The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry on the planet and denim production is a big polluter within that

The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry on the planet and denim production is a big polluter within that. There is a great environmental aspect to your work using discarded materials and one that requires so many different steps and so much work. Could you elaborate a bit how that has influenced your work, either through reactions of others or your own approach over the years?

I’ve been doing this work long before all the terms became as useful as the word ‘nice’. Sustainability means little to me now. I try not to use it around my work, I’m hardly making a difference in the grand scheme of things. Yes, I’m recycling or upcycling old jeans into art. But it’s not the point of the work or message. Yes, it’s fine for people to talk about it, but I don’t often, certainly not as a promotion tool as it feels cheap and not authentic. It means nothing now as it seems everything is sustainable, even if it is not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it is part of the conversation, and there are many striving to be better and doing great work and progress. Indeed, when I started with working with denim, I was inspired by the film “Inconvenient Truth” with Al Gore and nearly went back to uni (geography had been a strong subject of mine) but when I was working with denim, I won’t lie and pretend it was for eco reasons. That is not to say I don’t care for the planet.