The Fabric of Value with Carl Warkentin

Security is the word everyone is using right now, but the surprising truth is that it keeps pointing straight back to sustainability. Carl sits down with Aurelia, a chief sustainability officer and systems thinker, to map where sustainability stands in 2026 after the hype cycle and the hard reality check that followed. We talk about what’s actually progressing (the energy transition and renewables scaling faster than most hea...

Secondhand is everywhere, but the mechanics behind circular fashion are messier and more interesting than most headlines admit. We sit down with Tina Newman, a Finland-based circular fashion journalist and consultant behind Circular Fashion News, to get a grounded view of what is actually changing in textiles right now and what still feels stuck.

We talk through the circular business models reshaping the market: why fashion ...

Textile recycling sounds simple until you touch real post-consumer waste. It’s not just cotton and polyester. It’s elastane blends, heat-transfer logos, dyes, heavy metals, and PFAS that can derail downstream processing and destroy product quality. From Brussels, we sit down with Charlotte and Ditte from Denmark-based Dissolver to unpack a different angle on chemical textile recycling: don’t break the polymers if ...

Vinyl is back, but the way we make records is stuck in an older industrial playbook. Carl joins us from our LA studio to explain how a booming physical format collides with modern climate expectations, from PVC-based materials to shrink wrap and global shipping that drags out release timelines for artists who want their music out now. If you care about sustainable manufacturing, circular economy ideas, and the future of music merch...

A recycling breakthrough is useless if it never reaches real scale and Syre is betting everything on getting there fast. From Syre’s office in Stockholm, we talk with CEO Dennis about why they chose polyester as the first target, why their mission is “speed and scale,” and why they believe the textile industry needs industrial capacity now, not a decade from now.

We dig into Syre’s unusually customer-...

Your favorite “sustainable” product might still be built for the trash. Carl sits down with Danielle from The CSO Shop, a longtime sustainability leader and fractional CSO, to get brutally practical about what circularity really demands and why recycling is only a small piece of the circular economy.

We start where consumers actually live: what goes in us, on us, and around us. Danielle explains why beauty and pe...

Imagine typing, “Warmest low‑profile jacket for Siberia, size M, modern look,” and seconds later seeing a faithful simulation on your avatar—plus the exact factory files needed to make it. That’s the leap from pretty pixels to physics‑native product creation we dig into with Steven, founder and CEO of Mode Maison Home.

We trace Steven’s path from Ralph Lauren’s Purple Label to building TMA...

What if the best-performing fashion ads never required shipping a single sample? We sit down with Kitty Young, founder of Wear It AI, to explore how hyper-realistic virtual try-on turns everyday photos into high-converting product content—then feeds those signals back into a smarter, cleaner supply chain. Kitty shares how brands can swap expensive, unpredictable influencer campaigns for scaled UGC, where micro and nano creato...

What does a truly circular textile business look like when you operate both a factory floor and a recycling line? We sit down with entrepreneur Vincent Jin to map the entire loop—from shrinking order sizes and digitized sewing lines to China’s door‑to‑door collection networks feeding textile‑to‑textile recyclers. The story starts with a family manufacturer shaped by early Scandinavian sustainability demands, and then ac...

What if secondhand felt as polished as buying new—and actually grew brand loyalty? We sit down with Relay, the Korean recommerce engine powering white‑label resale for major fashion groups and department stores, to unpack how trust, speed, and cleaning every item can flip circularity into a profit center. From doorstep pick‑ups and instant store credit to meticulous QC and photography, Relay’s model keeps resale inside ...

What if the clothes, uniforms, and textiles your company discards could become a source of revenue instead of a disposal expense? Michael Brenner, co-founder of Mood, reveals how industrial-scale upcycling is transforming the textile waste landscape, creating profitable business models from what was previously considered garbage.

The conversation begins with Michael sharing how Mood evolved from a small Berlin-based B2C bran...

Susanne Kadner's journey from climate science to circular economy pioneer reveals a profound shift in how we approach environmental challenges. Rather than focusing on restrictions, circular economy offers a positive vision of innovation and redesign that gets people excited about change.

"Coming from climate mitigation, it was always about what we shouldn't do," Kadner explains. "The positive vision of circular economy&mdas...

Lisa Morales-Hellebo takes us on a captivating journey from her DIY beginnings in the Bronx to becoming a pioneering force in reshaping global supply chains. Her story reveals how necessity and curiosity led her through roles in design, tech startups, and eventually to founding Refashion Ventures – a fund uniquely positioned to transform how we think about manufacturing and materials.

After experiencing firsthand the c...

What if the most sustainable business model was also the most profitable? In this eye-opening conversation with Mazze Ballweg, we dive deep into why circular economy has evolved from an environmental nice-to-have to an economic imperative for businesses across Europe.

Mazze takes us on his journey from traditional consulting at McKinsey and strategy work at Volkswagen to the moment sustainability "hit him" in 2019, prompting...

What if our old clothes could become the foundation of an entirely new industry? Cindy Rhoades, a filmmaker who pivoted to become a textile entrepreneur, takes us on her remarkable journey from music videos to pioneering circular solutions for the fashion industry.

Rhoades' story begins with creative nightclub events that made social and environmental issues accessible and engaging. When one such event focused on ethical fas...

How do you build a circular textile system in a country that lacks the infrastructure to collect, sort, or recycle at scale?

In this deep dive conversation, Carl is joined by Rachel Kibbe, founder of American Circular Textiles and Circular Services Group, to unpack the complexities of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in the U.S. and draw sharp comparisons with Europe’s more established systems.

Together, they explore:

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“Philanthropy isn’t just about giving — it’s about igniting. We step in where no one else can, absorbing risk, catalyzing innovation, and building ecosystems where businesses alone can’t go.”— Fernanda Drumond, H&M Foundation

Fernanda Drummond brings a refreshing perspective to the textile industry's sustainability challenges as Head of Collective Action at the H...

Alex Kremer takes us on a journey through the rapidly evolving world of branded resale, sharing hard-won insights from his pioneering work launching Patagonia's Worn Wear program and his current role as VP at Archive, which recently secured $30 million in Series B funding.

What truly sets branded resale apart from generic marketplaces is the trust factor. Customers consistently pay premium prices when buying secondhand direc...

Fashion has a dirty secret: brands routinely produce 30% more clothing than they'll ever sell. This deliberate overproduction is baked into a global supply chain that hasn't fundamentally changed in 75 years—one that pollutes watersheds, wastes resources, and disconnects production from actual consumer demand.

Trine, founder and CEO of Rodinia Generation, is rewriting these rules with a revolutionary concept called the...