Sustainable Fashion: A Vision for Change

My interest in sustainable fashion began about a decade ago, when I worked with sustainable fashion designers to showcase their work on contestants in my fashion shows. What started as an appreciation for their creativity gradually grew into a desire to help change an industry that generates enormous amounts of waste.

In 2021, I decided to turn that interest into a startup. I joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison's startup program, assembled a small team, and began researching how fashion could become more sustainable. Together, we interviewed nearly 100 fashion design students and graduates about their challenges, and spoke with industry players working in clothing recycling, swapping, sorting, and textile recycling technologies. We even received $5,000 in university startup funding to test our business models.

My vision was to transform fashion from a product into a service—giving designers access to fabrics and resources to create more sustainable pieces.

Then, in late 2022, I discovered a technology that could potentially spray biodegradable material directly onto the body to create clothing. I was fascinated by the possibility of a future where fashion could be made on demand, rather than mass-produced and eventually discarded. It felt like an opportunity to rethink how clothing is created from the ground up.

In 2023, I stepped away from the startup due to personal circumstances and differences in direction and values. Although I'm no longer actively working on the project, my interest in sustainable fashion remains.

I still believe in the possibility of a more thoughtful future for fashion, and I'm open to connecting with people and teams developing technologies that could make biodegradable, spray-on clothing a reality.