Mara Hoffman on sustainable fashion today
Photo illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Courtesy of Mara Hoffman
When Mara Hoffman founded her eponymous brand in 2002, little did she know that “sustainable fashion” and “fast fashion” would one day become industry buzzwords that people obsess over. And more than a decade into her career, she recognized that fashion without sustainable practices could be toxic to the planet.
Hoffman recently received the Environmental Sustainability Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and this week she becomes a member Cut Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Peoples on the In her shoes podcast to talk about what she thinks about sustainability in fashion – although she admittedly doesn’t like the word “sustainability.” “We are all fishing for something, or trying to find a better word for it, because the goal is not to stay where we are. It’s really revolutionizing and changing.”
Hoffman also shares her views on fast fashion, our constant “need for newness,” and how we may have “misunderstood the message” and lost sight of what’s most important when shopping and dressing. “How do you take care of the things in your life?” she asks. “The way you care for a shirt or an item is probably similar to how you care for a relationship or an emotion or an experience in your life. Are you throwing it away? Are you getting bored? Aren’t you working on it? Don’t you try to fix it and fix it, knowing that it’s sacred and special?”
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