Katherine
In Conversation with...
Pogson Katherine may not be “your traditional fashion insider,” but she certainly has the flare of an activist to make radical and necessary changes to the fashion system from within, if we are to sustain the environment, we call home. WORDS BY VIKTORIA BIELAWA
M
oths, butterflies, and all things winged – these are the creative drives for Katherine Pogson, PhD to restore our relationship with nature and abolish the self-centredness of our perceptions. Working in fashion design for 15 years with her independent studio, she has experienced the realities of consumer behaviour and the urgency needed for environmental rebalance. Currently concentration on more philosophical approaches to fashion sustainability, Katherine looks at how changing our perception of the whole biosystem may contribute to reducing our ‘self-harm’ of the environment. With high hopes in our darkest hours, Katherine discusses the realities of reconfiguring the capitalistic fashion system postpandemic, her ideal fashion future, and the power of collective action. How would you define your expertise? I'm not your traditional fashion insider. My background is that I worked about 15 years as a designer maker, and ran an independent design studio. The bit of fashion that I worked in was very much bespoke, small orders, 30
high quality craft, individual. I've never been in what you might call ‘the industry.’ My research is about how we think about nature, and I'm much more interested in our attitudes to materials and our relationship with nature through objects. My expertise is to have a practical background of working with materials, exploring our relationship with nature, and from a teaching point of view, to think about how our relationship to objects and look through that to the natural world. And what does sustainability mean to you personally? In many ways, it's an unhelpful word now. I think the old-fashioned idea of sustainability, that we can sustain lifestyles and still have enough room for the future has run out of steam. I'm quite radical in terms of what I think we need to do; I think we need an environmental rebalance. That means that we have to live with less in many ways, but that doesn't necessarily mean ‘via negativa.’ We just have to radically rethink what our value systems are, and that will mean using a lot less - flying less and having different priorities. I may have a slightly idealistic idea that we can be more community focused, more local.
I don't wear the 'S' word across my forehead because it's problematic. You mentioned you used to work in fashion previously as a designer, but you define yourself as an ‘artist’ and a ‘researcher.’ What brought these two aspects together for you? It was a very weird process, which I'm still working out. When I closed my commercial business, in 2012, I had a really problematic relationship with my customers working in a niche high price point. They would always compare [my products] to what's happening in the luxury market and say, "could you make it a bit more Prada?" And I was constantly having to say, "you can buy that in Selfridges". I'm not reproduced, that's not what I do. After, I became a bit of a Natural History nerd and got into insects and moths, particularly. At first, I went through this very weird process where I was making moth-like things thinking, “this is really wrong, no one wants to look at that!” I realised that actually, it was a way of channelling my creativity. So now, I do have a studio and I still work with textiles, but it's all related to data about species and driven by the environmental crisis. I think the moths and butterflies,
