Katie Robinson is a sustainable fashion journalist, content creator, and campaigner, with experience working in fashion marketing. Her videos delve into the existence and effectiveness of marketing trends, and the development of sustainability in fashion.
I (virtually) sat down with Katie to discuss hot topics in fashion – ranging from the fashion of Formula 1, Victoria’s Secret’s ‘inclusive’ new fashion show (neither secret nor inclusive), to the many ways that AI is rapidly taking over the fashion industry.
Cherwell: How do you decide what your videos will be on? Are they usually about what current topic angers you the most?
Katie: It really varies! Sometimes it will be something that I’ve noticed happening in the industry – maybe other people are talking about it in magazines and I feel I have an angle on it. Or maybe there’s a trending topic on social media, and I’m like “Oh, this could do with a sustainable fashion spin.” As much as I want to yap on and on about my interests, I need to make it accessible to the most people, which is something I’ve really had to learn whilst making my channel.
Cherwell: Since the quality of clothes is getting worse all the time, is there a way to identify higher quality pieces at lower prices?
Katie: It’s a hard one, and I say this all the time in my videos – I am not a materials expert! There’s always this argument of ‘polyester is good’ or ‘polyester is bad’, and I don’t have a definitive answer…
Personally, I try to avoid a high percentage of polyester – I’ve read all the articles about health concerns, and obviously it’s bad for the environment. That’s scary, but some people say you do need polyester, especially for things like activewear where there aren’t a lot of attainable solutions. It’s hard to avoid, and so I try to go for second-hand options (maybe 75% of my wardrobe is second-hand). When I shop firsthand, I try to invest in something I really believe in.
Cherwell: You mentioned in a recent video how brands are also aware of how we interpret certain words like ‘polyester’, and so try to deceive us by using other terms we won’t recognise. It’s funny how we really don’t know what we’re buying…
Katie: I know, and it’s so dependent on what brands think – and they’re getting smarter all the time. They’re taking genuine concerns from consumers and trying to warp that into getting us to buy their products. It’s so, so hard to navigate. No one is perfectly sustainable; you’re going to make mistakes.
The one thing I always focus on is the garment itself. Do I love it? Do I think I’ll care for it? Will I keep it in my wardrobe? That, to me, is better sustainability wise than buying a piece from the most sustainable brand that you’re never going to wear.
Cherwell: Since so much of sustainable impact is up to the brands to control, is there anything that we as consumers can do?
Katie: I do believe we can make a difference. When you talk about how much brands are producing, and how there’s this massive issue of recycling, it feels like, “Okay, well what can I do, this is a massive industry issue.” But I do believe that everyone doing something tiny makes a massive difference. Wearing your clothes to death and recycling on your own may not seem like you’re making a difference, but I think it does. It makes me feel better as a consumer. But I know it’s overwhelming, so imperfect sustainability is absolutely fine. A tiny step is still a step.
Cherwell: Given your experience working in the fashion industry, do you think that companies actually take sustainability as a major part?
Katie: I worked for a very small brand before, that championed their sustainability, and I do think they were doing some very interesting things. But it’s hard to be a fashion brand. You need to put profit above all else in a capitalist society – that’s just unnegotiable. There aren’t many examples of brands that you can look at that are sustainability first and profit after. I do think there are a few that are choosing a balance and it’s working – I always talk about GANNI. I think their sustainability marketing is good and really clear for consumers. Whether they’re at the forefront of the industry I’m not sure… But as a consumer of them, I do feel informed. There’s also Stella McCartney, which pushes a lot of innovation in the industry. I saw some brands put ‘the planet’ on their list of shareholders, and I think that’s a really cool technique – I would love to be a fly on the wall in these meetings and see if there’s actually this impact.
Cherwell: What do you think should be done about the amount of fast/ultra-fast fashion (Shein, Temu) that is in charity shops? Should charity shops just throw these clothes away?
Katie: Such a good question. The first thing that pops to mind is no; we don’t want to be throwing stuff away. But we also don’t want to be giving this stuff away. Immediately, you might think that well, giving away all this fast fashion is a really good use for it. But it’s about the psychological aspect of giving – for lack of better words – crap clothes to people. That’s just not nice for anybody; it’s not a solution.
I think the first thing has to be turning off the tap – regulating these companies to stop producing so much. The second thing is to make sure that some of the money going to billionaire companies is turning into fashion recycling, so when it gets to the inevitable point that no one wants to buy these clothes, you can use them to make more clothes, packaging, or fillers for sofas. That might be a better life than what they have now, without throwing them away across the world or giving them to people that don’t want them.
Cherwell: With the rise of TikTok fashion, do you think that fashion nowadays is really self-expression if we’re all just dressing the same?
Katie: No (laughs)! This is something I could yap about all day. Fashion and trends have become symbiotic – it’s not about self-expression, it’s about consuming. Fashion influencers have become shopping influencers. We have lost the meaning of why we buy clothes in the first place (but obviously there was always the aspect of having to clothe ourselves). If you think about ‘90s/2000s fashion, compared to what we would define as 2020s fashion, there’s nothing you could give as a defining moment other than microtrends that already feel cringy. I think it’s so interesting how everything feels outdated.
Cherwell: You made a video about how Hailey Bieber’s Rhode company leaning into the use of food in their marketing is likely related to the rising cost of daily essentials. Do you have any future marketing trend predictions?
Katie: I think that everything is going to revolve around this new type of influencer that we’re starting to see – brands are now wanting influencers that stand for more than just a shopping recommendation. They want people that have jobs in the real world and a following outside of fashion that they can tie their industry to. This is for credibility, because fashion right now is flailing. Also, brands will push influencer relationships more, especially with sponsored influencer community events like the Lyas fashion watch party in Paris. It’s insane, but such a good example of how brands are now going to people rather than bringing people to them. Overall, consumers are looking for more substance from the people they’re watching.
Cherwell: You’ve discussed new companies that are being driven by AI trend predictions in your videos before. Do you think that AI can take over fashion – in place of human designers?
Katie: If we’re talking about the fashion industry in the last 5-10 years, and how it’s devolved into trends and consumerism, then yeah. I do think that AI can rule most of that. But if we’re talking about fashion as an art form, then no, I don’t think you can remove the human aspect of that at all! There has to be someone creating something and someone seeing and connecting to it for it to still be called fashion and not ‘shopping’. Already we’re seeing AI take over so much of the fashion industry. There are so many jobs being replaced that we’re not aware of. What is the point if fashion isn’t human?’
Cherwell: You shared a post in an ‘AI in Fashion’ video recently that noted how there were AI models before plus-size models in Vogue. Do you think there’s a future of inclusivity for body types in fashion, or is it inherently exclusive?
Katie: Oo, that’s a hard one. Again, it comes down to whether fashion wants to go for the shopping only route, or if they’ll listen to consumers that want to see fashion as an art form. In the art case, they can’t ignore body and size inclusivity –people are sick of seeing fashion on skinny models.
However, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show just came back. People were like “Oh, it was inclusive this time” (which they aren’t usually), but I don’t think it was all that inclusive. I have to say, I didn’t watch all of it, because I wasn’t that interested (chuckles). It’s another case of the same body type wearing polyester clothing. People did seem to like it online… Maybe this goes against my point of brands having to stop being deaf to size inclusivity. I’ve seen all the Vogue reports for this season (and the prior ones) that size inclusivity is steadily going down. It’s a known issue, and people are picking it up, but fashion just doesn’t seem to be responding! As much as I think that consumers don’t want this, and it will get in the way of profits, fashion seems to think something different. We had a sweet spot in the 2010s-2020s where it was really improving on the runway. Plus-sized clothing was obviously not developed enough, but still trending upwards. And they just threw all that out the window.
