Blue Cast: Marzia Lanfranchi Shares Her Sustainability Story
Today in the fashion world, sustainability is commonplace. But not long ago, it was primarily early adopters, or “tree huggers,” sounding the alarms for change.
In the most recent episode of our Blue Cast podcast, Lenzing’s Michael Kininmonth chatted with sustainable fashion consultant Marzia Lanfranchi, who works up and down the supply chain with mills, manufacturers and brands. In addition to her consulting work, Marzia is the founder of Cotton Diaries, a community focused on making cotton supply chains more responsible, and she is the intelligence director for Transformers Foundation.
Marzia’s sustainability journey began in her early childhood, with environmental values instilled by her mother. At the age of 6 or 7, she protested outside of a fur store. “When I was younger, I always liked animals and plants more than people,” she said. “And I’ve always felt there was something really wrong about our ways of setting up the system that is centralized, hierarchical and very human centric without taking into consideration the rest that exists.”
From the beginning of her career, sustainability has been a guiding force for Marzia. Even still, she shies away from using the term “activist” to label herself.
What Marzia does focus on is storytelling. Although she self describes as an “aspiring storyteller,” she works to help companies communicate their sustainability message. She also collaborated with Carved in Blue on our Modern Definition of Denim video series, which interviewed some of the denim world’s key figures.
Marzia is among a number of young, female environmentalists in the fashion world. From her perspective, the reason women so often end up in this space is their own struggles with sexism. This oppression unites both women in offices and garment workers on a factory floor. Feminist action on sustainability is nothing new. Marzia drew parallels back to the 19th century’s Free Produce Movement which boycotted slaved-produced cotton.
“When we look at how we as women are seen in the presence of the sustainability movement, often there is a very simplistic way of looking at it,” said Marzia. “People think that our efforts are brought together by the inherent female qualities such as empathy, maternal compassion, and familial love, but actually it’s ignoring the shared oppressions that we have in this society.”
The word “purpose” often gets used when speaking of both environmental and social initiatives, but Marzia sees an opportunity to go a step further to find “meaning.” She defines the former as doing things differently and fulfilling a need, while the latter is the actual motive behind these actions.
Denim in particular has this drive, which Marzia has discovered in her time working within the industry. “Denim people so passionate about what they do, and I think that’s why the denim industry has so much potential in making change happen, more than other industries,” said Marzia.
Listen to the full episode here.