For over twenty years, Sarah Jay has worked in many areas of the fashion system, fusing her love of fashion with her commitment to advancing sustainability.
Her styling work has been published internationally in Harper’s Bazaar, VOGUE, FASHION Magazine, ELLE Canada, InStyle, Schön, ZINK, Style Monte Carlo and BMM Italy. Her sustainability expertise and advocacy work have been featured in VOGUE, The Coveteur, Harper’s Bazaar, Dazed & Confused, The Globe and Mail, I-D, The Kit, Best Health, Flare, She Does the City, Medium, WWD, ELLE and ELLE UK.
Since its inception in 2007 until February of 2021, Sarah has worked with Canadian apparel non-profit Fashion Takes Action, collaborating with industry and consumers to shift behaviour toward more positive social and environmental impacts. As creative director and active board member, Sarah produced all of FTA's fashion and runway events and helped to shape the trajectory of FTA's programming, research, and awareness initiatives.
Sarah has nurtured fashion's responsible innovations internationally as associate producer of The Green Shows NY (2009-2012), fashion director of the Green Living Show Toronto, and consultant to a growing number of NGOs, independent designers, SMEs and global brands in the fashion, food and beauty sectors. In 2018 she produced the Regenerative Earth Summit’s Farm to Fashion Show in Colorado - a first-of-its-kind event curated to showcase textile fibres grown through regenerative agriculture.
Sarah has served as a cabinet member on Environmental Defence’s Just Beautiful Campaign which aimed to improve personal care product safety legislation in Canada, and create better buying resources for increasingly concerned consumers. She has also consulted on Environmental Defence's Rethink Dry Cleaning campaign to address associated risks, and mobilize the fashion industry to adopt professional wet cleaning.
Motivated in part by her personal struggle with multiple chemical sensitivity, Sarah originated, conceived and associate produced the Emmy nominated feature documentary, TOXIC BEAUTY, which addresses the lack of regulation in the cosmetic industry, the human health impacts of cosmetic toxin exposure, and the causal link between perineal talc use and ovarian cancer. The film has received numerous filmmaking and research accolades, and is widely credited with inspiring a resurgence in news coverage and public outcry resulting in the unprecedented global recall of baby powder in 2023.
Following her passion for product safety, labelling efficacy and conservation, Sarah is currently investigating the cosmetic industry’s persistent and often covert use of shark-derived squalene. Her master’s thesis provides the first and only end-use market assessment of squalane origin in cosmetics.
As an extension of this research, Sarah has founded the consulting firm All Earthlings (AE), which takes a definitively collaborative approach to illuminating and eliminating ingredients of animal origin hidden in cosmetic supply chains for the benefit of #AllEarthlings. Using stable isotope and genetic analyses, AE works with brands to verify squalane origin, and manage the risks of squalane procurement to ensure #SHARKLESS supply chains, not #SHARKLESS oceans.
Sarah has proudly served Indigenous Fashion Arts as industry liaison; to connect audiences with Indigenous art and culture, and support the development of Indigenous designers and their success in the global market.
In acknowledgment of Sarah’s unwavering commitment to impact-oriented work and affecting positive change within fashion and beauty, she has received two consecutive nominations for the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards’ (CAFA) Fashion Impact Award in 2019 and 2020. She is also the recipient of Fashion Group International’s Visionary Award, 2020.
Sarah currently teaches Fashion Systems at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is also the communications lead at Fashion Revolution Canada, and serves on CAFA’s NewGen Committee and the City of Toronto’s Fashion Industry Advisory Panel where she helps to shape a more sustainable and equitable fashion industry for the future.
Sarah lives in Toronto with her two dogs and is an avid open water swimmer. Her true passion lies where style and sustainability intersect. ♥