In Conversation with... Katherine Pogson

WORDS BY VIKTORIA BIELAWA

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.

Moths, 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.

VB: How would you define your expertise?

KP: 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, 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.

VB: And what does sustainability mean to you personally?

KP: 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.

VB: 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?

KP: 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, are such a cliche in the textile world – the pattern is so reproduced. I really want to unpick that cultural appropriation from nature.

VB: That's amazing. In your bio, you mention the term "other-than-human". What exactly, do you mean by that?

KP There’s a lot of ‘out-there’ philosophy about post-humanism. Its decentering the human, and looking at what the world might look like from other points of view. That's all part of Anthropocene, where there's not a piece of the earth, or the atmosphere where you can't see directly the impact of human action. Instead of saying non-human, which is quite binary and exclusive, people use the term "other-than-human" - that means all living things that are not human, but it also means inanimate objects. Essentially, it's displacing and shifting our attention to what everything else needs, but also what everything else does in the world? This whole idea of agency. I've been swimming in that sea of reasoning in the last couple of years.

VB: Its so fascinating. I haven't heard that term before. In your abstract, you say, "humans experience our actions as a form of self-harm." Do you think we can ever revert or abandon those actions and engage more with nature? Can humans ever be not be self-destructive?

KP: When I wrote that, I was suggesting that if we saw our actions more as self-harm, and began to think of ourselves more as part of the whole bio-system and saw that those things are directly harming us, and thought of it as self-harm, maybe we might take a bit more care. I do see a lot of hope; in the darkest hours of the Coronavirus, and what's happening in the election, the extinction rebellion. The trouble is that the harms don't affect everyone equally. And in Europe, Britain, and in the West, we're quite protected from a lot of the harms. I think it's only when you start really feeling them personally, that people start to act. I think there might be some pain that humans have to go through, but I think we will recalibrate, because our the survival instinct is stronger than the culture instinct.

VB: In our current state of destruction and neglect, how do you envision the future of fashion design?

KP: Wow, I think it's very interesting. Amy Twigger Holroyd asked me the same question for one of her projects, where she's asked lots of people to imagine future fashion; the present with only one tiny change. Mine was about the fashion season - that phrase is dead anyway. But what if we reimagine the idea of the ‘fashion season’ and what inspired designers to show how sensitively they responded to whatever was going on in nature. What if future fashion design was more about the response to what was going on in the world locally that could be related to where you are specifically, because fashion is a playful exploration of identity. It's quite idealistic, but that's my fashion future.

VB: That's sounds amazing, a real fashion paradise! Do you believe the fashion industry can ever be fully sustainable?

KP: No, not if it's the industry as it stands. I think we have to really dismantle the idea of the industry. If we're talking about sustaining the natural environment, then we've already done too much damage, but we might be able to stay put. But if we're sustaining our lifestyles and our habits, then that is not going to be possible. I don't think it can. I think the idea of sustainability has to be reworded because there's a lot in it, that is having your cake and eating it.

VB: Yes, exactly. During the first lockdown, sustainability and topics of eco-consciousness, worker exploitation, have been quite prominent on social media. Why do you think it is only now that people in the industry and the public started speaking openly about it? When obviously, the issue has been around for decades?

KP: We are stuck in this system where you're going to work and you have to exist within this capitalist growth system. We're all enmeshed in it, aren't we? Some people found it a bit of a relief because they had time to rethink what is valuable to them. But a lot of people are very worried about how they’re going to support themselves. At the beginning of lockdown in London, the first few weeks, we had that wonderful weather, and everyone could see that there was no pollution, and people felt connected to nature. I think the fact that everything paused, made people realise they can get by with other things, and lots of people had to think what is really valuable to them. That, again, sounds quite idealistic, because lots of people also were working very hard, and the food banks were much more in demand. And of course, people were getting ill, dying, and grieving. So, it wasn't this lovely lesson of a stop and think time.

VB: Do you think millennials and Gen Z's are more environmentally cautious compared to other generations?

KP: I think there's a split. I teach quite a lot of generations Zs, and I see a lot of students tackling topics of sustainability in their dissertations and projects in a very courageous way. On the other hand, there are some generations, that are so into consumer culture. The effect of social media and how some people are so immersed in it, that they really do find their identity through consumption.

VB: Do you think the impact of the pandemic will force consumers to open their eyes to implement more sustainable practices and brands into their lives? Pay more attention?

KP: I think we need to get away from that idea that that it's a lifestyle choice, that we might pay more for something that's sustainable. It shouldn't be like that. Actually, I think we've got to just act at the macro political level, the idea that brands just give the consumers what they want, and the consumer choice has the power.

VB: Who do you think has the greatest power and responsibility to spread awareness and implement sustainable practices?

KP: I don’t see it as – is it the brands or consumers, I think it has to be both. There is citizen power, and Greta Thunberg is a good example of that, or Marcus Rashford. You can’t just leave it to the consumer as brands will always prioritise their profit. I think it all comes back to all of us lobbying for governmental change. I’m not a die-hard activist (although I may sound like one right now!) but I do think that it’s the only way. Eventually, I think the power does lie with collective action and lobbying that to our power structures. We need to make these big, global-scale environmental decisions and keep to them, for which the companies and individuals will follow.