![[Learn about the climate crisis] Wool, waste and what we choose to remember](https://images.beamly.com/fetch/https%3A%2F%2Fd3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2Fpodcast_uploaded_episode%2F44464617%2F44464617-1761693015795-22625f22621f2.jpg?w=365)
What do the clothes we discard reveal about who we are?
Theme: Learn about the climate crisis
Topic: Circular economy
Language: English
In this debut episode of Curious by Design, host Viktoriia Simakova (Tori) takes us to a small Austrian village where textile engineer and artist Gabriele Schuller reminds us that wool, the fiber that clothed humanity for 10,000 years, is often burned or discarded. Together, they explore what we've forgotten about clothing: memory, craft, repair, and care.
You'll learn:
What we call "waste" in fashion and what that reveals about our values and relationship with materials
How family garments worn across generations and wool stones carry the weight of history and meaning
Why slowing down with our wardrobes, choices, and ourselves could be the most radical act of all
From family trousers worn across generations to the question "what do our clothes say about who we are?", this episode will change how you see the fibers at your fingertips.
Key Quotes:
“Such a nice material like wool… is thrown away.”
“The only way to survive this hurry-up mentality… is to slow down.”
“Maybe the softest thing in your closet isn’t wool. Maybe … it’s care.”
Guest Bio:
Gabriele Schuller, Artist
Gabriele is a gentle wanderer of art and nature, whose creativity is as rooted in the cycles of the earth as it is in the human heart. Born in Wels in 1961, she now lives between Linz and the Salzkammergut, weaving her life and work together in paintings, installations, textiles. Anything that helps her explore what it means to live, die, grow, fall, and rise again. For Gabriele, making art is never separate from the world she senses around her: the seasons, the decay and renewal, the quiet whispers of nature. She studies deeply—culture mediation, graphic design, textile technology, art history—but she also makes with her hands, with intuition, and with care. Her projects often invite others in: workshops, public art, curatorial work. She believes art is strongest when it connects. And at the core of what she does is this mission: to find words and images for what she feels, to translate lived experience into something that moves both maker and viewer.
Website: https://kunstnomadin.com
Host Bio:
Viktoriia Simakova, Founder, Les Ensembles
Viktoriia is a bright spark of creativity and purpose, someone who doesn’t just talk about change, she lives it. She is the founder of Les Ensembles, a project born from her love of fashion and her concern for the planet, helping people reconnect with their wardrobes in ways that feel meaningful, not wasteful. Based in Austria, Viktoriia is studying informatics, with an eye for how AI and smart design can shape a better future. She sees clothes as more than fabric. They are stories, memories, possibilities. She’s warm, curious, quietly persistent, always asking: how can we consume kindly, dress mindfully, and treat our environment with respect? Beyond code and algorithms, she cares deeply about people - the ones wearing the clothes, the ones making them and the bigger world in which it all unfolds.
Podcast "Curious by Design": https://open.spotify.com/show/37UX08AloKtvCjSNgLbDSP