by UK International Development from the UK government.
Panel discussion featuring speakers from key stakeholder groups to discuss the research findings, challenges, and progress in human rights due diligence in the RMG sector in Bangladesh.
Actionable strategies: Recommendations and successes for industry stakeholders to identify and mitigate worker exploitation and improve working conditions in RMG supply chains.
Speakers include:
Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey - Member of UK House of Lords, Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, author and activist (Moderator)
Nazma Akter, Founder and Executive Director, Awaj Foundation; President, Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation
Ashraf Uddin, Executive Director, Bangladesh Labour Foundation
Culture for Climate Scotland: Upcoming Events
Culture for Climate Scotland connect culture & climate change.
They encourage and equip individuals, organisations and strategic bodies to harness the role of culture in achieving the transformational change to an environmentally sustainable Scotland.
They have a range of upcoming events, including SPRINGBOARD: Assembly for creative climate action, a two day online event on 5th & 6th March 2025, which focuses on how the arts and culture sector needs to reimagine and transform itself to thrive in a climate-changed world. Book your tickets to SPRINGBOARD here.
Starting Point is a monthly online workshop that introduces artists and cultural organisations to environmental action and climate justice. February's session will be a craft special to coincide with the relaunch of the Green Craft Initiative, a joint project with Craft Scotland. Register for free here.