Fashion Roundtable Book Club No. 6: In Conversation with Frieda Gormley
Sep 18, 2026 · 51 min · 8 segments
In this episode, Meg Pirie sits down with…
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Frieda GormleyGuest
Meg PirieHost
- Show signals
- Audience≈21k followers
Sep 18, 2026 · 51 min · 8 segments
In this episode, Meg Pirie sits down with…
Frieda GormleyGuestMeg PirieHost
So you write in your book, the old stories of unchecked growth, extraction and exploitation are beginning to crumble.
And in their place, new stories are emerging, stories of community, collaboration and connection, which is everything we've just spoken about.
And then I think there's something in this which calls for something other than GDP, which looks instead at the purpose and needs of the world, which for us at Fashion Roundtable would also include well-being.
So let's talk about the theme of the book, of looking beyond GDP then into stories of community, collaboration and connection.
I mean, I think an important theme that runs through the book is the idea that in our current society, operating systems we're measuring the wrong things and ultimately what we measure becomes what we manage you know GDP measures economic activity but it doesn't tell us whether that activity is creating healthy people or healthy communities or healthy ecosystems and you know it's it's kind of tragic that you can cut down a forest and GDP goes up
So the idea of economic growth and genuine flourishing, they're just not, they're not the same thing.
We largely judge the health of a company through financial capital as really the sole measure of success.
And, you know, we're starting now to look at House of Hackney through five capitals, so multi-capitals.
So the financial, yes, which underpins everything, but also the natural, human, social and cultural.
You know, the questions we're asking and that informs our roadmap is, are we restoring nature? Are people flourishing? Are we strengthening relationships and communities? Are we protecting creativity, craft and culture? And of course, are we financially healthy? You know, so I think what we need to ask now in our businesses and what we're trying to sort of birth within a business model is what is the job of business is to grow value across all those capitals and rather than increasing one by depleting the others.
And I think this really ties into something that we've been working on for some time.
And so by way of explanation for our listeners, this is a economic framework that we wrote, which shifts societal values.
So you write in your book, the old stories of unchecked growth, extraction and exploitation are beginning to crumble.
And in their place, new stories are emerging, stories of community, collaboration and connection, which is everything we've just spoken about.
And then I think there's something in this which calls for something other than GDP, which looks instead at the purpose and needs of the world, which for us at Fashion Roundtable would also include well-being.
So let's talk about the theme of the book, of looking beyond GDP then into stories of community, collaboration and connection.
I mean, I think an important theme that runs through the book is the idea that in our current society, operating systems we're measuring the wrong things and ultimately what we measure becomes what we manage you know GDP measures economic activity but it doesn't tell us whether that activity is creating healthy people or healthy communities or healthy ecosystems and you know it's it's kind of tragic that you can cut down a forest and GDP goes up
So the idea of economic growth and genuine flourishing, they're just not, they're not the same thing.
We largely judge the health of a company through financial capital as really the sole measure of success.
And, you know, we're starting now to look at House of Hackney through five capitals, so multi-capitals.
So the financial, yes, which underpins everything, but also the natural, human, social and cultural.
You know, the questions we're asking and that informs our roadmap is, are we restoring nature? Are people flourishing? Are we strengthening relationships and communities? Are we protecting creativity, craft and culture? And of course, are we financially healthy? You know, so I think what we need to ask now in our businesses and what we're trying to sort of birth within a business model is what is the job of business is to grow value across all those capitals and rather than increasing one by depleting the others.
And I think this really ties into something that we've been working on for some time.
And so by way of explanation for our listeners, this is a economic framework that we wrote, which shifts societal values.
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