Cultural thinker and clothing consumption expert from Estonia
Advocate for Conscious Clothing
Born in 1983, Piret Ilves grew up during Estonia’s re-independence, witnessing a rapid shift from material scarcity to Western-style overconsumption, a perspective that informs her interest in consumer culture and its limits. She previously founded a womenswear label built on natural materials and responsible production. Today, she focuses on research, analysis, and advocacy, situating clothing within the context of climate change and responsibility rather than product.
Piret sees clothing not as costume or fashion, but as a material, social, and ethical object. Drawing on a background in fashion design and cultural studies, she examines what clothes do in films – and also what they don’t do: how they organise bodies, structure class and social roles, shape identity, signal power, and expose labour.