INTERVIEW #135 ANNA MEDA

Name: Anna Meda

Based in: Milan

Occupation: Freelance designer and sustainability trainer

Gets inspired by: Daily challenges 

Instagram: @storie_sfuse

Hello Anna! Welcome to A Sustainable Closet! We are so happy to have you here. Tell us about yourself.

Hi! Thank you for welcoming me into your family, it’s a pleasure for me to meet you. My name is Anna and I’m a product and service designer. I’m 30 years old, living in Milan and trying to build a career around sustainability. I guess this can be a super brief introduction of myself!

We are so curious about your career and how you came up with the idea of Storie Sfuse?

Storie Sfuse is my personal project, aiming at sharing day-to-day, practical advice to build more sustainable lifestyles. It was born in 2019, and it was not just me at the beginning, we were four friends working on it. The idea to start this project came up after a chat we had among us: for different reasons we were all discovering the world of sustainability (and of climate crisis on the other side) and were starting to wonder how to change our lives in order to act positively towards these topics. At the beginning, we were just sharing advice among us (for example on where to buy in bulk or which solid shampoo to choose). But very soon we started thinking it could have been useful to share that same advice with a wider audience, and that’s how we created Storie Sfuse. It was just a way to spread our own discoveries and learnings.

Where do you find your daily outfit inspiration?

This is a tough question! Obviously, I do look around on social media to get some updates on daily outfits, but the point to me is always to feel 100% comfortable with an outfit. I spent most of my adolescence trying to play along with fashion standards that didn’t fit me at all (I’ve always been the tallest and biggest one compared to my friends, I’m pretty tall by Italian standards) and all of this just made me feel uncomfortable and not valued. Growing up, I just tried to feel confident and proud in my outfits, even if they do not totally adapt to current trends.

What is your relationship with clothes, how do you consume your clothes?

I’m super careful with my clothes: I do my best to make them last as long as possible. I also minimized my purchases, focusing - as already said - on a more precise choice. I only buy apparels that I really like, it’s a kind of magic that has to happen between me and what I’m buying. If I feel that magic, that sense of cosiness and comfort and confidence, that’s the right item to buy. Otherwise, I prefer not to because there’s a super high risk for those items to end up hanging in my wardrobe and in the bag for the next swap party to be exchanged with something else.

Also, I started making my own clothes. A few years ago I attended a sewing course (a super basic one, I couldn’t even set the thread in place!) and it gave me a totally new perspective on clothing. From that moment I started sewing simple items for myself: skirts, tank tops, and simple dresses. It really contributes to making me feel good about what I’m wearing.

What favourite stores or brands to shop from?

As I said, I dramatically reduced the amount of shopping that I do. I can say that among my favourite choices when I need something new there is me-made clothing and second-hand shopping. I also love swap parties, to exchange items with other people. I really like the idea of giving them a second life.

If I have to buy something new I have a few brands which I look at (for example Parco Denim for jeans, CasaGin for basic items, or MioMojo for accessories). But what I usually do when I need something new is to look for suitable brands online, through lists and archives of sustainable brands like the one developed by Il Vestito Verde.

Favourite material to wear?

Natural materials, like cotton, or viscose. Synthetic fibres are comfortable and suitable for sports activities, but for daily usage, they do not suit my needs: very often, apparels made with these materials are tight-fitting and contribute to highlighting parts of the body which I do not like my outfit to focus on. Natural fibres give me a fresher and lighter touch on the skin, which I appreciate most.

What do you think about the fashion industry in general? 

The fashion industry is one of the most complex on Earth. Our effort in transforming it into a sustainable (or at least less impactful) industry is needed just as it is difficult. I think there are two main aspects that contribute to making this shift so difficult. First of all, the fashion industry has something to do with all of us. Every person on the planet is related to this industry and therefore - to have a meaningful change - we need to involve a huge amount of people. On the other hand, the fashion industry has grown exponentially in the last decades, according to a model which makes it fragmented and dispersive. This makes it difficult for people who are looking for information and transparency to understand more and make positive, conscious choices.

You are Italian and based in Italy, do you feel like Italians are becoming more sustainable in their daily lives or how is the mindset over there?

I would like to say “absolutely yes!” but it’s actually difficult for me to answer this question. I am plunged into this world every minute of every day, therefore my perception is a bit distorted: to me, everybody knows, talks and acts according to these topics. But then I go out in the real world and talk to people and suddenly realize that this is not (always) the case. Let’s say that many people in Italy today know and talk about sustainability, but I think few of them have decided to change their habits and daily lifestyle because of sustainability issues. There is also a lot that can be done to educate people about sustainability: sometimes I have the feeling that people get annoyed with this topic without even deeply understanding its meaning and implications. This is something we should really work on, to nudge people towards a conscious change.

Describe what fashion is for you, in three words:

Care

Self-expression

Innovation