Sami Miro on Vintage, Sustainability, and Why Your Underwear Might Be Slowly Poisoning You
We live in a world that worships abundance. But what if that’s the problem? Sami Miro’s philosophy is that constraint is the engine of creative style. When brands started sending her clothes, she looked in the mirror one day and didn’t recognize herself. She had to step back, get deliberate, and return to being scrappy. Miro is the founder of Sami Miro Vintage, Creative Director of the brand, and a former CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund finalist. She joined the Naked Beauty Podcast to discuss what we don’t understand about fashion waste. Miro didn’t hold back on the environmental toll of the fashion industry, which ranks among the top three most damaging industries on the planet. She explained the difference between vague “sustainable” claims (often just greenwashing) and true circular fashion, which ensures clothing never ends up in a landfill. Her rule of thumb for conscious shopping? Learn your materials. She also warns that some synthetic fabrics and textile treatments may expose us to PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which emerging research suggests can be absorbed through the skin and enter the bloodstream. Even some vegan leathers and faux furs are loaded with plastics, despite their eco-friendly branding. Organic cotton, Tencel, bamboo, and regenerative materials like mushroom leather are where it’s at. She explains that we can actually shop fast fashion more consciously, but only if we genuinely intend to keep the piece for 20 years. Miro has dressed Beyoncé’s dancers, Lizzo, and the 2024 US Olympic Gymnastics Team. And her love for vintage fashion goes way back to middle school when she wandered into the back of an American Rag store and discovered a rack of $5 vintage pieces. Finding a worn, purple Lacoste polo was the beginning of everything. “I realized vintage has a story,” she stated. “Knowing I was the only person in the world with that exact article of clothing made me feel so confident.” Growing up as a biracial woman in San Francisco, Miro was raised by her French-Russian father after her mother was absent from her life. She felt beautiful because her dad consistently told her that Black women were the most beautiful, but she didn’t feel confident. Her love for vintage gave her the confidence she was missing, and that purple polo became the spark to ignite everything she would eventually build. Of course, Miro also gets into her beauty routine during the podcast episode. After an unexpected bout of breakouts, Miro’s dermatologist put her on tretinoin, and she says it transformed her skin in under a month. Outside of that, she keeps it clean: Kosas sunscreen, Saie cream blush in coral, and Ilia’s blush stick. When asked about LA beauty pressure, she admits she’s thought about lip filler exactly once, then talked herself out of it immediately. Shop this episode: If you’re ready for a fun, wide-ranging listen that covers everything from the tension between using AI as a creative tool and considering its environmental impact to what it was like being raised by an all-around renaissance man, jazz musician, NASA engineer, Laverne & Shirley writer, and eBay sourcer, it’s time to press play. Watch the full episode of the Naked Beauty podcast with Sami Miro below. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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We live in a world that worships abundance. But what if that’s the problem? Sami Miro’s philosophy is that constraint is the engine of creative style. When brands started sending her clothes, she looked in the mirror one day and didn’t recognize herself. She had to step back, get deliberate, and return to being scrappy.
Miro is the founder of Sami Miro Vintage, Creative Director of the brand, and a former CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund finalist. She joined the Naked Beauty Podcast to discuss what we don’t understand about fashion waste. Miro didn’t hold back on the environmental toll of the fashion industry, which ranks among the top three most damaging industries on the planet. She explained the difference between vague “sustainable” claims (often just greenwashing) and true circular fashion, which ensures clothing never ends up in a landfill. Her rule of thumb for conscious shopping? Learn your materials. She also warns that some synthetic fabrics and textile treatments may expose us to PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which emerging research suggests can be absorbed through the skin and enter the bloodstream. Even some vegan leathers and faux furs are loaded with plastics, despite their eco-friendly branding. Organic cotton, Tencel, bamboo, and regenerative materials like mushroom leather are where it’s at. She explains that we can actually shop fast fashion more consciously, but only if we genuinely intend to keep the piece for 20 years.
Miro has dressed Beyoncé’s dancers, Lizzo, and the 2024 US Olympic Gymnastics Team. And her love for vintage fashion goes way back to middle school when she wandered into the back of an American Rag store and discovered a rack of $5 vintage pieces. Finding a worn, purple Lacoste polo was the beginning of everything. “I realized vintage has a story,” she stated. “Knowing I was the only person in the world with that exact article of clothing made me feel so confident.” Growing up as a biracial woman in San Francisco, Miro was raised by her French-Russian father after her mother was absent from her life. She felt beautiful because her dad consistently told her that Black women were the most beautiful, but she didn’t feel confident. Her love for vintage gave her the confidence she was missing, and that purple polo became the spark to ignite everything she would eventually build.
Of course, Miro also gets into her beauty routine during the podcast episode. After an unexpected bout of breakouts, Miro’s dermatologist put her on tretinoin, and she says it transformed her skin in under a month. Outside of that, she keeps it clean: Kosas sunscreen, Saie cream blush in coral, and Ilia’s blush stick. When asked about LA beauty pressure, she admits she’s thought about lip filler exactly once, then talked herself out of it immediately.
Shop this episode:
If you’re ready for a fun, wide-ranging listen that covers everything from the tension between using AI as a creative tool and considering its environmental impact to what it was like being raised by an all-around renaissance man, jazz musician, NASA engineer, Laverne & Shirley writer, and eBay sourcer, it’s time to press play.
Watch the full episode of the Naked Beauty podcast with Sami Miro below.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
