Crafting Connections: Bridging Cultural Sustainability and Material Impact in Fashion
CFC Member Spotlight: Michelle Doyle
Author and interviewer: Stella Hertantyo
Michelle Doyle is passionate about the intersections of sustainability, culture, and material impact. She is currently based in Paris where she earned her MA in Communications, specializing in sustainability in fashion.
Michelle discovered her passion for cultural sustainability and textiles while conducting her thesis research in India, where she collaborated with designers and educators, across the country, to explore communication practices for fashion material's social, ecological, and cultural impacts.
Currently, Michelle serves as Sustainability Programme Manager for the Council on Sustainable Fashion and Design of Grenada, and contributes to the Cultural Sustainability Academy in Romania.
I interviewed Michelle in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership as part of our Member Spotlight interview series.
Below are some of the highlights from the conversation, including:
What a holistic view of material impact in fashion entails,
The connections between cultural sustainability and material impact, and
Advice for developing a materials communications strategy.
How did you become curious about the intersection of fashion and sustainability?
Entering into sustainability and fashion came with the progression of years of working with nonprofits across the human rights, climate, and agriculture spaces. While studying for my Master’s degree, I started to learn more about these issues in the context of the fashion industry. That's when I started to visualize this as a career path.
I had always planned to work for a nonprofit or an international organization. So I started getting involved in different communities and different causes. I started learning more about all the issues that exist in the fashion supply chain, the ecological impact of materials, and cultural sustainability. There’s so much to learn about and so many interesting people working across this field — that's what drew me to it.
What were your biggest learnings from your MA in Communications?
I focused on communications for material impact. Once I started to learn about the impact of material extraction, processing, production, and end-of-life, I wanted to learn more about how communications can shift perceptions of businesses and end users to make different choices. This research question led me to India.
In India, I conducted my research with designers in both the North and South to learn about how they communicate their material impact and the significance of their materials. I wanted to examine how effective communication strategies can be modeled for materials.
What I learned was the cultural significance of materials and how the work of the designers and the artisans I worked with revolved around keeping craft production practices alive. Their focus wasn’t on creating fashion and having a fashion brand — it was on preserving heritage crafts.
These crafts have a significant impact on local economies. Keeping craft practices alive and teaching the next generation to revive these practices also supports local biodiversity.
If your family comes from a community that's lived there for generations, you know exactly what that region needs — whether that means using non-electric processes, only picking plants that are in season for your dyes, or only picking so much and choosing local materials. This is at the core of cultural sustainability and is connected to the socio-ecological impact of materials.
What do you wish people knew more about when it comes to socio-environmental material impact in fashion?
I think that the impact of materials needs to be understood holistically — not just for their socio-environmental impact, but for their cultural impact too.
If we choose clothing made with plant-based dyes, we're not only choosing materials that don’t cause environmental damage to our waterways and ecosystems, but we’re also contributing to keeping the heritage and art of plant-based dyes alive.
If we choose handloom or handspun fabrics, we're not only choosing a material that saves energy as a non-electric production method, but we're also contributing to keeping artisanal practices alive.
Keeping these practices alive means that these artisans can make a fair living from them and it means that there is a greater chance that the next generation will continue these techniques. This is where I see the direct connection between cultural sustainability and material choice.
What are the connections between communications skills and material impact in fashion?
In my thesis research, I found that there are a variety of ways to use materials as a medium of communication for sustainability and fashion.
For example, linking material choice to the quality of life and enhanced opportunity for artisans, linking material choice to the health of communities affected by pollution from processing plants or dye runoff in rivers, or finding ways of communicating about the history and the cultural significance of a material or technique.
We have to engage the end user in the larger impact of the material by framing materials as both product and process.
My research also showed that consistent communication is highly effective. This means across your social media, website, physical store, and the tags on your clothing. At every point you need to tie everything back to material choice and production to keep your communications consistent.
What is your advice for designers and business owners trying to figure out where to start when creating a material communications strategy?
When I worked with designers and artisans in India, most of them said that their clients asked to see who was making the clothes and where. So they decided to put a face, a community, and a story to their garments, instead of making a blanket or a fake statement about where an item is made and how.
You need to break down the materials you use and share about their unique social, ecological, and cultural impacts and significance. You can build your communication strategy from this point.
No brand is perfect. I think that if there are some gaps and imperfections in your supply chain, it's better to be honest about it and build trust with users. Being vague can be harmful.
What are the connections between cultural sustainability and material impact?
There are so many ancient, culturally significant, and low-impact materials and production methods that are at risk of dying out all over the world. The knowledge of Indigenous communities and artisans who are the custodians and stewards of these practices is essential to keeping them alive — our material choices directly impact that.
We are the connection between cultural sustainability and materials. Our choices create possibilities for communities to keep their practices and their livelihoods alive, and contribute to our overall socioeconomic wellbeing on a larger scale.
Where can people go to learn more about cultural sustainability?
Research is as important as learning from direct fieldwork with communities. They will share what their needs are, what is important to them, and what their value systems are.
The Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative has fantastic research if you want to learn more about cultural sustainability.
You can also look into the joint program between UNESCO and the Convention on Biological Diversity. They link cultural sustainability and biodiversity well in their work and unpack how cultural sustainability is directly linked to biodiversity.
What is your advice for people wanting to pivot into the sustainable fashion career space?
It's not easy. Sustainability, especially in the fashion context, is still figuring itself out. But building relationships is key. You can start anywhere. You can join networking groups, like Conscious Fashion Collective, attend conferences, volunteer, or continue your education.
Making those connections and learning about what other people are doing will give you a sense of community. This is essential, because there is no one clear path to follow. Each person’s journey will be different, because we all come from different vantage points.
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