LUCIANNE TONTI

Lucianne Tonti is a sustainable fashion journalist and an expert in regenerative fashion systems. She is the fashion editor of The Saturday Paper and a regular contributor to the Guardian where she writes the weekly series Closet Clinic. Her first book Sundressed: Natural Fibres and the Future of Fashion was published by Black Inc in 2022. 

Describe yourself in 5 words?

A reader, writer, swimmer, environmental optimist, and journalist.

What is the quality you most like in another person?

Joyful emotional intelligence

How does art, culture and design imbue your day-to-day life?

Well I spend most of my time thinking about sustainable fashion, and at the centre of sustainability are clothes that we can cherish and wear for a really long time. So, art, culture and design are really present in my day-to-day life because beauty and functionality are fundamental to sustainable fashion.

What is social or environmental cause are you passionate about / involved in?

The sustainable fashion movement, specifically the importance of switching to regeneratively farmed natural fibres so that we have better outcomes for nature and people along fashion’s supply chains. The Australian industry is quite unique, although we grow cotton and wool, we don’t make any textiles onshore and we make only 3% of all garments onshore so it is very difficult to have a sustainable industry when all of your production is happening in other countries.

The biggest opportunity for sustainable fashion in Australia is to embrace regenerative agriculture so we can create a sustainable cotton and wool industry here. If we can bring back some of that early wool processing and produce yarn onshore the potential to become leaders in niche traceable fibres is enormous. And it would give us the opportunity to have end to end processing in Australia, so we could say this is merino knit has never left the country. There is also huge opportunity for growth globally in textile-to-textile recycling. We produce so much garment waste, 260,000 tonnes of garment waste a year. If we can move quickly, we could be a hub for highly sustainable traceable niche yarns.

What is the best learning experience you have had?

The process of writing my book, Sundressed was an incredible learning experience. When I started writing it I saw regenerative agriculture as this tool for carbon sequestration and I thought it would change everything. But through my research and in speaking to experts, over time I learnt that carbon is just one metric for what a sustainable world looks like. Carbon science is still relatively new, and our understanding if it is changing all the time so, when we talk about carbon emissions they are not the only indicator of sustainability. What we need is a lower carbon footprint, but also increased biodiversity, ecosystem functionality, improved water cycles and all these other things that add up to a much healthier picture of what a landscape and what a sustainable product footprint looks like. That was a big light bulb moment for me when I was writing Sundressed.

Which 3 products from K5 Furniture are your favourite, and why?

There’s this sofa at Swensk, the Walsh Street 3-seater sofa, I have spent so much time there having worked for Swensk, it’s a favourite. I also love the Nola Verv Rocking chair in stainless steel. I love simple, pure materials. And that’s why I also love the Biennale stool which looks like a tree trunk.

Left to right: Nola Verv Rocking Chair, Boyd Collection: Walsh Street 3-seater Sofa & Nikari Biennale Stool

If you ran our world for a day... what three things would you implement/change/create?

Obviously, I would turn all agriculture into regenerative agriculture. Then I would get all the micro plastics out of the ocean, and I make sure all the remaining ancient and endangered forests are protected and regenerate and restore the forests that have been harvested or depleted back to primary forests. And then – can I have four? We should stop over production and over consumption in the fashion industry.

How do you spend time outside of work to create balance in your life?

I love to swim, when I’m in Sydney I love to swim in the ocean but I’ll also take laps at Fitzroy pool or the Aquarena when I’m home. I also do lots of yoga. And spend pretty much the rest of my time eating and drinking with friends and family.

What positive trends are you loving at the moment whether it be travel, fashion, furniture, architecture, food or other?

I love that everybody is waking up to how addicted we are to our phones and trying to put in place ways to be mindful and present in our lives. In fashion the word trend is very loaded and terrible for sustainability as it drives this need in people to constantly be searching for something new. Which is a really toxic way to be - constantly feeling like something else may be the solution that makes you feel cool, or accepted or complete. A sustainable wardrobe is working out the clothes that consistently give you joy over long periods of time and using this knowledge to create your own personal style that’s immune from trends.

In this rapidly changing world, how are you improving / contributing to our environmental impact?

A lot of my work is being an advocate for change in the fashion industry and so all of the writing consulting and speaking I do is on the path of educating and interrogating what players in the industry are doing and trying to make sure we are moving forward to something more sustainable. My column in the guardian ‘Closet Clinic’ is dedicated to educating people about craft and clothing care which are very tangible ways of becoming more sustainable.

If you woke up tomorrow as the leader of Australia, what are the top three things you would address?

Obviously, the priority is the Voice for Parliament and enshrining that in the constitution.

Then I would ban all coal mining and invest heavily in renewable energy.

Then I’d build more train lines, including a high-speed connection between Melbourne and Sydney.

And then creating a textile-to-textile recycling hub in Australia. (Sorry I need four again!)

If you didn't end up in your career, what other job would you love to do and why?

I think it would have been fun to be a homicide detective. I studied law and the criminal law subjects were always my favourites.

If you could you give one piece of advice to inspire our “I Am Woman” readers, what would it be?

Things change. And I mean that in a number of ways so if you are feeling stuck professionally or romantically, or anything in life, there is always hope in the idea that everything is transient, and that things can change quickly. But also, in the bigger picture with climate change and global warming, I know a lot of people feel disenchanted like we’re backed into a corner and there is no hope. But we do have the ability to change this situation and to put things in place to help nature regenerate and reverse some of the damage we have done in the last few hundred years.   

What is one upcoming exciting project or event you have that you want to share with us?

I’m working on my second book at the moment, but I can’t really talk about it yet.  

What woman in your life would you like to thank and why?

I would like to thank Jane Matthews, who introduced me to K5. I worked with her for a long time. I think she is a very strong and clever person, who is also kind, empathetic and fun. I’ve been lucky to have people in different places that always make feel at home and Jane (and Mats) have definitely been that for me, at different times, over years of knowing them.