Q&A | Naomi Austin

Naomi Austin previously designed men’s & boys’ sportswear for a number of high-profile brands such as Reebok, Umbro and Marks & Spencer's. Now, alongside being a full-time senior lecturer in Fashion Design & Promotion at the University of Sunderland, she is working towards a PHD. Her research has been focused on the potential for high street chains to use bast fibres (hemp, linen & ramie) as they have a much lower demand for water and energy. Here she answers a few Qs put to her by the SFW Team…

It is starting to come to the surface that there are many more sustainable fibres available that can be used for clothing production. So please can you explain why high street retailers are not prioritising the use of these fibres - is it down to production time/money/quality? 

The biggest barrier with introducing sustainable fabrics to the high street is definitely cost. If I use bast fibres, particularly hemp and linen, for example, the industry which produces these fibres is tiny compared to other fibre producing industries such as cotton, even though hemp and linen has been used in clothing for thousands of years.

Two years ago, a survey found that only 50,000 hectares of land was used to grown hemp in Europe compared to 57 million hectares of land for other textile fibres. We also don’t have the big weaving industry to be able to cope with the production of these fibres and its still quite labour intensive.

Of course, the only way round this is to increase the popularity and desire for sustainable fibres and then the production will increase which in turn, will reduce the cost for the manufacturing industry AND the consumers.  

Many companies claim to be using 'organic' cotton but without evidence of certification such as GOTS it can be hard for consumers to determine what is what. Do you think this is a further barrier in using more sustainable fibres? 

I think there definitely needs to be more transparency when it comes to knowing exactly what is used to make our clothing. There needs to be far more education in terms of what goes into producing the garments we wear, not only in terms of content but also where our clothes are manufactured and who are making them; the ethics is just as important, and I think the Rana Plaza disaster highlighted this.

But personally, I still believe that even organic cotton is not sustainable enough. The public have been made aware that cotton is probably the most unsustainable fibre in the world in terms of water use, chemical fertiliser and pesticide use and I think organic cotton is going in the right direction to address this.

However, currently, still less than 1% of all cotton produced is organic and it still needs up to 20,000 litres of water for every 2lbs of cotton grown. Although farmers worldwide are developing excellent systems to reuse the water, there’s still approximately 20% wasted and because organic cotton produces a lower yield compared to standard cotton this means it’s actually less efficient.

Organic cotton also still needs to be treated with chemicals during processing for it to dye properly and to keep its shape which means it’s not biodegradable unless untreated.

Bast fibres have a fineness, strength and flexibility which surpasses many other fibres therefore offering great potential as sustainable alternatives to the dominance of cotton. They require little to no water; can be grown anywhere, don’t need chemicals during processing and manufacturing meaning they’re almost fully biodegradable and they also regenerate the soil. In order to make the fashion industry fully sustainable we really need to move towards using these fibres.

As consumers, do you think we have any impact in making companies choose more sustainable fibres for clothing production? 

Most definitely! Consumers are what keeps the demand going. Demand increases production and this, in turn, creates jobs and more money for the companies… its why fast fashion has exploded because the turnover is so high.

We’re in a tricky place right now. We need to educate consumers to believe that buying fully sustainable clothes is the right thing to do; but we need to do this whilst the cost still remains higher than other clothing. However, once consumers demand more sustainable clothes the cost will definitely come down and then more companies will want to produce these goods.

My intention for my PhD outcome is to create an educational package which will highlight the benefits of using bast fibres and to quash the misconceptions surrounding fibres such as hemp.

What changes would you like to see in the industry in the next 12 months? 

I think for a start we need to re-emerge from the COVID crisis.

This has affected the fashion industry and in particular the high street fashion retailers massively (as we’ve seen with the demise of TopShop, Debenhams etc.) It saddens me as I felt we were starting to move away from fast fashion, and Generation Z were beginning to sit up and take note more, especially with Greta Thunberg and the climate change rallies. But the pandemic has actually seen an increase in the sales of fast fashion - lockdown may have affected the high street but for web-based Boohoo, sales shot up a massive 45% between February and May 2020 exactly when the country were told to stay at home.

Many people say that the high street is doomed but I don’t believe that’s so. In other countries including Europe and America, high street sales are doing extremely well so I think we need to encourage consumers to get back on to the high street. I’m incorporating this encouragement into my taught sessions with my students focusing on creating sustainable brands which would do well on the high street and start to see the footfall increase. Then we can begin to address sustainability fully again.

Personally, I’m keeping a close eye on the development of using alternative fibres. Over the next year or so the EU is planning to implement a textiles strategy and I’m working with the European Industrial Hemp Association to encourage a sort of hemp revolution. There is still so much misinformation about hemp and its link to marijuana!

What the majority of people don’t realise is that hemp and marijuana are in fact, from completely different strains of the cannabis sativa plant, the biggest difference, and one which people need to be educated on is that marijuana contains something called THC – tetrahydrocannabidol. This is the psychoactive ingredient which makes people ‘high’ or gets them stoned. Industrial hemp (the plant used for clothing) contains less than 0.3% of THC which wouldn’t affect you at all.

We still have ridiculous restrictions in the UK in terms of growing industrial hemp, so I’d like to see all of these lifted. I think it may take longer than 12 months but even just getting our government to discuss this would be amazing!

Which of our SFW themes (Regenerate, Rebel, Rewear or Repurpose) do you think you most engage with in your relationship with fashion?

I think for me, I’d have to choose regenerate.

Although I am fully engaged and supportive of recycling etc. in the short term if we focus TOO much on recycling & make do and mend then jobs could seriously be at risk as “the UK’s fashion industry plays a significant role in the country’s economy..” so we need to look at what we’re using to manufacture the clothes rather than just recycle and reuse everything we see.

If more research is done into making fabric sustainable AND affordable then we’ll be heading in the right direction. Instead of suggesting that consumers only re use or recycle clothes, going forward we need to encourage the fashion industry to produce clothes which are fully sustainable because we don’t want to impact on the economy.

Fashion brands should aim instead to use new technology and business models to design products that can be recycled or re-engineered into new styles with minimal use of virgin materials, water, energy and chemicals. We also need to consider the regeneration of the land crops are grown on so we can sustain our planet.

In the meantime, in order to be able to move towards a sustainable future ultimately, we need to change our consumer behaviour. Until attitudes change, we need to take better care of the clothes we have and the ones we leave behind.

Everybody can do something in the short term!