I'm an internationally recognised opinion leader in sustainable fashion. My career started as a designer with the pioneering upcycling label From Somewhere, which I launched in 1997. My label’s designer collaborations include collections for Jigsaw, Speedo, and 4 best-selling capsule collections for Topshop. In 2006, I co-founded the British Fashion Council Initiative Estethica at London Fashion Week, which I curated until 2014. In 2013 I co-founded Fashion Revolution, a global campaign with participation in over 90 countries. I'm a regular keynote speaker and mentor, and Associate Visiting Professor at Middlesex University. My first book Loved Clothes Last is published by Penguin Life, Corbaccio Editore in Italy and in France by Edition Marabou.
I wrote
Loved Clothes Last: How the Joy of Rewearing and Repairing Your Clothes Can Be a Revolutionary Act
It does what it says on the cover, takes you back to where it all started, and puts where we are now in perspective. It put me in touch with my own ancestry, and the ancestry of time immemorial, giving sense to all journeys we have undertaken as inhabitants of planet earth. This book centered me, reminded me of the smallness and hugeness of human life on Earth, and inspired the best sleep routine I have ever attempted: when insomniac, or worried, at night, I imagine myself safe in a cave – and drift back to sleep almost immediately.
"[A]n exuberant romp through evolution, like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space. Gee’s grand tour enthusiastically details the narrative underlying life’s erratic and often whimsical exploration of biological form and function.” —Adrian Woolfson,The Washington Post
In the tradition of Richard Dawkins, Bill Bryson, and Simon Winchester—An entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story.
In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place—in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were…
The best book on mending, maintaining, and repairing clothes, ever. Beautifully written, inspirational, and easy to use, this is the definitive practical guide to all techniques related to clothing longevity.
I am nowhere near as good at mending as the author of this book, but I have found her techniques to be both practical and fairly simple, and the beautiful images make trying compelling.
Slow fashion expert Katrina Rodabaugh, bestselling author of Mending Matters, teaches readers how to mend, patch, dye, and alter clothing for an environmentally conscious, reimagined wardrobe
Slow fashion influencer Katrina Rodabaugh follows her bestselling book, Mending Matters,
with a comprehensive guide to building (and keeping) a wardrobe that
matters. Whether you want to repair your go-to jeans, refresh a favorite
garment, thrift-shop like a pro, alter or dye clothing you already
have-this book has all the know-how you'll need. Woven throughout are
stories, essays, and a slow fashion call-to-action, encouraging readers
to get involved or deepen their commitment to changing…
ThePianist's Only Daughter is a frank, humorous, and heartbreaking exploration of aging in an aging expert's own family.
Social worker and gerontologist Kathryn Betts Adams spent decades negotiating evolving family dynamics with her colorful and talented parents: her mother, an English scholar and poet, and her father, a pianist…
A very detailed and beautifully written history of the textile industry throughout time, this book really underlines how our industriousness has turned into a multibillion-dollar industry, disregarding many of the principles and values it stems from.
As a go-to a history of the textile industry, you can’t read much better than this, an unbroken thread of useful knowledge for whoever thinks fashion is frivolous.
From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefi ne human civilization-from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole). She peoples her story with a motley cast of characters, including Xiling, the ancient Chinese empress credited with inventing silk, to Richard…
Exploring an earth-centric view of business for the future, envisioning regenerative systems where fashion can support, rather than deplete our planet’s finite resources, this book challenges the concept of growth and offers real alternatives.
This book feels challenging, but is rooted in common sense, it may seem out there and unrealistic, but being about Earth it actually makes it feel not just possible but eminently doable.
An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs. Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private…
Aja’s first book is a must-read, a brilliant personal account as well as a captivating commentary on the fashion industry of today. Aja gives space to other women’s voices, expanding in several scenarios and conversations to condemn the role fast fashion has on people, nature, our culture, and our environment. I could hear her voice as I frantically went from page to page in this important book.
'This powerful, speaking-truth-to-power book is an essential read for everybody who wants to stop feeling clueless and helpless about the impacts of cosumerism, and start doing their part to help create a more sustainable world' - Layla Saad
'A critique on what we buy, how it's made and the systems behind it that make an unfair and broken cycle' - New York Times
'The book is a blueprint for anyone who wants to do better' - VOGUE
'SUCH integrity. Aja is no bullsh*t.' - Florence Given
'Consumed takes us through the hideously complex topic of fashion and sustainability, from…
On repairs and reparations: how keeping your clothes is a revolutionary act, and a powerful solution for today’s throwaway society. I wrote this book, and it contains my 20+ years of inside knowledge in the fashion industry.
Making changes starting from our wardrobes may seem like a small and insignificant first step, but from repairs can come the impetus for reparations, and broken clothes can be a metaphor for broken systems.
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…
This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoter’s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands of…
