Tiffanie Darke on Confidence + Considered Consumption
Who doesn't love hearing from inspiring women? Launching this International Women's Day, our Female Voices campaign, in support of Smart Works, spotlights intelligent women from across industries with plenty of wisdom to share, on everything from careers to clothing heroes.
Next in our series is Tiffanie Darke, a writer, author, editor and activist specialising in fashion. After a career as fashion editor for the Sunday Times, Darke began to take a closer look at the industry and our shopping habits to figure out how we can affect long-term sustainable change while still embracing all the creativity and confidence that can come from fashion. The result? Her Rule of Five campaign, an approachable way to invest without excess.
Darke has also worked with Smart Works for 20 years, as a board member, interim CEO and now as an ambassador. She is proof that great personal style does not have to come at the expense of the planet, that considered consumption can offer countless rewards, and that there’s nothing like imbuing women with the confidence they need to succeed.
What inspired you to start working in the world of sustainability?
I trained as a journalist, and I only moved into fashion later on, just at the time when everything was getting democratized: the high street was blowing up, and everything that was on the catwalks could suddenly be on the high street and was very accessible and affordable. But throughout all that time, I never actually asked where my clothes came from, despite the fact I was a journalist.
It was only really during the pandemic, actually, when everyone was asking themselves questions, that I began to ask myself that question: where did my clothes come from? And I realized I didn't know. So I took myself back to school and I learned about sustainability. I decided that I would be best off working in an area that I really knew about, which is fashion, and seeing if I couldn't get this industry, which I love, to just be a little bit more responsible.
Do you think that there's a world where sustainability and fashion can coexist in harmony?
Absolutely. I mean, fashion delivers so much. It's culture, it's creativity, it's identity, it's confidence. It's not something that we should do without. It's something that is really additive to our experience as humans. So I never, ever want it to go away. But I think there are ways that we can engage with it, and the way that we can wear clothes, which are more responsible. And that's basically what I'm trying to figure out.
“Fashion delivers so much, but there are ways that we can engage with it which are more responsible.”
That leads us nicely on to your Rule of Five campaign. How did you decide on five as the perfect number of investment pieces per year?
I started by considering fashion in terms of rent and restore and recycle - these are ways that we could engage with it which was so much better. Then this report came out from the Hot or Cool Institute, which is a climate think tank. It basically crunched all the numbers and it looked at the fact that fashion had said it was going to reduce its emissions to within 1.5 by 2030. And [they] realized that no one was going to get there.
The only way we were going to reduce our impact is if we massively decreased our consumption; it worked out that basically for anyone in the Western world, that was just five things a year, which is quite a radical number, but also quite a tangible number.
It's not stopping shopping, it's just being a lot more considered about what you buy. So when I heard this, I thought, well, I've got to do it. I decided that I would see if it was possible, if you could still have really good fun with fashion, build a really functional wardrobe, only buying five things a year.
"I had this maths equation where 80% of your wardrobe should be foundational, and 20% should be real personality pieces”
How do you go about doing that? How do you know what are the right five things for you personally?
I started off [with a] massive wardrobe audit: what's in my wardrobe? What's working? What's not working? What am I missing? And that list of what I was missing became my goals for the five things for that year.
I realised that you do need to supplement it, so I allow myself four secondhand purchases a year. I [also] had to exclude activewear: I love to do yoga, I love to swim, I do a lot of dog walking and you go through that stuff. And so I allowed myself activewear on top of that.
The other thing that I realised was that all the clothes that I was buying were actually really boring, because I was trying to make them kind of clever, functional, foundational pieces. But by about September, I was totally bored with my wardrobe because it was all black, beige, white, navy, and there was no personality left in it. So I had this kind of maths equation in my head where 80% of your wardrobe should be foundational, really work-hard pieces that you can wear every day, and 20% should be real personality pieces, the kind of pieces where you walk into a room and everyone goes, oh, I love what you're wearing. But I realised actually that that wasn't enough, so this year, I'm 60:40.
What inspired you to become a Smart Works ambassador?
When I was working as a fashion editor I was really looking for ways to demonstrate how important fashion is to society, to the way that women feel about themselves. And I wanted to do something with an organization that was really giving back.
That's when I came across Smart Works, and I couldn't believe the impact they were making. 63% of women who come through Smart Works go on and get a job within a month of the service, which is a properly good statistic.
The best thing about it is just talking to all the women that use the service. They’re so inspiring. They come from so many different backgrounds, so many different walks of life. They've got so many challenges, but they all have this real inner resilience, and they all have this desire to get their agency back. Being able to be there at that stage in someone's journey and really help them make that step is a very, very rewarding and important thing to do.
"The best thing about Smart Works is just talking to all the women that use the service. They’re so inspiring.”
What would you say makes the perfect interview outfit?
What we say at Smart Works is that, when you walk into that room, you really need to feel yourself. And if you're not comfortable or if you're worried about the clothes that you're wearing, you're not going to be yourself. And therefore, you're not going to make the best impression.
So, number one, wear something you feel really comfortable in so that you're not thinking about your clothes. Number two, don't shy away from colour and print and things that make you feel happy, because when people see that on someone, it projects happiness, which is a good thing.
How do you balance all these different roles in your life?
I think this idea of balance is a complete misnomer. I don't think anybody is balanced!
You get to this stage in life and you've got kids, animals, jobs, house, all those things going on, and I think you've just had a lot of practice by this stage. I think you also are more forgiving of yourself. So when things do go wrong and you do drop balls, you just have to say, I'm sorry. And people generally understand.
How do you unwind?
I do yoga and I swim in the ponds in Hampstead, like every north London, clichéd woman. I take the dog up and walk across the heath in the early morning. They have so many women of so many different ages out there, and it's a very supportive community. So going there in the mornings and being surrounded by 80-somethings who have been coming for the last 50 years of their life, you can say anything and you know you’re heard.
“I think this idea of balance is a complete misnomer. I don't think anybody is balanced!"
In Support of Smart Works
We’re proud to launch our Female Voices campaign on International Women’s Day in support of Smart Works.
Smart Works is a UK charity that dresses and coaches unemployed women for interview and job success. Since 2013, Smart Works has supported over 45,000 women across 11 centres. In 2025, they will open their 12th centre in Bristol, an evidenced area of need, and by April will be supporting 10,000 women across the UK each year.
To mark our campaign, ME+EM will be donating to Smart Works to support and encourage their incredible work. To learn more about the charity, visit smartworks.org.uk.
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