WARDROBE CRISIS with Clare Press Dark Matter Labs' Indy Johar on Planetary Civics and a new Vision for Fashion's Future
Mar 25, 2026
Indy Johar, co-founder of Dark Matter Labs and RMIT Professor of Practice, reimagines fashion as an entangled, civic system. He explores planetary civics, garments as living protocols and microclimates, co-stewardship over ownership, true cost accounting, and the risks of corporate-controlled circularity. Short, provocative, and wide-ranging.
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Planetary Civics Reframes How The Planet Is Governed
- Planetary civics reframes governance from nation-states to networks that organise food, clothes and infrastructure across the globe.
- Indy uses 'planetary civics' to highlight supply chains and relational networks that transcend state boundaries and shape material flows.
Doubt As A Foundation For Freedom And Care
- Freedom requires capability and acknowledging we cannot know everything, which leads to systemic curiosity and tentative, tender ways of acting.
- Indy argues doubt as an epistemic stance produces curiosity, care and expanded optionality rather than rigid moral certainty.
Dark Matter Labs Name Came From Hidden Institutional Constraints
- Indy recounts building open-source furniture, housing and community projects and then noticing institutional 'dark matter' like warranties and insurance that control value.
- The story explains Dark Matter Labs' name: unseen institutional logics determine what can be made or scaled.
