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Simply Diligent

@simply___diligent

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A slow media platform
exploring fashion as a system of care 🌀
#DiligentDenim

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Five days, one dye, and a new way of seeing fashion.

We traded our laptops for dye vats and bamboo fields and spent the week making things with our hands and actually feeling connected to the land they came from.

Our indigo retreat film is finally here, and the full story is up on Substack (link in bio).

Come read it, meet the family who welcomed us in, and see how indigo shifted things for us. taken in Sapa, Vietnam by @simply___diligent

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10 months ago

#Cotton is rarely traceable to a single pair of hands. Harvests may be aggregated and processed together long before the fibre becomes a T-shirt, pair of jeans, or bedsheet.

The idea of knowing the exact farmer behind a garment can sound intimate and reassuring, but cotton supply chains do not always work that way, and forcing them into that narrative can flatten reality. It can turn farmers into marketing devices, or reduce complex communities into a few names and faces chosen to stand in for an entire region.

So if connecting one garment to one farmer doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of cotton production, why are we still encouraging you to meet farmers and hear their stories?

Simply because data cannot tell you everything. Farmers bring context that #traceability systems cannot capture on their own. They can speak to the pressures, trade-offs, local realities, and definitions of progress that shape what cotton production actually looks like on the ground. That knowledge comes from relationships with farmers, cooperatives, ginners, and local organisations who can tell you what a season actually looked like. Not as a story, as intelligence.

Good traceability should help us see the system more clearly, not be reduced to a country level nor to a neat story about one farmer and one field.

Our fourth #WhoMadeMyCotton report explores this idea in much more depth. Read the full report through the link in bio. by @simply___diligent

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4 days ago

For Christopher Esber’s SS27 show at Paris Fashion Week, three looks featured fabric developed with @unspun.io, including the opening look. The collaboration explored unspun’s 3D weaving technology, with one pair of trousers using its OneWeave system to create fabric as a seamless tube, reducing the cutting and material waste associated with conventional construction.

The collaboration was made possible through The Climate Pledge, which connected Christopher Esber and unspun for the project.

A look at 3D weaving on the Paris runway. So cool 😎 by @simply___diligent

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6 days ago

The Spiritual Knowledge of Sustainable Fashion 🌀

Many of the ideas fashion now describes as innovation have much older roots.

Indigenous communities have practised circularity, repair and local fibre systems for generations, guided by close relationships with land, culture and responsibility.

This piece explores the knowledge behind many approaches now associated with sustainable fashion. It looks at gift economies, regenerative agriculture and the work of Indigenous designers whose practices carry memory and reciprocity.

It also asks us to consider where these ideas come from, whose knowledge is being recognised, and the relationships fashion has a responsibility to repair.

Find it on Substack. by @simply___diligent

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a month ago

I keep coming back to the fact that fashion cannot address overproduction while depending on endless growth.

Better fibres, repair, resale and circular systems all have a role to play. Yet their impact will remain limited if the industry continues to make and sell more clothing each year.

This is why I believe degrowth needs to be taken seriously as a shift towards limits, sufficiency, care, fairer ownership and a broader understanding of success. It can still leave plenty of room for beauty and creativity.

There is a great piece from @cottondiaries, written by @anneheartjeans from her perspective as a sourcing consultant, that explores this further.

She looks at the limits of fibre strategy and the economic model that continues to drive overproduction.

Read the full piece via @cottondiaries. by @simply___diligent

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a month ago

@fashionproducercollective published a piece on the Everlane and Shein acquisition, the shift from climate action to “climate risk” language, and what this reveals about how fashion handles trade-offs.

It explores the tensions between business survival and climate responsibility, worker safety and carbon targets, and the need for proof alongside the growing burden of compliance.

From outside the industry, these contradictions can quickly become a gotcha. Inside, they are often softened through safer language. Either way, the consequences tend to move down the supply chain and land on the people with the least power.

The piece is worth reading because it stays with these difficult questions and looks closely at who is being asked to carry the trade-offs.

If we want better fashion systems, we need to be more honest about the contradictions within them.

Read the full piece via @fashionproducercollective.

📷 @australianstitch by @simply___diligent

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2 months ago

Intersectional environmentalism reminds us that climate work is connected to people, power and place, including questions of labour, race, gender, disability and access.

This is deeply relevant to fashion.

Environmental conversations across the industry often focus on materials, emissions and production methods. Our exploration widens the lens by asking who carries the consequences, whose knowledge is valued and which communities remain overlooked.

On Substack, we explore why environmental justice belongs in fashion, what decolonising the industry asks of us, and some of the people and projects already putting these ideas into practice. by @simply___diligent

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2 months ago

natural dye experiments with fig leaves by @aldente_ by @simply___diligent

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2 months ago

What if fashion’s supply chains were designed to help solve problems while producing the things we need?

We explore social procurement as a practical way for brands to use their everyday spending power differently by building social value into how they source materials, manufacture clothing, manage waste and extend the life of products on Substack.

There are already many examples across fashion’s supply chain. Cotton cooperatives, artisan networks, refugee-led tailoring workshops, waste picker groups and social enterprises are showing what is possible when brands direct existing budgets towards businesses that benefit people and communities.

The question is whether brands are willing to make space for these models within their usual sourcing and procurement decisions.

Read the full article on Substack. by @simply___diligent

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2 months ago

During their residency at Boccadivalle, Simply Diligent @simply___diligent explored the local landscape, working with native flora and fauna while experimenting with natural textures and dyes derived from leaves and flowers.

With a practice rooted in uncovering the stories behind responsible fashion and researching sustainable techniques, the residency was conceived as a space where hands-on experimentation and field research could come together.

Throughout their stay, we guided Simply Diligent in exploring Abruzzo’s rich textile heritage, with a particular focus on wool production and traditional weaving. Together, we visited local artisans as well as historic and contemporary weaving workshops, gaining a deeper understanding of the region’s textile history and craftsmanship.

Special thanks to Cooperativa Majella @majella_coop , Arcolaio Tessile @arcolaio_tessile_italiano, Donata Gaeta @donatagaeta, La Porta dei Parchi, Setteuarciate @mialarocca and Local Raisin @local_raisin_ for generously sharing their knowledge, time, and expertise. taken in Bocca Di Valle by @simply___diligent

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2 months ago

What can a 22-person denim mill take on when it has the freedom to experiment?

At Pure Denim, I learned about fibres inspired by spider silk, indigo produced using microorganisms and a sizing agent made from orange peel pectin.

These ideas can sound futuristic until you see them moving through a working mill.

But experimentation can only go so far on its own. New ideas need brands willing to move beyond interest and invest in what happens after the sample stage.

Thank you to Luigi Caccia for sharing so openly with us. We are very glad places like Pure Denim are willing to keep asking where denim can go :)

Read the full story at Simply Diligent. by @simply___diligent

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2 months ago

Emily Gubbay’s Infinity Blue looks at denim waste from a different angle.

The project considers the fibre, as well as the indigo already sitting inside discarded denim. Its process recovers synthetic indigo pigment from denim waste and turns it back into usable colour for dyeing, printing and denim finishing.

In a collaboration with Blackhorse Lane Ateliers, indigo extracted from 50g of denim offcuts was used to print a pair of jeans! by @simply___diligent

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2 months ago