All the things I got wrong in my TED talk, or the one way fashion can change the world

In 2016 I delivered a TED talk that features a real clanger of an error, but my confession today is what the whole industry needs to pay attention to.

Rachel Arthur on stage at TEDx in London in 2016

It’s a very strange experience when you’ve delivered a TED talk. It lives on in perpetuity - people find you through it and tell you they’ve watched it, and yet the topic you’ve chosen in many instances moves on and evolves. 

My version from 2016 is a perfect case in point, perhaps even to the extreme. So this is my confessional...

The TED experience is incredible - from the six months of intensive coaching that goes into it, to the focus that comes from actually writing your script, not to mention of course the adrenalin of then standing up on stage in front of hundreds of people and recalling it word-for-word from memory.

Within 17 minutes I set out to challenge the perception of the fashion industry as a superficial one, proved where it has shaped the world we know, and called for innovation for the future sustainability of our planet.

While I remain intensely proud of it (though it's amazing how quickly an outfit looks dated!), the main thing I find myself doing when I’m asked about it today, is explaining everything that’s wrong with it.

Within this, there's one big clanger particularly.

In 2020, I started writing about what a post-growth future looks like for the fashion industry. As the pandemic unfolded, it became all too clear that the system in which we operate in wasn't only not working, but everything we were doing to try and change it, wasn't making enough of a difference.

It was then that I realised the one part of my TED narrative that was off the mark and was only ever going to become more so over time. Not only had I naively spouted it, but actually believed in it too.

So this post you're reading is already four years old. I wrote this thought down in my notes folder ready to publish as and when the timing was right. I needed to have something to back it up more than an article talking about confronting growthism, and, well, today's the day. More on that in a moment.

But first, the clanger…