Gemma Metheringham

Gemma Metheringham is a researcher, writer, consultant, and advocate for secondhand fashion, dedicated to exploring how the growth of the fashion resale market can contribute to reducing the fashion industry’s overall carbon emissions.

Gemma Metheringham

Gemma Metheringham is a researcher, writer, consultant, and advocate for secondhand fashion, dedicated to exploring how the growth of the fashion resale market can contribute to reducing the fashion industry’s overall carbon emissions.

With 30 years of experience in the fashion industry, she founded 'The Elephant in My Wardrobe' on Instagram to raise awareness about throwaway fashion and promote conscious consumerism.

  1. The last item you would give away and why?
My dad’s Daks jacket. I’ve always loved it! I remember him buying it in the 1970s to celebrate getting a big promotion. It was a significant moment for us as a family, and I remember thinking it was the most beautiful item of clothing I’d ever seen. When my dad passed away, I found the jacket hanging in his wardrobe. Its pockets were still full of the handwritten reminders he wrote for himself, old ticket stubs, and restaurant receipts. It’s literally full of memories of him, and now, when I wear it, it’s like wearing a hug.
  1. Favourite place in the world? 
I used to really love travelling and discovering new places, but nowadays, I think my favourite place is London. I’m never bored walking around the city—there’s always something new to discover right here on my doorstep.
  1. Silk, cotton, or cashmere and why? 
Can I cheat and say cotton and wool? Partly because I spend most of my life wearing jeans and jumpers, and partly because they’re both hardwearing, easy to care for, mechanically recyclable at the end of life and ultimately biodegradable.
  1. Best book ever? 
There are too many!
  1. What is the soundtrack to your life? 
Because I spend most of my time nowadays reading and researching, my world is deliberately silent, punctuated by the dachshund barking and the sounds of the city.
  1. A quote to change your life? 
“You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.” — Greta Thunberg at COP24, December 2018. I remember coming home from work and my husband telling me I needed to watch something. He showed me the film of Greta speaking, and it changed my life. She’s right! We need to change now for future generations.
  1. One thing you wish you’d learned at school, or the one thing you learned in school that you couldn’t live without? 
I’m very lucky that my education, and my mum, gave me a lifelong love of reading and learning.
  1. Who would you want to be stuck in a lift with? 
Keir Starmer? I’d like to ask him why he’s not taking more radical action on climate change, environmental issues, and so many other things!
  1. If you had the power to change anything you wanted in the world, what would it be? 
I’d go back to the 1970s and make politicians, corporations, and people wake up and take action when Donella Meadows and E.F. Schumacher started talking about the dangerous environmental impacts of continuous growth on a finite planet. It makes me so sad that we knew all this stuff fifty years ago, and if we’d started developing alternative systems back then, it would have been so much easier to avert the climate crisis we’re now facing.
  1. Three things your friends would say about you? 
That I’m always very busy, that I’ve always got lots of questions, and that you can rely on me.
  1. Your three favourite fabrics:
I love pattern mixing, so for me, it would be printed fabrics, checked fabrics, and striped fabrics—preferably all worn together.

Stripe Print Sequin Jacquard

Silk Satin Print

Check Floral Organza

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