THE NATURE OF FASHION ... launching September 2025...
THE NATURE OF FASHION ... launching September 2025...
What if the story of humanity could be told through a single thread?
Vivid, impassioned and celebratory, The Nature of Fashion travels across landscapes and centuries, through myth and memory, tracing the roots of fibres, materials and dyes and revealing how the choices we once made shape the world around us today. Journey with me as I explore the history of plant-based textiles, unravelling stories of creativity, passion, idealism, exploitation and greed, seeking to reconnect with past wisdom and reimagine how nature and fashion can intertwine. If plants have shaped fashion’s past, might they also hold the secret to its future?
The Nature of Fashion
A BOTANICAL STORY OF OUR MATERIAL LIVES
‘A fascinating unravelling of how fabric has shaped us and the world we live in.’
ARIZONA MUSE, Founder of DIRT, Earth activist and model
About Carry
Carry Somers is an author and storyteller whose work connects the worlds of fashion, nature, and creativity. She co-founded Fashion Revolution, the world’s largest fashion activism movement, and founded Pachacuti, the world’s first Fair Trade certified company and a pioneer of supply chain transparency. Her work has influenced industries worldwide, from championing artisans to investigating microfibre pollution to exploring the future of plant fibres and dyes as a Churchill Fellow.
In The Nature of Fashion, Carry offers more than a history – she presents a vision. Drawing on decades of research, her lyrical exploration of the history of plant materials invites us to look beyond the surface and discover the deeper patterns that shape our lives. Her writing reveals how fashion is interwoven with the rhythms of nature, encouraging us to see the world in new and unexpected hues.
‘A fascinating unravelling of how fabric has shaped us
and the world we live in.’
— Arizona Muse, founder of DIRT, Earth activist and model
‘From the Heart of the World ... the Kogui people thank Carry Somers ... for helping to spin, weave and remember the colourful consciousness of our still-living ancestry.’
— MaMo Sintana and MaMo Isuama Kunchaluintana, Kogui spiritual leaders
‘Carry … reminds us how the textiles that adorn our bodies have the potential to connect us back to the earth and our ancestors’
— Nathalie Kelley Mallqui, Quechua storyteller
‘A delight … a rollicking ride of experimentation, colonialism and piracy.’
— Sir Tim Smit, co-founder of The Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project
‘The history and politics of textiles has been turned into quite a
page-turner!’
— Joe Swift, garden designer, writer and broadcaster
‘A lyrical reckoning … a vision of fashion that is not extractive but ecological, cultural and deeply alive.’
— Aditi Mayer, climate storyteller, sustainable fashion advocate and founder of The Artisan Archive
‘Infused with a love and deep respect for Indigenous customs and centuries-old woman craft.’
— Caryn Franklin MBE, fashion and identity commentator
‘Hidden stories of craft, creativity, science and innovation as well as trade and politics. An unmissable book.’
— Adam Clayton, U2
‘A fascinating read that delves into the roots of materials … highlighting the ways we can all turn the narrative around for the better.’
— Amelia Windsor, fashion writer and creator
‘A beautiful narrative about threads and the nature that provided them, from the very beginning of humankind’
— Jane Shepherdson CBE, chair of My Wardrobe HQ
‘A thoughtful guide for those seeking meaning in fashion.’
— Nishanth Chopra, founder of Ōshadi Collective
‘A tapestry of sciences from anthropology to archaeology, botany to biology, carpology to climate change.’
— Dr Gabby Wild, National Geographic author, wildlife veterinarian and conservationist