Jeansland Podcast

Jeansland
  • 4.9 (14)
  • Society & Culture

This is why I do this. Jeansland is a podcast about the ecosystem in which jeans live. There are an estimated 26 million cotton farmers around the world, and about 25% of their production goes into jeans, which could mean 6.2 million farmers depend on denim. I read estimates that at least 1 million people work in retail selling jeans, and another 1.5 to 2 million sew them. And then there are all the label producers, pattern makers, laundries, chemical companies, machinery producers, and those that work in denim mills. I mean, the jeans industry, which is bigger than the global movie and music business combined, employs a lot of human beings. And many of them, like me, love jeans. The French philosopher and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, when visiting New York, said, "Everyone in the New York subway is a novel." I never met her, but I guess she made the observation because of the incredible diversity of people who ride the subway system. I'm convinced the people in our jeans industry are like those in the subway. They are unique, with rich and complex stories to tell, and I want to hear them. And deep inside me, I think you might feel the same way. https://jeansland.co/

  1. 2d ago

    Ep. 89 — REVISITED: Adriano Goldschmied Part 1 - “The Godfather of Denim” - Founder and Designer, Genious Group, House of Gold, Daily Blue Denim

    What does the future of denim look like through the eyes of someone who spent a lifetime helping shape it? In this revisited episode, Andrew sits down with Adriano Goldschmied, the legendary designer, entrepreneur and innovator known throughout the industry as the “Godfather of Denim.” Their discussion moves quickly from the state of the denim business to a much bigger question: where does it go next? Adriano talks candidly about too many mills chasing too little demand, relentless pressure on prices, changing consumers, and why the industry may need to stop thinking about constant growth and start thinking about simply doing things better. Then they start imagining. Luxury denim made from silk and merino wool. Cotton created through biotechnology. Indigo derived from sugar cane. Digitally printed denim that could dramatically reduce water, inventory and waste. And a future where denim becomes less of a product category and more fully integrated into fashion. Following Adriano’s passing in April 2026, we wanted to revisit this episode and the ideas, curiosity and unmistakable passion for denim he shared with Andrew. Because even after a lifetime in the industry, Adriano wasn’t particularly interested in looking backward. He was still imagining what denim could become. Originally released as Episode 12 on March 12, 2025. Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 89 — REVISITED: Adriano Goldschmied Part 1 - “The Godfather of Denim” - Founder and Designer, Genious Group, House of Gold, Daily Blue Denim

  2. Sep 30

    Ep. 88: Can We Fix the Global Supply Chain? with Auret van Heerden

    For decades, the fashion industry has been auditing its supply chain. So why are so many of the same problems still there? Twenty-one years ago, a jeans factory Andrew was working for faced allegations of serious labor abuses. Orders were disappearing, the accusations were mounting, and he didn’t know what to do. He reached out to Auret van Heerden at the Fair Labor Association in Geneva. That meeting changed Andrew’s life. In Episode 88, they meet again. Auret’s extraordinary career stretches from the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, where he was detained without trial for 289 days, to the International Labour Organization and thirteen years with the Fair Labor Association. Together, they cover remarkable ground across more than three decades of global sourcing. Audits and human rights. Cotton and synthetics. ESG. Forced labor. Contract sanctity. Governments and NGOs. And the increasingly complicated relationship between the people buying things and the people actually making them. Auret was there as many of the systems we now call social responsibility were being built. Some worked. Others didn’t. One important voice, he argues, was too often missing from the beginning: the supplier. Andrew and Auret look at audit fatigue, transactional sourcing, the outsourcing of risk, and why demanding better standards without giving suppliers the means or incentive to achieve them may be part of the problem. After decades of audits, standards and initiatives, maybe we don’t need another system. Maybe we need to fix the relationships inside the one we already have. Auret Van Heerden Founder & CEO at Equiception Business and Human Rights LinkedIn Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 88: Can We Fix the Global Supply Chain? with Auret van Heerden

  3. Sep 23

    Ep. 87: PETA, Wool, and the Protest That Went Viral

    Usually, there isn’t much to laugh about in our industry. But on September 13, funny arrived at New York Fashion Week. A PETA protest disrupted the COS runway show. CFDA CEO Steven Kolb stepped in, things got physical, the video went viral, and five days later Kolb resigned. But that’s really where this episode begins. In Episode 87 of Andrew’s Take, he looks beyond the spectacle to what PETA was actually asking for. PETA was there protesting the treatment of sheep in the wool industry. There are serious questions worth asking about how animals are treated and how our materials are produced. But PETA isn’t asking for better wool. It’s asking for no wool. And once you follow that argument through, the numbers get very big, very quickly. The UN estimates livestock supports the livelihoods of approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide, while roughly 600 million people depend at least partly on aquatic food industries. Andrew takes the protest beyond the runway and asks what happens when an ethical position meets the reality of a global economy. Wool is only the beginning. Leather, food, fishing, livestock, dairy, silk, down, and other animal-derived products quickly enter the picture. Protesting is easy. What happens if you actually get what you’re asking for? Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 87: PETA, Wool, and the Protest That Went Viral

  4. Sep 16

    Ep. 86: The Afterlife of Our Clothes with Jennifer Wright

    What actually happens when an old pair of jeans goes into a collection bin? In Episode 86, Andrew is joined by Jennifer Wright, professor and researcher at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, whose work explores what really happens to textile waste after we’re finished with it. Jennifer takes Andrew through the surprisingly complicated journey of discarded clothing, from sorting and resale to overseas markets, recycling, and the growing challenge of garments that have become increasingly difficult to take apart. They also explore some unexpected possibilities for textile waste, including Jennifer’s research into pyrolysis, a process that uses intense heat without oxygen to transform discarded textiles into char. Already used with other waste materials, Jennifer and her research partners are exploring what happens when clothing becomes the raw material. But underneath all the technology and new approaches is a much simpler question: Are we making more clothing than any recycling system could ever realistically handle? Sometimes the problem starts long before something reaches the recycling bin. Jennifer Wright Researcher, Fashion and Apparel Sustainability and Circularity Fanshawe College LinkedIn Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 86: The Afterlife of Our Clothes with Jennifer Wright

  5. Sep 9

    Ep. 85: What Eco-Grazing Teaches Us About Innovation

    My daughter introduced me to a company in New Jersey with an unusual kind of employee. It works outdoors, eats continuously, and never reads a sustainability report. It’s a goat. Across the U.S. and Europe, goats and sheep are being put to work clearing invasive plants, managing difficult terrain, and even helping create natural firebreaks. No herbicides. No heavy machinery. And what they eat comes out the other end as fertilizer. Of course, natural doesn’t automatically mean environmentally perfect. The real question is whether it works better, costs less, and produces measurable results. And that’s where the goats become a lesson for our own industry. Across cotton, denim, and sustainability, we’re constantly rediscovering old practices, renaming them, and presenting them as innovation. Sometimes that’s just marketing. Sometimes it really is a better way of doing things. Maybe innovation doesn’t always mean inventing something new. Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 85: What Eco-Grazing Teaches Us About Innovation

  6. Sep 2

    Ep. 84: Better Design Starts with How It’s Made with Angie Furlong

    Angie Furlong has spent more than four decades designing clothes, building teams, traveling the world, and learning the industry from the inside out. Some things in fashion can only be learned by understanding how they’re made. In Episode 84, Andrew is joined by designer and creative director Angie Furlong, whose career has taken her from Guess and Esprit to Lucky Brand, J Brand, True Religion, Sundance, and beyond. Angie came into denim at a remarkable moment. At Guess, she learned by working directly with mills, pattern makers, sewing rooms, dye houses, and laundries. At Esprit, she entered an entirely different world, traveling to Hong Kong, developing collections internationally, and watching the industry begin its shift toward global production.  Andrew and Angie look back at the rise of premium denim in Los Angeles, the experimentation that made the city a center of the denim world, and what happened as manufacturing moved offshore and designers became increasingly separated from the people actually making their clothes. They also look at what comes next: AI, vintage and resale, repurposing, mentoring young designers, and why technology can be an extraordinary tool, but only if you understand the craft behind what you’re asking it to do. After more than 40 years, Angie says she would choose this industry all over again. Her concern is what the next generation may be losing along the way: the technical knowledge, curiosity, and understanding of how something actually gets made. Angela (Angie) Furlong Design Leader & Creative Director LinkedIn Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 84: Better Design Starts with How It’s Made with Angie Furlong

  7. Aug 26

    Ep. 83: Do You Understand the Game?

    I read an article about basketball this weekend that made me think about denim. Strange, I know. The argument was simple: we’re seeing more basketball and understanding less of it. Highlights, hot takes, 30-second explanations. Why understand the game when somebody can just tell you who won? I think our industry has developed the same problem. We talk constantly about sustainability, circularity, regenerative agriculture, transparency, regulations, cotton, polyester, indigo. We publish enormous reports and thousands of pages of data. But who is actually reading them? More importantly, who understands them well enough to ask the next question? It’s much easier to remember that cotton uses too much water, recycled polyester is sustainable, or an indigo process is “clean.” Two seconds. Done. Now we have an opinion. We’ve created our own version of ESPN. We like the highlights, not the game. And that worries me, because you cannot improve what you don’t understand. Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 83: Do You Understand the Game?

  8. Aug 19

    Ep. 82 — REVISITED: What if Sustainability Was the Standard? with Roian Atwood

    What if sustainability wasn’t a competitive edge, but the baseline for the entire denim industry? In this revisited conversation, Andrew sits down with sustainability expert Roian Atwood to look at what real progress in denim actually requires. A former Global Sustainability Director for Wrangler and Lee Jeans, Roian spent more than 15 years in the apparel industry developing and implementing sustainable technologies. He takes Andrew inside the development of Indigood, including the work that reduced water use in indigo dyeing by more than 90%, and explains what it takes to move an innovation from an experiment to something the industry can actually use. They also dig into cotton certification, regenerative agriculture, transparency, synthetics and microplastics, and a question Andrew comes back to again and again: Are we measuring actual results, or simply getting better at marketing sustainability? Roian’s answer for where the industry goes next is surprisingly simple: stop treating sustainability as a trade secret. Share what works, measure what doesn’t, and solve the problems together. Because sustainability shouldn’t be the thing that makes one company different. It should be the standard. Originally released as Episode 22 of Jeansland. Connect with Roian Atwood Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Ep. 82 — REVISITED: What if Sustainability Was the Standard? with Roian Atwood
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4.9
out of 5
14 Ratings

About

This is why I do this. Jeansland is a podcast about the ecosystem in which jeans live. There are an estimated 26 million cotton farmers around the world, and about 25% of their production goes into jeans, which could mean 6.2 million farmers depend on denim. I read estimates that at least 1 million people work in retail selling jeans, and another 1.5 to 2 million sew them. And then there are all the label producers, pattern makers, laundries, chemical companies, machinery producers, and those that work in denim mills. I mean, the jeans industry, which is bigger than the global movie and music business combined, employs a lot of human beings. And many of them, like me, love jeans. The French philosopher and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, when visiting New York, said, "Everyone in the New York subway is a novel." I never met her, but I guess she made the observation because of the incredible diversity of people who ride the subway system. I'm convinced the people in our jeans industry are like those in the subway. They are unique, with rich and complex stories to tell, and I want to hear them. And deep inside me, I think you might feel the same way. https://jeansland.co/

Information

  • Creator
    Jeansland
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    89
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Jeansland Podcast
  • Show Website
    Jeansland Podcast

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