Take us back to your childhood in Hofit, Israel. Describe what kind of kid grows up and thinks, “Let me transform leftover milk into a biodegradable, rubberlike substance to waterproof attire for dairy farmers!” In your memory, were there any foreshadows that you would one day produce sustainable fashion? 

I can credit both the area I grew up in and my dad, in particular, for what I do and the processes I work with now. Hofit is a small Moshav (which is a hybrid between a small town and an Israeli  Kibbutz). It’s an agricultural based community - a lot of dairy and poultry farms and a lot of  greenery. I’m sure that that way of farm life was influential in some sense (haha).

My dad is a very DIY-driven person, who is always able to find creative solutions to building and fixing anything from whatever was available around the house. Most of the emphasis on DIY was mostly from a cost-effective perspective - preserving what objects we already have so we won’t have to resort to shopping (haha). Because of that outlook on life, he became very proficient in working with various materials (metals, wood, plastics, textiles), and it was very important to him that I would also know how to work with multimedia and create whatever I needed. I remember that, whenever I wanted to buy a new garment, he would take me to the store, flip the garment inside out and explain the construction of the garment to me.

I think that state of mind that nothing is too complicated or beyond my abilities really opened my mind to explore sidelined materials or unexpected materials and processes.

At what point did you consciously acknowledge the significance of ecological ethics  and get the inspiration for your bio-materiality projects and, eventually, for your fashion studio? 

The biomaterial direction came at my senior year at Parsons (Parsons School of Design, New York). I realized that my parents have so much craft knowledge that is completely unrelated to my craft (my dad used to manufacture surfboards and my mom was a dentist), and I realized that, if I don’t ask them to share that knowledge with me now, I might lose that first hand information that’s ingrained in my family history.

I began learning from my father, who in his 20’s was manufacturing DIY surfboards in the small moshav named Mikhmoret. When he was teaching me about the manufacturing methods of surfboards and the materials used to create surfboards, I knew that, when I interpret that  knowledge into my craft (fashion design), I didn’t want to use the harmful materials that aretraditionally used for surfboard and sail production, such as resin, polyurethane foam, and mylar. Instead, I created biodegradable alternatives from food products that mimic the properties of those original synthetic materials, and are able to undergo the same manufacturing techniques I  aimed to use (same manufacturing techniques used in surfboard production, but for the  production of clothing instead), such as rotomolding and casting.

Throughout this project, I worked with my dad and other surfboard and sails manufacturers in Israel, and also a small surfing community in Queens, NY, and created biodegradable garments and wetsuits to fit the lifestyle of a surfer. During this project, I found my true passion in the fashion realm. The challenge of creating new circular models, working with and around the needs of a community, and creating new materials for each project was what I loved the most in this practice, and I decided to continue on with that methodology in new locations, other communities, and with other materials.

Many consumer brands have increasingly started to incorporate elements of sustainability into their production. Why, in fact, do you think sustainable products are so important? 

Sustainable products are important because they are more than just a product. They stand for a certain ideology; they have a lot of gravity and intent behind them. Sustainable designers consider all aspects of circular production and design considering the materials, the sourcing,the location of production, and the people who produce the objects, as well as distribution,packaging, and the end of life. When you purchase a sustainable product, you’re encouraging a new type of industry that sees value not just in monetary gain, but also in your life as a person  on this earth, and in the lives of the people creating your products. 

That being said, the Gal Yakobovitch studio isn’t just part of a trend or marketing stunt. You’re actually aiming to be a “zero-waste” community. When you first began  reconstructing discarded textiles and using food waste to create biodegradable materials, how did the people around you react? 

Using food-waste, specifically, and waste, in general, I think is quite a mind-bending concept for most consumers. It’s always interesting to me how the changing of the location of the object (from closet or plate to the trash) suddenly changes our perception of it. The object is agreeable in point A, but, when it travels to point B, it becomes unthinkable, rule-breaking, gross, wrong. It’s all in our heads!

So, to answer your question, the people who are already a part of the conversation around sustainability, zero-waste, and bio-materiality are very supportive of my efforts and are open and willing to try these concepts.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are finding it hard to understand, first of all, why and, also, how these materials can work in their everyday life - since they know them as one thing and have never seen them travel to another realm. It’s hard for them to understand how those materials are able to be used in a different context, which is interesting, since we used to create from biomaterials before the production of synthetic plastics and dyes!


We used to dye with natural sources (food and plant-based), and we even used to work with casein (one of the proteins in cow’s milk) to produce bottles, cutlery, and even buttons and brooches, before the discovery of petro-based plastic. We just need to open up to that possibility again. 

Would you say that the new generation of fashion leaders are prepared to confront  ecological concerns, or do you feel more education and awareness is still necessary?

More education and awareness are always welcome! Because there never could be enough. Things change, and we’re always discovering more, and there are always more people that can  benefit from further investigation into any of the many aspects of sustainability and circular models of design and production.

With that said, the new generation of fashion designers, marketers, and consumers are definitely more aware than ever before, and I hope this will continue. There is more awareness, and more willingness to explore sustainable models in the fashion industry.

I follow younger designers and small brands, because I think that a larger change trickles up - a change in perception about sustainability needs to be driven (and I think it mostly is) by the consumers, by small brands, and young designers. It takes a lot of time and effort to change the models that are already in place for more established companies, but there are a lot of new designers and businesses with a sustainable outlook ingrained in their brands’ identities, and I think and hope those will succeed and continue. I hope that in the future larger and more established companies will hire or consult with young designers and want to cooperate, learn,and implement changes - big or small - both to help the cause, and also to spread the message.

Even still, do you believe sustainability is something that the entire fashion industry and all consumers should participate in, or is it a niche market for the environmentally conscious? 

I think it’s definitely the future we all want, or should want, for the industry - from designing for a specific need to being in touch with our consumers and communities, to producing locally and, if  not locally, then with factories with fair wages and decent work conditions. As consumers, I think  we should strive to be informed, knowledgeable in how things are made, and be empowered to  participate - be a part of a brand we love, from supporting the message of a brand to maintaining and mending a garment we already have and love. I don’t see why it should be confined to a niche market. Sustainability just speaks about being fair and transparent. There is no reason why we all as consumers shouldn’t want to be a part of that wonderful effort and conversation



Image courtesy of Bronwen Wickström
Process shots of CT Dairy collection




Video courtesy of Ooriya Ron
Salt crystalization process

And, going even further, because sustainable fashion is not produced at the same rate of fast fashion, it is often more expensive. Is slow fashion something that can andshould be afforded by everyone, or only a privileged few? 


Sustainable fashion, of course, should be affordable for the masses, and it is another challenge for sustainable designers to find a way to do that. It could never be as affordable as mass manufactured fashion, and it also shouldn’t be. If a garment costs just $5, you can be sure that there were many shortcuts and shortcomings along the way to make it. It’s important for consumers to realize that it takes a lot of work, people, and resources to produce a garment.

Sustainable fashion is still pretty new, and I think we’ve begun with looking at sustainability as luxury, but, as we progress and there becomes a need for more affordable sustainable garments, we will find a way to make that happen. Some affordable and sustainable ways to shop already exist, like shopping secondhand, swapping clothes, mending your own garments to make them feel new, shopping from local designers, and buying off of online platforms such as Depop or Etsy.

For my most recent collection, and my upcoming ones, I’m lowering the cost of the garments by collecting discarded textiles from the street and using collected food waste to dye them. I am able to do that because I’m a small brand, and I’m limiting my collection to a few one-of-a-kind pieces for each collection, so that I would be able to control the cost. 

From a business perspective, how do you reconcile the added time and costs of  production? Are profits something that you consider? 

Even though it’s difficult, because I do consider my work somewhere between art and design - meaning I spend a lot of time and effort just researching, creating new materials, and experimenting with new techniques and different communities for each project, I do have to  consider profits, so I could continue with my practice. A big cost-cutter for me is my raw material. Because I do work with waste, my raw materials usually don’t cost at all. I usually produce locally and in small amounts in my studio, so that means most of the cost goes to the production and research.

Besides the collections and projects, I also do workshops in sustainable design, production, and materials. That’s another aspect that helps me expand the brand while still maintaining low costs for the products and keeping my brand identity. 

Let’s talk design-wise. Is the actual design process of sustainable products any different from fast fashion? Have you found any limitations, or advantages, to upcycling or designing with biodegradable materials?


The process [for designing sustainable fashion] is definitely very different from designing for fast fashion. When you work sustainably, before you design a product, you design a system that considers the full chain of  production - your target market, where your product is produced, the materials used to make it, the shipping, distribution, packaging, and the end of life of the product. When designing sustainably, you approach a specific target market (as opposed to trying to appeal to a faceless consumer), and the designs change and evolve with the needs of the market. It’s a much more specific approach than mass-manufactured fashion.

In my work, even though I have a focus on material development, I design a different system for every project (not that I have to… It’s making things more complicated for me, but also very exciting and new). I start either from an inspiring community I want to work with, like the dairy farmers in Connecticut, or with the material, like in re/dis/assemble, where I had the raw, found textile and food waste to work with and needed to find a context to work with them.

The limitations and advantages go hand in hand for me. There is a lot of problem solving involved with producing from waste (both with upcycling and biomaterials), and that is both time consuming and a little more difficult than producing from new materials. But that is also part of the excitement for me. I never just automatically work on something. It’s always a mental exercise. 

Your latest collection, “re/dis/assemble,” which upcycles discarded textiles that have been dyed through dance performance, is interesting, to say the least. Describe it. How was this idea conceived? Did you personally roam the streets of Tel Aviv looking for materials? And why was it important to incorporate dance and embody the production  process as a physical experience? 

re/dis/assemble is a unisex, upcycled collection made from discarded textiles found on the streets of Tel Aviv and food waste, such as fish skin and vegetables. The collection was finalized through a food-waste natural dye performance at Ha Empty Space gallery in Neve Tzedek, Tel  Aviv.

I returned to Israel, a little before the start of COVID-19, from my former residence in Brooklyn, NY. Back then, I lived in northern Tel Aviv and used to go on walks around the neighborhood during the quarantines. Through these walks, I discovered that at almost every street corner I would find massive amounts of discarded clothes. I decided it would be interesting to collect whatever I could and see what could come from it.

Since how I came about the clothes was very organic and left to chance, I wanted the process of making the collection to mimic that, and I began taking apart the garments and draping with no set direction. I also started collecting my food waste at that time - eggshells, bones, fish skin, vegetable peels, etc. I wanted to create with my intuition, reverting to a place of child-like play - playing with trash, playing with food, and creating each piece as a one-off, something that I can’t recreate.

The decision to finalize the collection through a performance was an extension to that intuition and “play” state of mind, letting go of my vision and giving creative power to others to finalize the collection. The collection was finalized (with natural dyes) through a dance performance in a temporary performance gallery named Ha Empty Space. Three dancers - Tamar Rosenzweig, Amit Landau, Alex Clair - danced, while wearing the un-dyed white collection pieces, and slowly poured, rubbed and danced through natural dyes made from cabbage, beets, turmeric, and coffee. The outcome was unplanned and unknown, until it was done, and offered a chance for onlookers to view the process of garment making - having an experience and connection with a garment besides just shopping for one.

Can we expect any new Gal Yakobovitch projects in the near future? And are there  any new methods, materials, or relationships that you are exploring in your work?

There is an aspect of redisassemble that I aim to dig deeper in. These days, I’m exploring  creating fully biodegradable accessories. It’s an exploration both to new materials, but it also aims to explore the relationship we have with food waste.

It’s very interesting how we are capable of eating something, like meat, and we can handle it (both physically and conceptually) while eating, but, when we are finished eating, we discard the raw materials we have left (such as eggshells, bones, vegetable peels) in disgust. It’s hard for us to deal with “trash” after we’ve  produced it.

My aim over all is to change this outlook - no material is disgusting, just different or new. Our perception of it is completely driven by current societal norms, and those could be  changed and are bound to, due to the predicament we are in as an industry. Fashion is ever evolving and acts as a mirror to our society, and I think that, as a society, we’re ready to expand our minds to accept and utilize the raw materials around us. 

When you envision the future of the fashion industry, say in 10, 20, or 50 years, are you fearful about the impact it will have on the ecosystem, or are you optimistic?

I think it’s always important to be optimistic, even when the future seems bleak. There are  definitely practices that will be harder to change and elements that are past due of changing, but optimism keeps us going. If we would feel like there is no use to what we do, and that there is  nothing we can do to better the situation, it will render all our efforts meaningless.

The eco-crisis is very hard for our minds to comprehend. Its influence is so much bigger than us as individuals and as communities. It encompasses locations and people we don’t know and aren’t close to physically. Furthermore, its scope and impact are larger than our life span, so it’s hard for many of us to connect to it emotionally and, therefore, act to slow or change it.

As individuals, makers, and consumers, I believe we need to act with optimism and belief that we have a power to make an impact. 

Editor’s Note: At The Int’l Whisperer, we do our best to maintain the original integrity of our content. Interviews are edited for clarity only. While many of our subjects are interviewed outside of their native language or use their own local variant of a particular language, we recognize this as authenticity and refrain from “standardizing” their original expressions, syntax, or spelling.


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