Interview with Shahira Kamal of Shahira Kamal Custom on What She Thinks Haunts the Fashion Industry Today

Hello everyone, welcome to the Conscious Design Podcast. I'm here with Shahira, a fashion designer and maker. She makes custom wool and leather outerwear, and we're here to talk about fashion and a lot of things around it. So welcome to the show, really good to have you.

Thank you so much, Ian.

Well, we were just chatting a little bit about the topics, and the first thing that I think we really want to talk about is, you know, we all have this need, right? This, this pretty strong need to buy beautiful things, get things, have wonderful clothing to wear. But even now, you know, consumers and, and We were just talking about, we need to think about how do we go about that process, right? How do we go about buying? How do we go about making? How do we, how do we think about it? And the ways that we should start thinking about changing how to even think about this. And, you know, what are, what are your thoughts on, you know, what can, what can we do? What, what do you see as good ideas to move forward with?

Yeah, thanks. I think that, you know, the efforts so far, they're certainly on the right track. The way that we're trying to rethink production processes, the way that we're trying to rethink raw materials, I think the most the most consideration has been given to materials. What raw materials are we using and where are they coming from? And then people are also looking at processes too. But I don't think that these go deep enough. And in fact, I'd have to say that I think they're, they're a bit of a distraction. Because we don't want to look at some of the deeper issues. Labor, first of all, it doesn't get nearly as much attention as materials or processes, and this is at least regarding clothing production in the mainstream and particularly with fast fashion. It is non-white labor. And almost, and by a large majority, it is women. Some people say it's 70% of the labor force for fashion is women. Some people say it's 80 or even 90%. So, you know, that all of those sociopolitical issues come into play. And then, but beneath labor is our— this kind of death spiral between our conditioning to keep buying more and more stuff and then the continued processing of more and more stuff. It was 80 billion garments per year that I remember researching maybe 10 years ago, and I think we're up to 120 billion garments per year get pumped into the market. And, you know, we are driving that. Consumers drive that, I think, much more than we realize. So I would like to look at the psychology just as much as materials or production or even labor.

Yeah. Right. Well, that's, and that's a crazy number, right? Where there's not, there's not that many of us on the planet.

How many garments per person is that divided by? Not, is it 8 billion people?

Even if we round it to 8, it's like, oh, a lot. It's too many. It's like 15, 15 pieces per person per year.

Yeah.

On the planet. And you know that there's countries that aren't buying 15 pieces of new clothing a year per person, period.

Yeah.

So it kind of skews even, even worse. It's probably, you know, the markets that actually buy it, it's even more per person, which is a lot per year. And, you know, one of the things we talked about was like, we have this need, right? Part of it is this drive, the psychology is, you know, we want to have what other people have. We don't— we want to fit in, we want to match. And there's also the beauty part. We find things that we like and we have, you know, basically a kind of reaction like, oh, I should buy that. I need to buy that. Even if it's something— and I've known people that have bought clothing and never worn it, right? So it's there unused, but, you know, it's— so there's, I think there's a lot of layers to it, right? There's a lot of needs that we think we're fulfilling by purchasing lots of clothing. And we do it to other products too. This isn't just a pick on fashion.

No, hardly.

But it is such an interesting thing because we do want beautiful things and like you, you're a maker, you actually love making things. So we also have that population of people who love to make the stuff, right? And so how do you think that there's a good way to balance that? Because Right? We don't want to stifle creativity and say, no, sorry, you can't make clothing anymore. We have too many clothing makers now. You have to pick a different career. Like, that's not the solution either.

Right.

So, you know, what's— I guess, are there any ideas on how do we go about thinking this through in a way? And I think you mentioned like longevity, like how long you use a piece of clothing? What else could we be thinking about to make it so we keep that balance between makers and users? And, you know, there's mass production too, which is a whole other level.

Well, it's simple, but it's not easy. I think that really what it requires is rethinking what's considered good business and what's considered good economics and accepting that scaling is not always what you wanna shoot for. That, This assumption that if you can't scale a business, then you, you really shouldn't bother, then you're going to always be limited on the amount of money you can make, I think. Um, maybe it does come down to ideas of that there are only certain ways to, to make unlimited amounts of money, and that Currently, the best— the thinking is the best way to do that is to try to make, you know, as many units as you can at lower and lower prices so that you can squeeze the largest profit margin you can off of every unit. You know, you could price— you're trying to price it as high as possible, and that every year you want to get your costs down and you want to try to sell more or maybe increase your price. And that this, that's what you're supposed to do. That's what good business is. And you wanna edge out your competition. You know, you want to like try to get as close to a monopoly as you can on the market, on the product, whatever you sell. And I think it means rethinking that because at least in terms of finding more of a balance between what the ecology of the planet can sustain. But again, I'm gonna keep coming back to this. It's going to keep coming down to what we think is necessary, how many objects we think are necessary to feel successful. So to decouple this idea of acquiring a certain amount of stuff or certain items with success. So we have to decouple consumption from success, and we have to decouple living a good life from absolute unlimited wealth in the economy that we've currently developed. You know, I want to— what I make, I make a custom garment. So My intention is that I make one garment for one individual, and my intention is that you use it for the rest of your life. I want to find something essential about you. I want to find an unchanging quality about you and pull that out, you as my client, and find a visual representation of that so that you are inspired to wear it all the time. I want you to sleep in it. I want you to shower in it. I want you to have sex in it. Right? I want your children to fight over it when you die, and I guarantee the garment for life too. So if you have any problems, I will fix it for free, so that— Yeah, that you, that you will want to wear it and that you'll want to pass it down. And so now the idea is, now I'm not going to sell something like this to you every few months, maybe not every year. It might be a once in a lifetime or twice in a lifetime thing. So I'm only going to make so many. And I— now I'm okay with that. And some people might think, well, now you're limiting your ability to earn. And I don't know if that's necessarily the case. You know, the better I get at it, The more I'll start charging, and/or there are other ways to go deeper into what I care about. And so it's more about depth than breadth. Like this this issue with psychology, you know, I'm I'm trying to find psychologists who are also focusing on sustainable issues and helping people reconcile the two, reconcile these. this issue of consumption with the issue of happiness, you know, I can always go deeper into that in some way. So, um, yeah, Ian, I think, I think it's about, um, finding new economic models. And, um, there's a great book by Kate Raworth called Doughnut Economics that, uh, sort of outlines the idea of shifting economic models. That's one of the, one of the resources I draw on. And there's also a book called The Day the World Stopped Shopping by J.B. McKinnon, which is— which tries to envision a different economy. So, um, yeah, you know, this, uh, this is why we're all dragging our feet, I think. is because it's not just about the product itself and how it comes about. Yeah.

Well, I think you had a— you brought up an interesting point in like what you make, you want to last for generations essentially, right? You're trying to create that. And that's a different kind of mindset, right, than what we have now, which is, oh, I want it to look good now and I'm gonna replace it in 6 months or after one time I use it, it's gonna go away. And there's less, there's less of a generational wealth mentality in general. Like there's not as much thinking about, well, I'm doing what I'm doing, not just for me, But because it's going to set up my kids and my grandkids, there's less of that long-term stair-stepping of growing the family's wealth and the family's survivability, right? If we're talking about psychology behind it, like the success where we've shortened that focus to what about me? And I'm not gonna have as much retirement. I'm not gonna focus on having that anything left over. I want just enough money to retire on and run out when I'm dead.

Right.

It's just not thinking of, oh, I'm buying this and this is going to be passed down for generations. We just don't have that kind of mindset. I see it in how people start businesses. But you mentioned it's very scaling. Like, well, how do I scale this? How do I make it huge and sell it. Nobody wants— like, there's— I don't want to say nobody, but there's even fewer people who want to start businesses to pass down or last. Like, the family business that's been around for 80 years is just not the model that we think about most of the time. It's, how do I turn this around really quick, make myself and investors a bunch of money, and then bail out? And be done. Right.

And that's—

so it's just— so it's— I think it's connected, right? It's showing up in multiple places. And it's interesting that you're bringing up from a fashion standpoint, but it is just kind of bleeding over the short-term focus, basically, is kind of what I think is part of what we're doing for whatever reason. I don't know. I don't know the psychology behind it, but it's short-term planning is our focus.

Yeah, that's a really good point. I wonder if it's linked to the uncertainty, increased uncertainty, economic uncertainty we feel that we just— that it's It feels smarter to think short-term because you never know, or what exactly. Yeah, that's a good point.

Right. You mentioned something else in thinking about clothing earlier is how often are you going to use it and how— and you even mentioned that with your league, you want people to wear it daily and appear 24/7. That's the goal is they should love it that much.

Mm-hmm.

And there's obviously, there's people who aren't going to do that. They're going to want to wear different things. But how do we balance that too? You don't want to wear the same thing every day, all the time, but we also don't want to have those one-time buy it, maybe wear it, and then Not even— not doing anything, anything after that. So what do you think is that— how do we start to think about balancing that out? And what makes— what might make sense from your perspective?

Yeah, this is another reason sustainability has a little trouble catching on. I think it's because it looks different for every person. Yeah, right. And staying warm, yeah, it means different things to different people. And when it— at least when it comes to clothes, I'm going to be somebody who I'm probably not going to tell you, okay, you need like to get through a year in your particular climate, you need this many shirts. shirts and you need this many pants and you need these kinds of shoes. And here are numbers and here are types and you'll be all set, you know. And I mean, you can, you can prescribe it a little bit. And, you know, there are a lot of great content creators out there who are trying to do just that, trying to help people. Like if, if somebody doesn't have a clue where to start, you might need that sort of some sort of guideline. About how much—

some target to aim at. Right.

Yeah, yeah, at least to start. How much, how many, and what should you look for, and how should you expect them to perform, and how long? And there are, you know, all over YouTube, and there are plenty of books you can look for that. But at the end of the day, it comes down to— it really comes down to knowing yourself. Um, you know, the, the way— just to try to answer your question more shortly— the way I've attacked this problem is to go for outerwear. Because instead of some other garment, um, like a sweater or a pair of jeans, um, I make outerwear because, because it is intended to last. And, you know, it's made of heavier materials, it's made in a to be very sturdy and to stand up to long wear. And people don't tend to change out their clothes or their coats as much as a t-shirt, you know. So that, that's been— that's my approach, is to go for coats. But in terms of, you know, what people— how people should balance, you know, their needs with their wants, it's— it really does come down to self-knowledge and honoring Honoring who you truly are and honoring your lifestyle and try and through trial and error figuring out what is going to serve you through most of the hours of your day, you know, through the climate you live in, through your your needs and your family's needs. You know, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. So, and that's why people like me are around, is to try to help you figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm afraid there's no one size fits all. Yeah.

It never is. So it's, it's always a balance. And like you said, there's lots of resources to give a general target.

Yeah.

But then it is that Figuring out what actually works for you, which, which people, that's where people will often get hung up too. It's like, oh, I have to figure out what, what works for me. Well, that's a whole process. And I think we kind of need to get over that. Right. We need to get, get to the place where like, no, I really do need to figure out what is best for me rather than being told what is best.

Yes.

Right. I mean, that one's easier, but, but we're supposed to grow out of that stage at some point.

Mm-hmm.

And start really thinking about what, what is going to be best. What's, what's gonna be a good fit. Like you said, like where you live, climate, there's, there's so many variabilities, right? Your, your job, you're gonna have certain requirements for that. So there's, there's all kinds of requirements. for it. And I think we just don't sit down and think about it logically. We just don't break down like, this is what I actually need for— what are the requirements, right? Nobody sits down and scopes out, you know, exactly like, these are all my requirements for my clothes, the different— and then nobody's like creating a data matrix to like try to figure out what are the 15 things I need to perfectly meet all my requirements because it's just not, it's not natural, I think, at this point. But I don't think we need to go that crazy, right? Nobody, everybody doesn't need a spreadsheet. Let's not do that.

I don't know. You've given me a great idea. I think if I—

Maybe, maybe you can make a quiz.

I'm going to make one up. Yeah, no, that's great, Ian. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to, I'm going to take that idea if that's okay with you.

Go for it. Yeah, if you can make it user-friendly, because there's lots of people who hate Excel. So we don't, we don't actually want— nobody wants to actually do that really well. I would do it, but I enjoy that stuff. But yeah, that kind of— yeah, that'd be great.

No, you're right. We don't want to add to the intimidation.

No, we need to make it user-friendly. It has to be, it has to be natural. It has to be easy. It has to You know, it could be a little bit harder than the alternative, but it can't be too much. It can't be a giant scary step. It has to be like a nice little, little half step. And then nobody can really argue because it's, because it's easy.

Right. You have to make it easy to do the right thing. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Oh no, that's excellent. Um, well, and it's the difficulties to— for, for going through that process, like you're saying. I think largely the reasons it is so difficult is because you have— now you're going to have to change your, your daily habits. And what does that mean? for how you're showing up in your life. Um, and this is where the psychology— and honestly, I, I would go so far as to say there are issues here that are similar to addiction, um, that we are addiction— addicted to shopping.

Oh, shopaholics. That's— I mean, we're all pretty We talked about it.

Yeah, yeah, we get a little dopamine. The dopamine— is it the dopamine that comes with the anticipation and the serotonin that gets squirted when we make the purchase? Um, it's something like that. There is definitely a brain chemical cycle when we make purchases. And so you, like any other addiction, you need support to, to change and shift out of it. You need to be around people who are supporting you changing, going through this process. You need to expect that you're going to relapse. You know, you're going to need to expect you're going to binge once in a while. Excuse me. And you're going to fall off the wagon. Um, so yeah, it's, it is a process. And And like you said, you have to get to a point where you're going to accept that you need to go through it. And yeah, it's difficult.

Right. Well, something you also mentioned, like the shame, right? There's, there's that, that's a huge driver for us, right? Avoiding, avoiding it, right? Not running towards it, but avoiding it. And There's a lot of stigmas, especially in fashion, right? There's a very clear chain of top to bottom in terms of what is good fashion, what is acceptable to wear, what is okay, what is not. And there's entire stores built off of it. And it's—

Mm-hmm.

I don't think it's evil to have high fashion or really good You know, I'm not trying to get rid of fancy things, but there's, there's also like, well, what's realistic for any regular occasion or regular, you know, what, and what is regular? What? All right. So like that, I mean, there's, there's that too. So, you know, what you talked about that. So what's your— What are your thoughts on that? And how do we, how do we help? Because that's a huge, huge obviously a driver of human behaviors, anti-shame. We don't, we don't want to be ostracized, right? Survival, as you were saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it's a little bit heartbreaking for me actually to see, you know, the fashion industry has, has come to undermine itself by becoming more and more superficial and more and more commercialized. And then it's, of all the design disciplines, it's the most bitchy, backstabby, non-collaborative, you know, people don't help each other in fashion in the way that they might in in the way that I've seen in like graphic design or web design, you know, they don't really come together to help each other. They— and to— well, yeah, they come together to compete instead. And this intense competition is partly what has driven the ugliness of how fashion textiles and garments get produced because people, people in, in the, in the production chain, in the value chain, and the brand retailers themselves, they get extremely proprietary about, um, either fabric technology, you know, fabric development, or particular factories that will make particular garments at a particular price. And so the processes have become very opaque, and this, this lack of transparency, because nobody wants to share about where they get their stuff, this has driven the exploitation of labor because factories now, more and more pressure is put on factories to produce more garments. And if, well, again, we went from $80 billion to $120 billion in about 10 years. The, if a factory can't meet, you know, the demands of the brand, then they will subcontract out to, to God knows who and God knows where. And it's, it's these subcontracting out that, that gets more and more exploitative, you know, and, and the brand retailers less and less aware of who's actually making their garments. So, you know, that's, that's maybe at the lower end. On the luxury end, yeah, you know, these The luxury brands, they used to really mean something. And to some extent, they still kind of do, you know, working in handcrafting, in couture, in the way that I like to work, where I spend 150 hours on one garment, maybe. You know, that sort of thing used to be what a luxury brand meant. And And there is still the haute couture line of a brand like Chanel, but there's also the mass-produced side. And in terms of, you know, the arbiters of fashion dictating what you should be wearing, you know, that has— that still holds true to some extent. And you've got all kinds of influencers, you know, now on all different levels because of social media. And you still have— you very much have people telling you what you should be wearing and brands telling you that you should be wearing them and have particular cachet. And we all feel the pressure to wear these brands.

Hmm.

But I guess my point is, more and more, this— the hype and the pressure is more and more manufactured. Again, I can't— I can only think the best solution is to figure out how to step around all of this. You have to figure out how not to care anymore. You have to decide, you know, I'm, I'm just this time I'm not gonna buy a particular brand of athletic shoes, you know, and you can maybe think of the brand I'm thinking of. Um, I'm right.

Thank you.

I'm just, I'm not going to do it this time. And yeah, now what's that going to mean in terms of what my friends think of me? And, you know, what I can't— I don't have an These new great kicks to put on the Instagram. It just, it keeps coming down in my mind to that issue. You have to not care anymore. You have to decide what's most important to you in terms of how you want to express yourself and, and be positive about it. In, in that way, um, be— you, you have to become the lighthouse. You have to become the beacon for your own circle. Um, I really, Leanne, I think that's really the only way out is for each person to do that.

Yeah.

Now it's true, granted, you know, I want to go farther than most people want to. I want everybody to be sort of this grand gypsy artist that does wear the same clothes almost every day, really, and like wears their life on their body and everything they've collected through the life they've been living and sort of their appearance becomes a work of art. That's like my fantasy, and that's expecting too much, I think, probably.

But that's a, that's a far leap, but there's also people who I think would also love to do that.

You think so?

You know, maybe, maybe if enough people do it, it becomes acceptable for that to be normal for some people, right? I mean, I think, and I think that's part of it too, is, is allowing different normals to coexist. which is kind of what we're going through on many other levels in many, many other areas, right? Of normal for me is not normal for you, which is not normal for any of our neighbors. Right. It's, it's, it's right. Right. It's going back to what you were saying of like, this needs to be, you have to think about it yourself. What's, what's a good fit for you?

Hmm.

someone else and then be okay with it. So it's— yeah, so many areas, right? So many.

We, we can help each other though. We could help each other make it okay to wear the same clothes more often. We could help each other make it okay to not buy the latest thing every year or every 6 months or however often. I mean, we need to help each other feel more comfortable sending different social cues, um, because nothing's going to change if we— as long as we keep buying what's shoved under our noses, nothing's going to change. Um, so we, we need to help support each other in making those changes, um, I think, instead of trying to—

Right.

You know, I think we feel, we feel isolated and alone and Perhaps more alienated and less connected than ever, somewhat ironically. And yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it's— yeah, and I think, I think the other thing that scares people, even talking to people about, you know, developing a new product and talking about sustainability on material side, a lot of People just get scared because it's a lot. So I think it's also the— not to slow it down, right? We don't want to slow it, slow change down to the point where it takes 1,000 years to improve this. But there's also the reality of like, it's okay to start taking baby steps because like—

Right.

You aren't born and you start running the next day. Right. It's still, it's It's still a process. So it's okay for there to be a process as long as there's progress and it's as much progress as you possibly can within reason. Right. I think that's, that's the other secret is like, don't, don't try to do too much at once cuz you won't do any of it really well and it'll just be frustrating and you'll end up quitting. I mean, right. It's just overwhelmed. You'll get overwhelmed and you won't be able to do it and you'll— You'll stop, and then that benefits no one, including yourself.

Right. Yeah, I think that's really important. And I think that it's so hard to believe that one person, my one little daily action, is really going to matter. Like, is that even going to be a drop in the bucket? I, yeah, I think so too. I think people kind of, they get frustrated and overwhelmed and they throw up their hands because they don't think what they're going— what they might do, the baby steps they might take are really gonna matter. But they do. They really do matter. You're, you know, you and I, each of us are making history every single day. You don't have to be famous or wealthy to make history.

Right.

Your, your one life really does matter that much, and how you live it really matters. Yeah, absolutely.

I think, I think this loops back to our, our conversation about longevity and, and family and like that, well, legacy, right? Well, if you, if you're doing it and you get it to a certain point and then your kid takes over and then Like you're always, if you think of it generationally, then you're, then it's not a waste, whatever your little steps are. It's not actually a waste because it's going to set up the next better than you started. And that's just as important too. Right. There's, yeah. And it's kind of this thing. It's also this, this idea that we all need to finish everything. Ourselves.

Right.

It used to take— pyramids weren't built in a day. Neither, neither were most other huge structures. Right. People were okay with, you know, giant structures taking hundreds of years to construct. They were not gonna live, you know, the architect was never gonna see that structure finished ever. Like not possible. Not possible at the fastest they could work. They were not going to see it happen, but their great-grandkids were. And that, that same kind of idea of like what you're building is, is long-term and thinking beyond your own existence, which if we had, we probably wouldn't be where we're at realistically. So I think that kind of, that's, that's the kind of thinking that's going to change. And probably out of that is what we'll come up with some better— I think that's kind of the thought behind things like circular economy and those kinds of concepts are coming from a, well, how do we make it better for, you know, 4 generations from now? How do we make it not terrible for them?

Right.

And that's that kind of thinking is Is, uh, different, right? It's way different than what most of us are come, come in thinking and grow up thinking. Um, 'cause it hasn't been, hasn't been what we've been, what any of us have been really doing, or not enough of us.

No. Um, not only have we been convinced more is better, we've been convinced faster is better too.

Right. Yes. More faster.

Yeah.

And that's, it's good in some cases, but not, it's not a blanket, everything is good, better and faster and more, right? It's not a, it can't be a blanket statement.

Yeah, no, I think that's really important. Bringing the shift or shifting the, the, The understanding of how valuable something is, not just to me or my generation, but to those who come after, which, like you're saying, is hardly a new idea.

It's just a forgotten one.

Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I have that ego too. I, you know, I want to see the culmination of my efforts in my own lifetime. But I have come to accept, in fact, I accepted it maybe 10 years ago, that I won't see the sort of changes regarding sustainability, probably not in my lifetime, that I would like to see. And that's okay. That's okay. Because I do feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall trying to help people understand, see things the way I see them, or to To help them believe in their own power to shape their own lives and the lives of their community and even the world. And I might not get through to as many people as I'd like, but but that's okay. But I also really like you know you keep bringing up the generational consideration. I think that really dovetails too with the The increase in the attention to localism again, especially after COVID. I mean, COVID really changed— it helped people shift their values quite a bit.

Yeah, it was a, it was a major push.

Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, um, it was hard, but, um, it— there were some silver linings to it, and I think that's one of them. you know, to save all these local businesses that were dying, people had to remember their own community. And hopefully that can— we can capitalize on this renewed consideration and build things not just for ourselves, but those who come after us. Yeah.

I agree. That's, that's true. Well, it's been, it's been great chatting with you. I think we've, we've managed to come full circle here with, with everything, which is always, always great when we can do that. Uh, for anybody that, that wants to work with you or, or talk to you about this kind of stuff, you know, where, where and how would people get ahold of you best?

Yeah, um, you can always email me at— I will need to spell it out. It's s@shahirakamal.com. That's s@shahirakamal.com. Or you can always find me on LinkedIn. That's a great way too. Yeah.

Well, make sure your— those links are in the notes and people can get a hold of you and Hopefully there'll be some more conversations about this because we need, we need them. We need, yeah, we need to think about it, right? Nothing will happen unless we talk about it. Right.

Yeah, I hope so too. I've really enjoyed this, Ian, and I hope that we keep talking.

Absolutely.

You and I specifically too. Yeah.

Absolutely. Thanks for being on the show.

Okay. Thank you so much.