Arizona Muse is a mother, model, earth activist and environmental advocate. She is the founder of the soil regeneration charity, DIRT. Artem del Castillo is the founder and self-proclaimed captain-in-chief of the RTW label Delos and the creative director of conscious resortwear brand, Caravana.

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/arizona_muse/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arizona Muse</a>: How did your own journey into sustainability begin?&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/artemdc/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Artem Del Castillo</a>. After many years in the fashion industry, I found there was a real discrepancy between what some of my clients were wearing and the way in which those items had been produced and how the people involved in that supply chain were faceted. It catalysed a deep dive into fabrics and how they can be connected to the elements. I began by going to India, to Mexico, by actually learning from artisans on the ground and seeing how some crafts that have been passed on through generations could&nbsp; be modernized, how they can be made sexy and&nbsp; be brought into this modern world. I realised immediately that the problem was supply chain and decided then and there that both <a href="https://www.instagram.com/delos/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Delos</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/caravanaland/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Caravana</a> had to become dedicated to working with artisans: to making expressive clothes that have sustainability and social responsibility at their core.

ADC: I&rsquo;m going to ask you the same question, because your path has been anything but linear.

AM: I have been a model for a long time&mdash;almost 14 years&mdash;and it took many years of being a model to feel begin to feel very, very unwell. Mentally and physically unwell, and I couldn't really figure out why. This was before mental health was a big topic of conversation and before we were ready to express without shame that we didn't feel OK. I was in a negative spiral because my whole identity as a model essentially broke down to &lsquo;I am a body that people can do things to and decide what to do with, and everyone can talk about me when they want to&rsquo;. It really was not an empowered state that I found myself in. Then I found my journey of activism&mdash;and activism is a very loaded word, and what I mean when I say activism is something very gentle and in flow and filled with kindness, encouragement and acceptance. The word activism actually has no connotations at all. It is what you make of it. I invite every single person to develop their own inner activist, because we all have one. We all have someone inside who's strong and who wants to stand up for and speak up for a purpose and navigate the world in a way that supports the new truth that we know is possible. And this has been my journey.

AM: How can we elevate the story of conscious consumerism while still making people feel OK about purchasing new clothing?
ADC: I think it&rsquo;s very clear that in order to accelerate the idea of conscious purchasing, we really need to harness the power of storytelling. Where did the garment come from, who made it &ndash; exactly who? What's exciting about what we do is that we work with small, largely rural communities; we work with materials that have been nurtured, from the seed to the plant to the idea and then the design and the production and the logistics&mdash;everything about it. It&rsquo;s actually very progressive&mdash;there&rsquo;s a lot to be done, but I find that this is a most exciting space. The dream, in an idealistic world, would be to try and localize where the product is made, so it's using local resources and local culture. It speaks to the local environment, and it's sold in a localized store. That's the kind of future I think that we can all strive for. That&rsquo;s one of the reasons I focus on resortwear, because it&rsquo;s seasonless and therefore has no waste or overproduction. But also so that a deeper connection is made with the garment because you buy it in Bali or Mexico or India where it was made with integrity, and it becomes a totem of that trip. That&rsquo;s where the art of travel comes in.

ADC: How has your activism journey evolved, and what has it taught you that you would never have guessed?

AM: Finding&nbsp;purpose through activism unravels so much. There's so much healing involved in discovering what your passion is and what you're going to pursue, particularly if that is of service to something else other than you. It's a deeply transformative exercise, and my own activism led me back into the earth. I realised how much I love this planet, this mother that we are all born to, but that we in my culture are taught to largely ignore. The culmination of my optimism, which has been very much influenced by learnings from indigenous cultures, regenerative agriculture and conscious farmers, has been the founding of my <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dirt.charity/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">charity, DIRT</a>. Our main mission is to regenerate soil, because regenerating soil is the least expensive and most effective climate solution that we have, and we are in a climate crisis. We now work with my old friends in fashion&mdash;which is really circular! - because textiles, leather, everything that we make our clothes with&mdash;shoes, hats, bags&mdash;it's all been grown by farmers in soil, unless it's made of polyester, which we can just say goodbye to right now. We&rsquo;re in an absolute climate crisis right now, and we should be investing money, particularly in the billions, into major decisions that cause impact in terms of regeneration the first day you start. That's the beauty of regenerative agriculture. It may take six years to transition a dairy farm to a biodynamic dairy farm, but on day one, your impact starts to be positive. The solutions we have in agriculture are so powerful. So, what we're doing is bringing together fashion and agriculture to begin to redirect the billions of dollars of sourcing power that go from the fashion supply chain into farmers every day. But right now, they're going into conventional farming, which looks like genetically modified seeds, copious amounts of chemicals to keep those plants alive, harvesting, human exploitation, and exposure to toxic chemicals, both for workers and for the environment.&nbsp;

AM: How have you found the journey of working with indigenous artisans and which other brands are helping to spearhead the movement?

ADC: Firstly, I think what is interesting synergetically between what you and I do is that we are deeply connected to fabric that comes from soil, whether that&rsquo;s linen, cotton or hemp. We want to disrupt an industry that's clearly not working. But let&rsquo;s not sugarcoat it&mdash;it can also be incredibly tough to work with artisans&mdash;and this is why many big brands can't or don&rsquo;t do it, although Loewe, <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/bohemian-style-boho-ibiza-fashion-free-spirited-ibiza-style" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chlo&euml;</a>, Stella McCartney and Gabriela Hearst are all pioneers in this field and should be applauded. We are essentially working with native cultures who have entirely different priorities to us. They have no desire to be businessmen, nor should they. They did not go to design school. They don&rsquo;t work to set schedules or have accounts departments. They&rsquo;ve been sewing or dying or weaving or crocheting since childhood. It&rsquo;s all they know. So, if I go and try to implement some westernised production schedule on them, they&rsquo;ll think I&rsquo;m crazy. So, I&rsquo;ve had to learn to adapt, and so have they. We have developed enough trust and love, and empathy between us to embark upon this journey together, and in doing so we have created these very empowered rural communities who have fixed incomes, who can educate their children, who can share their ancestral skills, and, most importantly, who can feel the gratitude of the rest of the world. Our artisans love to see photographs of a beautiful, happy person on the other side of the world, wearing a garment that might have taken them 18 hours to make by hand, weaving and stitching and tufting the cotton. It&rsquo;s an extraordinary transfer of skills, and that&rsquo;s where the sense of reward comes in for all of us.

Arizona Muse and Artem Del Castillo appeared in conversation in the Agora at <a href="https://almafrequency.com/">Alma.&nbsp;</a>
Arizona Muse is the founder of the environmental charity, <a href="https://www.dirt.charity/">DIRT</a>.&nbsp;

A new vision for fashion: Arizona Muse and Artem del Castillo in conversation.

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