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Kelly Drennan

Kelly Drennan is a systems thinker, thought leader and disruptor devoted to making change within the fashion industry. In 2007 she founded Fashion Takes Action, out of her desire to create a better, more sustainable future for her then, two young daughters.

Kelly is passionate about collaboration and bringing together multiple perspectives in an effort to take action. Her dedication to make fashion circular began in 2016 at the WEAR conference. This led to her convening the Ontario Textile Diversion Collaborative (OTDC) from 2017-2020 which was a multi-stakeholder group (municipalities, charities, collectors, retailers, NGOs, policy makers and academics) committed to textile diversion, reuse and recycling.

Since then, Kelly has co-wrote and published Canada’s textile recycling feasibility report; and then led a national stakeholder group through a mechanical recycling pilot, with a consumer-facing end product. Kelly now co-leads the Canadian Circular Textiles Consortium, working on a national level with more than 150 stakeholders. A collaborating partner of Accelerating Circularity, Kelly also participates in the Textile Exchange’s Recycled Polyester Roundtable, the Global Textiles Policy Forum, led by Global Fashion Agenda, and recently represented Canada within the G7 Circular Textiles Agenda planning group.

In 2014, Kelly created the annual World Ethical Apparel Roundtable (WEAR) Conference, hosting hundreds of industry experts in Toronto in an effort to motivate and inspire brands across North America. The last WEAR conference took place in 2023, and in its place Kelly and her team now produce textiles and apparel content within the Canadian Circular Economy Summit. Kelly is a sought-after speaker herself, having given hundreds of presentations to industry, academics and citizens, including a TED talk as part of the Global TEDx Countdown on climate action, and twice a speaker at Elevate Global.

Kelly oversees FTA’s youth education program My Clothes My World that she developed in 2014 for students in grades 4-12 — delivered to more than 40,000 students in classrooms across Canada. She continues to bring her sustainability expertise to various university and college classrooms as well as to various curriculum committees.

In 2017, Kelly was the recipient of the prestigious Clean 50 award given to Canada’s climate leaders, where she was recognized for Education & Thought Leadership, and was the first recipient of the award for the fashion industry. In 2022 Kelly won the Sustainability Award given out by the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards (CAFA). She resides in Toronto with her husband and two (now) adult daughters.