The New Faces of Fashion Advocacy

A collaborative feature by Vera Lovici & Victoria Smith, founder of Fashion & Founders The Podcast

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Jul 09, 2025

After years of curating Sustainability Pulse, reading thousands of headlines, tracking policy shifts, and spotlighting quiet revolutions in the fashion world, I’ve learned that real change rarely makes the front page.

The people who’ve stayed with me aren’t always the loudest. They’re legislators, nonprofit founders, tech pioneers, working with quiet conviction to make fashion more honest, more humane, and more circular.

In this joint newsletter, Victoria and I are sharing a few of the names we believe deserve more attention. Their work may not trend, but its ripple effect will be felt for seasons and generations to come.

Vera’s Picks: Quiet Catalysts for Fashion’s Future

Maxine Bédat

📍 New York | The Policy Architect. Maxine is doing the work most brands fear: writing rules. Through the New Standard Institute, she’s helped architect the New York Fashion Act, an ambitious bill that would force big brands to back up their climate talk with real accountability. Her style is less “flashy keynote” and more “legal clause that changes everything.”

"Right now, sustainability… is a very vague, wishy‑washy term that has come to mean just about anything and nothing.":

"After a different panel I spoke on…the head of sustainability at one of the largest apparel companies came up to me and said, 'Thank you so much… this information has guided our team.'" source

Ayesha Barenblat

📍 Global | The Campaigner-in-Chief. Ayesha doesn’t believe in soft-shoe activism. Through Remake, she has taken on fast fashion brands over wage theft and supply chain abuses, with receipts to back it up. Her power is in mobilizing: getting consumers, workers, and lawmakers to demand better, together.

"I really wanted Remake to be a platform that's welcoming to anyone who's early in the sustainability journey," she said. "How do we make these conversations accessible, but also actionable? Because I really do believe that if we lock arms with the labor movement, we can move mountains." source

François Souchet

📍 London | The Circular Strategist. Formerly with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, François works behind the scenes with some of fashion’s biggest players to redesign their systems. He’s not your average consultant, he’s pushing brands to rethink how clothes are made, used, and reused from the ground up.

"The way we produce jeans is causing huge problems with waste and pollution, but it doesn't have to be this way… we will continue to drive momentum towards a thriving fashion industry, based on the principles of a circular economy." source

Dr. Christina Dean

📍 Hong Kong | The Waste Alchemist. Christina sees landfill-bound fabric as design gold. Through Redress and The R Collective, she rescues deadstock and transforms it into high-end pieces. In Asia’s growing fashion scene, she’s become a leading voice for zero-waste design, not as a trend, but as a necessity.

Dana Thomas

📍 Paris | The Industry’s Conscience. Before sustainability became a buzzword, Dana was investigating the dark underbelly of fast fashion. Her book Fashionopolis is basically required reading for anyone who wants to understand why the system is broken, and what a better one could look like.

"Clothes are our initial and most basic tool of communication. They convey our social and economic status, our occupation, our ambition, our self‑worth." source

The changemakers above remind me that transformation doesn’t always come with fanfare. Often, it’s quiet, deliberate, and deeply intentional. Now, I’ll pass the mic to Victoria, whose own picks offer a glimpse into the future of fashion from a different angle, equally bold, equally hopeful.

True to the themes in the podcast, Victoria’s picks range from fashion tech companies to vintage curators. There are many paths to take for someone who wants to create an impact, Victoria explores how business leaders are reimagining stakeholders and the bottom line to actually build a better world.

Victoria’s Picks: Ethical Entrepreneurs Challenging the Status Quo

Kate Sanner

📍 New York | The Secondhand Strategist. With Beni’s thoughtful relaunch, Kate Sanner is challenging the core of fashion consumption. Even as her platform enables secondhand shopping, her mission is bigger: to get people to buy better, not more. Rather than chasing growth for growth’s sake, Kate and her team paused to ask the hard questions and build something that aligns with their values. What emerged is a tool that meets real consumer needs while sparking critical conversations around overconsumption.

“Instead of judging success by the amount of consumption we judge it by, the satisfaction of your closet, the satisfaction of your purchase, and how do you start to rethink business models where you can provide value and utility around helping you make more informed decisions, helping you save money, and helping you realize what’s in your closet.

I think this is the first step towards a platform where you can provide services and it's not all about consumption.”

Podcast Link

Cleo Escarez

📍 Los Angeles | The Jewelry Revolutionary. Cleo Escarez is reshaping how we think about jewelry, often overlooked in sustainability conversations. At Redyoos, consumers can send in pre-loved jewelry to be melted down and repurposed into clean energy. Did you know that two silver rings can supply the silver needed for a solar panel? It’s a radical fusion of fashion and climate action. What can’t be recycled is donated to organizations like Dress for Success, proving that nothing needs to go to waste.

“ I can either be part of the problem, or I could be part of the solution. And I chose the solution. I am a mother of three and I wanted my legacy to be much different than just, being part of consumerism and being an executive, pushing all of those things that on the books looks good, but I'm not leaving clean air for them.”

Podcast Link

Rachel Kibbe

📍 Washington, D.C. | The Circularity Lobbyist. A true policy pioneer, Rachel Kibbe is fighting to bring circularity into the heart of American legislation. Through American Circular Textiles, she’s advocating for the Americas Act, a landmark legislation that could transform the textile industry. Her decade-long commitment to uplifting circular businesses and inserting their voices into government conversations makes her one of the most important advocates for structural change in sustainable fashion.

“ Local involvement is really important. Don't undermine the power of your voice as an individual or your voice as an organization, no matter how large or small.”

Podcast Link

Shop ZERO

📍 California | The Curated Conscious Closet. The California co-founders are offering a bold take to sustainable fashion. They describe ZERO as a for profit business with a regulatory body because of the extensive research and due diligence they do before approving a brand. Behind every brand they feature is deep research, thoughtful vetting, and a commitment to spotlighting emerging designers. They are bringing sustainable fashion to those who don’t even consider themselves eco-conscious by making it accessible, cool, and effortless. Zero is fashion with nothing to hide.

“ Planned obsolescence is factored into the production of all their [fast fashion] products. It's literally made to break or it's made to go out of style so that you buy more things. But people act like it's empowering, look at everything I got. But you're just accumulating junk, that's designed to be junk.”

Podcast Link

Hilary Salamanca

📍 New York | The Circular Hostess. Hilary Salamanca brings circularity to life in the most tangible ways. When you attend one of her events, this intentionality is woven into every detail, from regenerative vodka to local flowers and vintage silverware. She crafts an immersive experience that is sustainable and beautiful. But this is no one-time gesture, it’s a philosophy woven into everything she does including the sustainable fashion businesses she invests in. Through her platform Circle of Friends, she’s cultivating conversations and experiences that invite everyone to reimagine what circular living can look like, not just in fashion, but in how we gather.

“In a circular economy, the goal is to maximize resource value by designing out waste and designing products for longevity, reuse, and recyclability, keeping materials in continuous circulation rather than following the traditional take-make-dispose linear model.”

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