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Picture it: wide open grasslands with healthy sheep, nutrient-rich soil, abundant biodiversity, and plenty of space to roam. Regenerative agriculture – and its connection to the fashion industry – sounded too utopic to be true as of ten years ago. But the shift is coming quickly, as major brands take the lead in future-minded land stewardship. This episode, we share two interviews that will bring you up to speed on everything ‘regenerative ag,’ and what it signals for farming and footwear.

First, we share an interview from Edition #6 of 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit, with Nicks Ericsson of...

From how we communicate, to how we plan for the future, collaborations are at the center of 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit. But what defines true collaboration? What elements does a future-proof collaboration require? This episode offers a pairing of approaches on how to conduct regenerative business, with collaborative alignment as a central theme.

First, Christine Goulay’s inspiring keynote ‘The Language of Regenerative Business’ applies the analogy of ‘love languages’ to how business partners communicate with and incentivize one another, to bring everyone onto the same page. Christine comes from a rich background working both with Edun Apparel and...

Welcome to our first episode of Season 2! We kick things off by jumping right into the content of Edition #5 of 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit, which took place 18-19/01/2023. In this episode, we share Dr. Luke Haverhals’ captivating ‘Community Class,’ delivered on the morning of Day 2.

At this point, we’ve all heard about the evils of plastics. And yet, plastic materials occupy every corner of our lives. Why is it so hard to break away?

Luke – the founder and CEO of Natural Fiber Welding – is a chemist with a passionate vision of how to...

After another eventful Berlin Fashion Week, the organizers of 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit chat with Kay Plonka, a journalist and correspondent of Style in Progress, to reflect on Berlin’s fashion scene and last week’s events. Our city has a unique culture of fashion: it’s avant-garde, it’s young, and it’s rooted in a history of political activism. The city’s lively ecosystem of small-scale designers display a future-minded vision, incorporating innovation and metaverse fashion into the creative landscape. Sustainability proved to be a notably hot topic this season, referenced in almost every local designer’s presence at Berlin Fashion Week. This...

With Berlin Fashion Week around the corner, we took this episode as an opportunity to check in with some of the organizers working behind the scenes. Magdalena speaks with Jana Beck from the VORN Academy, Anne Franke and Julius Forgo from the VORN fashion showcase, and Lou Croff Blake from studio MM04 and 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit.

First, Jana, community manager and program manager from VORN – The Berlin Fashion Hub, talks about the new VORN Academy program, which welcomed nine designers to collaborate on a ‘phygital’ circular fashion collection over the course of three months. The VORN...

Designers have the power to create the future. Fatima Njoya, a writer for Vogue and Glamour magazines in Germany, leads this moving conversation between three designers who have walked very different paths: Orsola de Castro (Fashion Revolution, Estethica), Matthew Needham (Matthew Needham, Estethica), and Meriem Lebdiri (Council of Modest Fashion, Meriem Lebdiri). The four reflect on their careers, identifying critical moments of realization that led them to work towards changing the fashion industry. As a successor to de Castro's [Fashion Open Studio](https://www.fashionopenstudio.com/), [Estethica](https://www.estethica.com/) is a new collective of designers who have united around designing fashion for positive impact, putting their...

This episode, we’re doing things a bit differently. Live in-studio, Max and Magdalena are joined by sustainable fashion pioneer and 202030 Summit co-organizer Prof. Friederike von Wedel-Parlow. Friederike has, for the past decade, been trailblazing the discourse around fashion for positive impact, regenerative transformation, and holistic design values. In this inspiring conversation, she traces her journey through storied chapters in the industry and in academia. By challenging norms and naysayers along the way, she has permanently left a mark on how we define sustainability. As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich once said, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” It’s safe to say that...

***NOTE: This episode has been edited from its original version. Comments made about the importance on the 'A' in LGBTQIA+, and the emphasis on allies, have been removed, as this does not adequately prioritize queer, marginalized identities. We apologize, and acknowledge that we are on a continuous learning journey within our own active allyship, and welcome constructive feedback on how to navigate the language of crucial topics such as queer representation.***

For this episode, we feature two of Berlin’s changemakers who are ‘queering’ fashion. Cora Hamilton and Max Weiland co-founded uns* in 2020, after realizing the lack of representation for...

What does it mean to decolonize the fashion industry? It is so much more than a progressive buzzword – ‘decolonizing’ means giving back stolen power, land, and resources to historically colonized communities. This episode, we share a keynote from Dr. Erica De Greef, the co-founder of the African Fashion Research Institute. Her work as an active ally to the Black South African fashion community involves centering Black designers, and aiding in the celebration and education of South African fashion, both historic and contemporary. She shows us how people in the global north must listen to voices that have been silenced...

Does our future lie inside a donut? To reach the sweet spot between environmental repair and human equality, we need to live in a ‘donut economy.’ Veronica Bates Kassatly, the sustainability expert who has spent her career shaking up the fashion industry, joins us with a hard (and necessary) look at donut economics, consumption culture, and trust and transparency. LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) is the most common model of sustainability evaluation for fashion products, but it often results in more greenwashing than real transparency. Veronica puts LCA in the hot seat, as she pulls back the curtain on the misuse...