Bye bye, 2024!

Here's what's coming next for The Crisps

and

Dec 31, 2024

Welcome to another issue of The Crisps – your newsletter on anti-greenwashing and honest fashion communication. You can support us by subscribing, liking, and sharing our posts.

What a tumultuous year it has been – for the fashion industry, The Crisps, and us!

The global recession hit the fashion industry hard. This year, several brands shut down. Among them were many with a sustainable approach, such as Mara Hoffman, who closed her company after 24 years. Sustainability departments saw a similar trend, with budgets and staff being cut down and a stronger focus on meeting legal minimum requirements instead of forging meaningful change.

This year also saw a noticeable shift in sustainability communication. Brands have become far more cautious about their claims or stayed entirely silent on sustainability efforts. And while we welcome fewer unsubstantiated claims misleading consumers, speaking about sustainability efforts, struggles and opportunities stays vital to creating impactful change.

Thank you for your support in 2024!

On a more personal note, we want to share a small but meaningful celebration we had in Berlin a few weeks ago. As you might know, we live and work in different cities and don’t see each other in person all too often. This is why we met up to celebrate the work we’ve done with The Crisps this year and reflect on the great community we’ve built.

We want to deeply thank you for your ongoing support through paid subscriptions. Your support not only kept The Crisps going for this long but also, quite literally, filled our bellies with delicious food. Your belief in this mission means a lot to us.

We’ve been carrying this project on our shoulders, volunteering a good chunk of our time and brain juice because we believe in independent publications like ours. But the reality is that while The Crisps is growing steadily, our paid subscriptions don’t come close to matching the time, research and care we pour into our issues. Additionally, the administrative work we must do in the background to offer paid subscriptions adds another dimension disproportionate to our earnings.

Changes at The Crisps

So, we’ve decided to let go of paid subscriptions and paused all payments for now. But don’t worry: The Crisps will continue, just at our pace and with the (unpaid) capacities that we have. While it might mean fewer issues in some months, it won’t mean less impact. It means we will take the chance to research in even more depth and share even sharper insights with you – plus, we get a chance to catch our breath and reflect between issues.

If you’re ready to challenge the status quo in your company, our paid workshops will continue in 2025. Majorly facilitated by Lavinia, our workshops are designed to cut through the fluff and get to the root of real systemic change in fashion and anti-greenwashing. Reach out via email (lavinia.muth@posteo.de) if you want to bring radical honesty and transformative ideas into your sustainability efforts.

We don’t know about you, but this year has been a lot for both of us (more on that in our very personal 2024 reviews further below!) and we need a little break. Starting in February, we will be back with content free for everyone to enjoy – no paywalls, no invoices, no barriers. Just anti-greenwashing insights.

Until then, we’re opening our archive in case you want to use this time of year to learn more about anti-greenwashing and sustainability topics in fashion.

Thank you for being part of this journey and for sticking with us as we adapt. Together, we’ll keep asking uncomfortable questions, exposing uncomfortable truths and creating space for a better future in fashion.

All the best,

Tanita & Lavinia

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“Some encouraging news based on my observations from working on The Crisps this year: Coming legal regulations like the EU Green Claims Directive are starting to have an impact already. Slowly but surely, we’re seeing fewer fashion brands making exaggerated claims about their so-called sustainability efforts. The era of wild exaggerations is finally losing its grip. But, as always, there’s a catch. Greenwashing may be fading, but greenhushing has stepped in to fill the void. Companies now actively downplay or obscure their sustainability activities, hoping to avoid criticism entirely. It’s quieter, but just as insidious.

And then there’s the silence (a complicity-hushing) that cannot be ignored. This year has been devastating for human rights. In Palestine, Tigray, Sudan, Congo, Bangladesh, among the Rohingya, Uyghurs, Muslims in India under the Hindutva regime, and beyond, so many communities have endured genocide and unimaginable oppression. Yet, in the so-called fair fashion world and among international NGOs advocating for farmers and (garment) workers, acknowledgment of these crises has been almost nonexistent. The silence is deliberate, and it is unacceptable.

It’s all interconnected. Gaza (now erased) and the West Bank, for example, have been home to garment factories where workers faced harsh and exploitative conditions – paralleling realities across the global textile supply chain. If we are serious about justice, we cannot cherry-pick which struggles deserve attention. Silence is never neutral. It’s a choice. A choice to ignore, to de-prioritize, to erase. But not everyone has stayed silent. Earlier this year, GmbH, a Berlin-based fashion brand, broke the silence on Gaza with a powerful statement during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. “We are not comfortable speakers, but the last few months have caused us to do many things we don’t normally do,” said co-founder Serhat Isik, alongside Benjamin Huseby. Known for addressing gentrification and migrant identity, this season they took a bold stand as the only German fashion brand speaking out. Their speech was a reminder of fashion’s long history as a form of activism, in my understanding, of how it can be a tool to challenge injustice and create solidarity.

Amid the heartbreak, resistance persists. This year, the Bangladeshi student movement surged, with garment workers and trade unions at the forefront, demanding systemic change and amplifying the fight for justice: we’ve witnessed the dictator flee. And at the same time, people are fiercely protecting their cultural heritage: preserving patterns, weaving traditions, fostering agroecological practices and honing artisanal techniques against all odds. These acts of care and defiance are a testament to the resilience of communities and give hope, even when the work feels crushing.

This year has also been a bit stormy for me personally. I’ve been adapting and recalibrating constantly, pulled in so many directions outside of writing this newsletter. Financial pressure looms, yes, but there are too many urgent, vital and exciting projects on my horizon for 2025 to slow down now. At the same time, I’ve learned the hard way that I need to protect my time and energy. So here’s what I know: I will keep pushing anti-greenwashing efforts, keep evolving and resisting. I’ll continue to diversify what I offer and adapt to what the world of fashion and global solidarity demands.

With care, defiance and persistence,

Lavinia”

“What did the year feel like for you? For me, the question is not easily answered. 2024 was a year of pushing and pulling, growing and standing still, frustration and small glimpses of hope. With the current political landscape and social justice issues worldwide, keeping a positive outlook is easier said than done – and I know many feel the same. But as Lavinia put it perfectly above: “Amid the heartbreak, resistance persists.”

For me personally, this year brought great opportunities, such as holding a lecture at the renowned Humboldt University in Berlin, speaking at the 202030 Summit about honesty in fashion communication, traveling to the Blue Earth Summit and EFA Conference, and further growing a network of great colleagues and friends in the field. However, the uncertainty and financial pressure in the industry were very much visible. For most self-employed creatives I talked to, the year was equally challenging as it was for me. While some months went exceptionally well, and I had the opportunity to take on some really exciting projects, sustainability communication was not a focus for most brands.

With very little (if any) progress the industry is seeing, I also tend to ask myself every year if staying in the industry is the right decision. I could easily see myself working in other fields, restoring furniture or gardening. The latter became a great passion of mine in the past years and has doubled down on my enthusiasm to do my part in shaping positive change. But every year, I am convinced that working in communication and content creation in fashion & sustainability is the right decision. And this year is no different, even though it ends on another note.

In December, I started a new position as Head of Content at studio MM04 in Berlin. When the opportunity came up, I couldn’t say no. So I will spend the majority of 2025 shaping the sustainability communication of a new brand (coming soon and get in touch if you want to learn more about it), building up their comms channels and creating content. Ending my self-employment (full-time) is the biggest change of the year for me and I’m super excited for this next chapter. I will remain self-employed as a journalist and take on commissions from time to time and I’m equally excited to keep writing The Crisps and shaping the industry together with you.

All the best,

Tanita”