LITTLE OVERVIEW.

I began my career as a designer at a fashion supplier in London working with the UK high street. In 2014 I moved to Southeast Asia and it was here I saw first-hand the devastating effects fast fashion has on communities and the environment. I became passionate about transparency within fashion and began working with factories and suppliers, to help them become more ethically responsible. As my efforts were originally rejected by the big brands I began working on my TOBEFRANK brand while creating a unique framework designed to track and improve the impact fashion has on the environment and people. 

After running my brand I saw a gap and founded a responsible supplier ‘The Rubbish Fashion Company’ here we worked with brands and retailers making clothing in only transparent and responsible ways. I ran this through the pandemic and is now ran by a brilliant clothing supplier.

After spending all my time in business meetings and dramas and not actually doing what truly I cared about. I made the decision to stop and focus on what I loved. Sustainability!

Today, I work with brands and retailers directly, helping them to understand their environmental and ethical impact and then strategise with them to reduce their negative impact.

Experience

 

  • In 2020 I founded The Rubbish Fashion Company as a sustainable manufacturing supplier working with hight street brands and retailers to massively decrease their environmental impact. This company is ran by a third party manufacturing supplier based in London and I continue to work with them as an advisor and consultant.

  • I worked on TOBEFRANK as a proof of concept, to prove that sustainability didn’t need to cost the earth. I ran TOBEFRANK for 4 years after first creating the concept in 2012. This brand has been a labour of love and pushed me to explore different ways to produce clothing and change production processes.

  • I worked for Next Sourcing from January 2017 to April 2018. Here I implemented a new sustainable way of working. I worked with our suppliers and resourced all out products as a sustainable option. I worked closely with the sustainable team within next and each departments buying team. This way of working was approved by next directors and was adopted by all Next sourcing teams worldwide.

  • I worked for Jack and Jones in Beijing from February 2015 to January 2017. I was the senior designer for the originals department, here I worked closely with my design director to create a sustainable denim range, this involved developments with the suppliers, design, branding and promotional materials.

 

Training

As well as physical sustainable management experience in South east Asia, Europe and the Middle East it is vital to have academic training in these areas as well. These courses gave me the knowledge to turn what I can do on the factory floor into a strong sustainable way of working.

As well as these course below, I also have a BA (Hons) in Fashion Design with Manufacture, Marketing and Promotions from the University of Huddersfield from 2007 - 2010.

 

  • This course was to help me explore a thought experiment to generate fundamental principles.

    It helped me to compare the free-market economics, based on the ‘hidden hand’ of a free market, and institutional economics, in which transaction costs are considered to be important.

    This was important to investigate ways to stimulate fairness in the present generation, as a solution to intergenerational justice and how i can include this learning into my work.

    This was the start of my work in writing policy for fair work and responsible sourcing.

  • Exploring the conceptual foundations of sustainable development, and discussed the issues around sustainability as a complex problem. This course helped me understand topics such as flow of energy and materials worldwide; social and political issues; wealth inequality; the impact of geography, history and culture on sustainability today; and the problems of collective action.