Jessica Willis
Jess is the founder of Interwoven, a donation-based yoga and meditation brand designed to pop up in and around Boston. She is also a writer and poet whose work centres around human relationships with nature, culture, and collective healing. You can find her work published in her Substack, The Reclamation Report: Writings to Walk Us Back Home.
Jess believes the greatest work she will do while on this planet is to translate how humans (and what humans love, be it yoga, fashion, art, sports) are all connected and rooted in the same core beliefs. Her approach to building her movement business is no different from her approach to any artform she might engage with in the fight for climate resilience and justice. They are each their own thread that dance in tandem, tethered to the same intention.
In Volume 5 of The Body Talks Edit, we're having a conversation that goes beyond what we eat or what we apply to our skin. We're talking about what we wear when we move, and what it means when movement itself has been shaped by an industry that profits from making women smaller.
Jess Willis is a yoga teacher, poet, and the founder of Interwoven, a donation-based movement practice rooted in Boston and in the belief that everything (yoga, fashion, climate, community) is connected. Her path to natural textiles didn't begin with a label or a trend. It began with a meditation teacher telling her to soften her belly and discovering, with quiet alarm, that she couldn't.
What followed was a gradual, honest, still-unfolding reckoning with the way we dress, the way we consume, and what it really means to live in alignment with your values. Jess brings the perspective of someone who sees clothing not just as a personal wellness choice, but as a cultural and political act. And she is, as she would say, still very much a work in progress.
"Choosing natural textiles like linen, hemp and bamboo is activism in support of human nature."
Jess Willis
Q. When did you first start thinking about clothing as part of low-tox or natural living?
The mindset shift was gradual, but the biggest wake up call I had was between September 2023 and January 2024. During this time, I was experiencing what I could only conceptualize as riding the bumpiest hormonal rollercoaster of my life. Intense depressive episodes and mood swings in the days leading up to my period each month.
From the foundation of what I already considered a healthy lifestyle, I began refining bits and pieces of my life to better support my hormones: prioritizing whole foods, regulating my nervous system, working with my cycle rather than against. And to be honest, this is still very much a work in progress and by no means perfect!
As for my relationship to synthetic versus natural clothing, it wasn't until brands like Kiseau and others championing natural textiles came into my view that I began to connect a few more dots. If anything, it is a lesson in how the natural living lifestyle is a journey. It is important to be open minded to other ways of doing things and take a pause before making a purchase. Surround yourself with people supporting a similar mission. Release yourself from the expectation to have it all figured out, and just keep going.
Q. Do you feel a difference between wearing tight-fitting, tummy-tucking clothing and flowy outfits?
The potentially negative harmful effects of compressive movement attire didn't come into my conscious awareness until I began my meditation practice in 2023. When my teacher directed me to soften my belly, and I couldn't, that was information.
Somewhere along the way, women were taught to believe that the body was something to compress, to contour, to shape, and to hold into place. Early yoga attire consisted of loose-fitting shapes made from natural textiles like cotton and linen.
Clothing was designed to flow with the body and not against it.
Today, we are living in the wake of the invention of stretchy, moisture-wicking, synthetic fabrics like polyester, lycra, spandex, and nylon. Form-fitting yoga clothing began emerging in the late 1970s and 1980s, influenced heavily by the aerobics craze. Then the emergence of synthetic athletic wear brand Lululemon in 1998 heavily influenced the from studio to street athleisure trend.
For the record, I myself love an outfit as a means to celebrate the shape of my body, without restricting my comfort or my breath. What I do view as wrong is how we are sold a narrative around how we are meant to look as we move throughout the world rather than how we might feel. Choosing natural textiles like linen, hemp and bamboo as well as GOTS Certified Organic Cotton and SeaCell™ Lyocell used in Kiseau products is activism in support of human nature. Wearing loose-fitting, free-flowing clothing when the fitness industry is consistently pushing women to become smaller, even better.
Q. What filters or values guide your clothing purchases?
With the caveat that I am ever-evolving my relationship to conscious consumption, a question I like to filter every purchase through is:
Did this product harm an animal, human, or nature? If the answer is yes, I don't buy it. If the answer is no, I might introduce a question like what sort of feeling does this piece of clothing evoke for me? If the answer is "I don't know", I move on until I have a better understanding of the product, or brand, and can make a conscious decision.
All that to say, Jane Goodall said it better than I ever could. A quote of hers that I try my very best to live by daily is:
"Everyday you live, you make some impact on the planet, and you have a choice as to what sort of impact you want to make."
If I'm ever confused about the world around me, and my role within it, her words always seem to soothe.
Q. How do you balance wanting beautiful pieces with living more intentionally?
It's less about a balance, and more about a reframe. Let's take a walk back in time to when we learned to associate beautiful with new or expensive. In our modern world, a new sweater is considered better than a second-hand sweater.
Yet, an old painting is considered to be more valuable than a new one.
Reframing our relationship with old versus new as well as the relationship between for me right now versus for future generations later, is the antidote to unconscious consumption and quick dopamine.
Q. Why do you think so many women feel disconnected from what their body is asking for?
Oh goodness, how much time do we have?
Women have been fed a steady diet of synthetic beauty and clothing products masquerading as health and wellness.
Clothing is nothing if not a celebration of culture, personal style, earth's resources, and human creators whose intention stretches well beyond the financial bottom line.
As long as women are distracted and preoccupied with how they should look in the material world, rather than the extension of nature that they are, they are unable to care for their community. As long as they are unable to care for their community, systems of oppression and hate are free to reign.
A woman who is awake to the world is a force to be reckoned with. It's not woo woo, it's intuition. Anyone who tells a woman otherwise does not have their best interest at heart.
The Fabrics Jess References
Jess mentions several natural and certified textiles by name. Here's a quick reference to what they are and why they matter:
"A woman who is awake to the world is a force to be reckoned with. It's not woo woo, it's intuition."
Jess Willis
Why What You Wear Is Never Just What You Wear
Jess has a gift for drawing the threads together: between the personal and the political, between the body and the planet, between what we feel and what we've been told to feel instead. Her conversation is a reminder that the wellness conversation, when done honestly, cannot stop at the individual. It has to reach the systems that shaped us.
When Jess talks about choosing natural textiles as activism, she isn't being dramatic. She's pointing to something real: that every time a woman pauses before a purchase and asks "did this harm anyone?", she is exercising a kind of power the market depends on her not having. Slowing down, asking questions, and choosing differently are not small acts. They are precisely the acts that systems of fast consumption depend on women not doing.
And Jess's observation about tummy-tucking clothing lingers long after you read it. That the body has adapted (has learned to stay braced, held in, compressed) until even the simple instruction to soften becomes difficult. That is not a body problem. That is a cultural one. And the solution, as Jess would say, is not perfection. It's the direction of travel.
Just keep going.
Follow Jess's Work
Find Jess's writing (poetry, essays, and reflections on nature, culture, and collective healing) on her Substack, The Reclamation Report. And follow Interwoven to find out when her next pop-up yoga event lands in Boston.
Common Questions About Natural Textiles & Conscious Clothing
Can tight or compressive clothing affect your hormones?
Emerging research and practitioners suggest that compressive clothing, particularly tight-fitting synthetic athleisure, can restrict the body's natural breath patterns and belly softness, which may affect nervous system regulation and hormonal balance over time. As Jess Willis discovered, the inability to physically soften the abdomen in a relaxed state can signal chronic tension the body has quietly normalized.
What are the benefits of wearing natural textiles like linen, hemp, and bamboo?
Natural textiles like linen, hemp, bamboo, and GOTS-certified organic cotton are breathable, free from synthetic chemical treatments, and do not shed microplastics. They allow the body to move naturally without compression and reduce overall toxic load. SeaCell™ Lyocell, used in Kiseau products, also offers skin-soothing properties from seaweed-derived fibres.
How do you shop more consciously for clothing?
As Jess Willis shares, a useful filter before any purchase is to ask: "Did this product harm an animal, human, or nature?" Look for natural fibre certifications like GOTS and OEKO-TEX. Favour slow fashion, second-hand, and brands with transparent sourcing. And as Jane Goodall reminds us: every day, your choices make an impact on the planet. You get to choose what kind.
What is GOTS certified organic cotton?
GOTS stands for Global Organic Textile Standard, the world's leading certification for organic fibre textiles. It covers the entire supply chain from harvesting through manufacturing and labelling, ensuring products are free from harmful synthetic chemicals and produced under fair working conditions. Kiseau uses GOTS-certified organic cotton fabric in its products.
What is SeaCell Lyocell fabric?
SeaCell™ Lyocell is an innovative fabric made from sustainably harvested seaweed and wood pulp. The seaweed is incorporated directly into the fibre during production, giving it natural skin-soothing and antioxidant properties. It is biodegradable, breathable, and considered one of the most skin-friendly fabrics available, used in Kiseau's underwear and apparel.