Mai Amar - Fashion Designer in the Tech World with a purpose

Esoteric Quandary

I really love podcasting because I get to hang with friends and people I know but get more depth and nuance into their thought processes. Mai is one of those people I thought I knew, and she really surprised me with her passion and activism in the industry she is a part of.
Mai began her career as a fashion designer and was lured into the industry based on the allure of these European fashion houses. However, like most industries, once you learn about the system and how it actually functions from the inside, you begin to question if you want to be genuinely a part of it. The fashion world is the second largest polluter on the planet, behind only the airline industry, specifically fast fashion.
H&M, Zara, and Uniqlo are some of the global brands that are contributing to pollution. How do you stop people's addiction to fast fashion and the lure of cheap prices for clothing? Mai and I do a deep dive into the history of fashion and how fabrics were initially distributed through colonialism to aristocratic courts and slowly migrated down to the other parts of society. We also discuss the industrialization and standardization of clothing and the 1900s, how that produced a mass amount of clothing and the downsides of this mass production.
All hope is not lost; Slowly, tech and activism are pushing the industry to rethink their consumers and the lifecycle of garments in a way they never had before. After two and half hours of talking fashion, my mom would be proud. Enjoy!