A balancing act

Aditi Mayer on journey to sustainable fashion activism, the contradictions of social media, and finding the peace between it all.

Aditi Mayer beams at me through the video call screen from Los Angeles, pushing her trademark long, true-black hair over her shoulder as she talks about the sun outside, her apartment, the city of which she’s a born and bred native. I’m catching her on a normal day: there was some content creation before this; and there will be some emailing and mood-boarding for an upcoming shoot and a wander down to the beach for a press event on regenerative seaweed skincare after. Such are the unusual, manifest puzzle pieces of her life, one that Mayer has fashioned for herself through her work as a photojournalist, a content creator—“that’s the hyper visible part of my life”—and a labor rights activist.

Online, she’s known for ethereal portraits taken against the backdrop of striking natural beauty — a lake in central California, the pastoral valleys of Jaipur, a tree-hemmed forest clearing in Nantucket. Her posts tackle complex, educational topics in the realm of sustainable fashion, from labour rights to from the importance of regenerative agriculture. Often, she herself is the model, wearing diaphanous, earthy clothing, her thick hair swinging behind her, captured in motion. Other times, she forgoes the earthy L.A. beat for the heartbeat of fashion influencer-dom: sitting front row at Fashion Week, or walking the red carpet of a fashion gala, or snapping pictures in the Coachella valley. It’s perhaps surprising, watching her online persona, that fashion wasn’t necessarily Aditi’s first passion.

“Photography was my first love. Then it extended to all of visual culture, image making, all of that. I think fashion ties into that naturally. But I wasn't someone that went through fashion school or expected myself to end up in this industry.”

She once told The New York Times in an interview that fashion was, in fact, “her Trojan horse” to talk about worker’s rights and the climate.

It has also become trendy to dismiss the very real impact that activism on social media can have. Does it bother her? She smiles slyly. “As someone who exists in the fashion realm, being written off as frivolous is something I know will come with the territory. But it’s also something I'm more than happy to engage with, in a way to challenge that notion, right?” Aditi is a pragmatist.

“At the end of the day, we're living in a landscape where basically everyone, is learning, consuming information through social media. It’s about understanding the tools of our time.”

Certainly, the activation of Aditi’s social conscience and the genesis of social media happened somewhat in tandem. She was discovering the tools of her generation in real time. “My work kind of began during the time where Instagram was very young and I saw the power in that,” she says. “When people were using the Valencia filter and like, uploading their lattes, if you remember.” She recalls watching the fallout of the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013 in Bangladesh, where over 1000 people died and thousands more were injured in the eight storeys of a factory which collapsed, even after structural cracks and definiciencies had been discovered and ignored. Many of the world’s biggest brands had been manufacturing their goods there, or at other factories like it. The disaster sparked a global conversation about the impact of fast fashion on the global South, labour rights of garment workers, and the cost of capitalism.

In the ten years following Rana Plaza, which made the industry subject to international scrutiny on a new level, many brands altered their practices. But, for all the brands who genuinely progressed for the better, there are also many (arguably many more) who co-opt the language of sustainability for their uses — and, as Aditi knows, sometimes even its faces.

“I’m always hyper-aware of being used as the ‘climate activist face’,” she says. In 2020, a time where a lot of brands were going through social, racial and climate-related reckonings, often in tandem, she was approached by a brand which had come under fire after a viral TikTok which had shown bags full of slashed clothing outside the store (a common and wasteful practice done by brands who produce more than they can sell, who don’t want to devalue their pieces by donating them or discounting them further). “They did a crisis comms move of like taking things in and repairing them. And they reached out to me at that time to kind of be the face of it. I was, you know, smart enough to read the moment — it doesn’t take a lot of critical thinking.”

“I just said, ‘I appreciate the work that you're doing in response to this, but this feels a bit reactionary. If you want to explore a longer term relationship, let me know.’” It worked: Aditi ended up working with the brand for over two years in a consulting capacity, coming up with a long-term sustainability strategy for them. Much better, and more impactful, than being a one-time eco poster girl, I suggest. She agrees. “Sometimes, people will take the chance you give them.”

But there’s an apparent contradiction that swims quite quickly to the surface in Aditi’s work. It’s not one she’s trying to hold under. How does a content creator or influencer reconcile the fact that their work makes people want the same beautiful things they wear post about online, often as part of a ‘paid partnership’ — with their activism and sustainability principles? Aditi notes that she only advertises on behalf of brands which she deems are aligned with her values — but does encouraging others to buy and consume at the pace that social media pushes still contradict her other work in the sustainability space?

“I'm always open to articulating that tension and just like, embracing it fully,” Aditi says.

“I think we should consume less. I think the industry needs to undergo degrowth. But I also think that there are better, more sustainable options out there when it comes to choices we can make as individuals. While also saying that conscious consumerism will not save us in and of itself.”

“My approach is multipronged. I’m educating, I’m pushing for policy change. I’ve come to understand that the space I occupy is activist-y in nature”— she laughs at her own adjectivication of the word — “but it occupies a commercial context. Does that mean I'm selling out? Not necessarily. But it depends on who you talk to, right?”

“We have created an expectation of activists, especially youth climate activists, to embody an anti-capitalist aesthetic while also having a defined personal brand to occupy certain spaces,” she says. “We have this idea of the starving artist. I think there’s also the idea of the starving activist.”

The way Aditi sees it, paid partnerships and brand deals bring in money, as well as greater visibility and future opportunities — all of which are necessary for Aditi to continue her work in education, awareness and activism.

“I’m someone who can speak to like the consumer perspective or the activist perspective, but also has connections within the industry, I guess. And I need to do that to maintain my work.”

In 2022, Aditi really “felt that tension.” For much of that year, Aditi was in India, primarily her ancestral home state of Punjab, researching small scale cotton production as part of a fellowship with National Geographic. Part of Punjab was a cotton belt until the 60s and 70s, when farmers were pushed into cultivating rice — a type of farming that is not native to the area, and more resource intensive. During her time in Punjab, Aditi explored the revival of traditional farming methods in the area, and its impact on the local artisan industry. “I was teetering between like, Paris Fashion Week, and being in my village in Punjab understanding the work from the perspective of cotton farmers,” she says. “I think that's the dance that I'm always kind of doing.” She was also building relationships with the farmers and the community there. Last year, she did a project with Gucci, who ended up donating money to start a weaving school in Punjab.

She is reflective, musing on the fine balance of being a public figure — already the kind of person subject to scrutiny online, which is then added to by her positioning as the kind of public figure who does good. Is there an easier target for online vitriol? “Being an imperfect environmentalist is something I'm always reflecting on. That inherent tension of existing in an industry that is unsustainable.”

“But I think that’s the level of nuance we kind of need in this moment in time, because we're otherwise creating this divide, this binary, of people shouting at an industry from the outside that don’t really have any teeth in the game, and then those on the inside who aren’t saying enough.”

There’s no question that Aditi is already managing a heaped spoonful of career hyphenates — but the photojournalist, activist and content creator could also consider adding ‘tightrope walker’ to that list.

Photography: Delphine Chanet