S4. E1: Joshua Katcher Is Doing Fashion Better
When it comes to fashion and good design, Joshua Katcher, the man behind the sustainable luxury fashion label, Brave GentleMan, cares a lot about beauty; but not in the way that most people think about it. He defines beauty not only as the end result - the dapper suit or the stylish boots; instead, he only deems something beautiful when the entire process that has created that something is beautiful, meaning ethical, sustainable, and made with materials and processes that never hurt anyone - human or animal. (And, of course it needs to look good too.)
Joshua knows a lot about fashion. He founded the popular men's vegan lifestyle website, The Discerning Brute in 2008. His brand, Brave GentleMan has appeared in Vogue and on the cover of GQ. He's taught at Parsons the New School and L I M College, and has lectured internationally and lobbied in the United States for sustainable and ethical fashion.
He also wrote Fashion Animals, the first book dedicated to understanding how and why animals are exploited in the fashion industry.
Joshua and I met in Brooklyn in February, a few weeks before social distancing became the status quo. The world has changed immensely since that drizzly winter afternoon. It went from normal to global pandemic very quickly and I think many of us are still spinning, asking how did this even happen? And, hopefully also asking how do we prevent this from happening again?
Like all zoonotic diseases, COVID-19, started because of because of what we have done to animals; yet, that is the one conversation that is not happening nearly enough in the media - how we treat them, eat them, hunt them, poach them, exploit them, farm them and wear them.
If something as catastrophic as what’s happening right now doesn’t wake us up, I don’t think anything will. It’s not only our food system that needs to change dramatically to prevent future pandemics – it’s every system in which we exploit animals, including the fashion industry. We have to be better. We have to do better.
Joshua Katcher knows exactly how to do fashion better.
Learn More About Brave GentleMan
Learn More About The Discerning Brute
Joshua’s book: Fashion Animals
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