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Fashion is in an uncomfortable place. The climate crisis brings unprecedented urgency for change to an industry that is, largely, resistant to do so. It’s not on track to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and, on the company level, five or 10-year commitments typically shift or get left to the wayside as individual leaders change roles. Degrowth — which requires reducing production and economic volume to a level that sits within planetary boundaries — is still taboo.
So how should the industry move forward?
This and more was discussed yesterday at the first Vogue Business Fashion Futures event, held at the Design Museum in London and bringing together nearly 300 attendees, all working within, or tangential, to the industry. Across a series of panels and keynote sessions, the day’s agenda sought to bring into view what a circular fashion industry looks like in practice, and rally key decision makers for change.
Also at the event was the debut Vogue Business Startup Showcase, which invited nine companies all working to bring solutions for circularity to life. You can view the gallery virtually here.
And in an exclusive breakout session for Vogue Business Advanced Members, Kering’s former head of sustainable sourcing innovation Dr Helen Crowley and Quantis International’s sustainability strategist Sandra Gonza offered a rallying cry for the fashion industry. The common goal that stakeholders up and down supply chains need to get behind is a just transition towards living within planetary boundaries, they said. The lively discussion raised questions about what this actually means in practice, and what is stopping us from achieving it. Within a just transition, who gets to define what “just” looks like? How do we develop new metrics of success, so that we aren’t changing business models but still asking for an outdated business case for sustainability? How do we scale the motivation for change?
Read on to see what else we learned from the day’s speakers.
What fashion needs to know about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, the UN outlined a bold vision for a better world by 2030, dubbed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Halfway to the 2030 deadline, only 15 per cent of the 17 goals have been improved. On the flip side, more than a third have either stagnated or regressed. In this session, sustainability editor Bella Webb invited speakers to demystify fashion’s lack of progress towards the SDGs, offering an alternative approach to action.
Jamie Bristow, public narrative and policy development lead at Swedish non-profit Inner Development Goals, broke down a framework of 23 soft skills intended to aid progress, from integrity and authenticity to critical thinking and co-creation skills. We might think we are facing an environmental crisis, he posited, but that is only the symptom. The deeper crisis is one of human relationships: to ourselves, to each other, and to nature. Instead of developing technical solutions, we need to develop ourselves. Then, the UN Environment Programme’s sustainable fashion advocacy lead, Rachel Arthur, drew the connection between this and degrowth, making the case that reducing production and consumption is as necessary to improving employee well-being as it is to reaching fashion’s climate goals.
Across the board, a shift in mindsets and values is needed. While this can feel intangible, there are proven methods, including meditation, training and workshops, speakers explained. “It’s one thing to set goals, but another to give people time in their work to develop themselves to be able to meet those goals,” said Bristow. “This is a holistic systems challenge,” added Arthur.
Brands and startups in dialogue: Scaling innovation
How do you get past pilot fatigue? With the amount of startups on the market offering tools for supply chain management, new materials and more sustainable solutions, brands are often overwhelmed with opportunity. But getting past that pilot stage and working toward something that can scale is a difficult feat that requires care and compromise. In this two-part discussion, senior sustainability editor Rachel Cernansky sat down with brand leaders and the startup founders that they’re partnering with to change the way they work.
First, Trustrace’s head of marketing Anja Sadock and Tapestry’s VP of ESG and sustainability Logan Duran discussed how Trustrace’s technology has made Tapestry’s supply chain more efficient and traceable. Duran said Tapestry sought out Trustrace upon coming to the realisation that the company “didn’t have the infrastructure to meet its own sustainability goals”. Building that infrastructure helps teams gauge a clear understanding of their risks in the supply chain, better communication with partners and an idea of where they could improve. Once you have that type of data in one place, “unexpected ways to use it pop up”, Sadock said.
Then, Ganni CEO Nicolaj Reffstrup and Modern Synthesis CEO Jen Keane joined New Balance’s senior director of apparel and materials Adam Weir and Living Ink CEO Scott Fulbright discussed the importance of buy-in, mindset shifts and commitment when it comes to successful startups at scale. Sometimes, it’s a lack thereof that works against them. Incorporating new technology and changing how you operate “is going to cost you money, and that’s why we’re seeing such slow progress generally”, Reffstrup said.
That’s especially true when it comes to adopting alternative materials at scale. The shutdown of Bolt Threads’s Mylo earlier this year was a blow to the industry. It’s not the brands that companies need to worry about either, but their true clients — the suppliers. “We need success stories to show there is adoption across entire factory lines, because [suppliers] don’t want just pilots or one-offs. Suppliers want to see proof of scale — they’re the ones actually paying for it and working on it directly,” Fulbright said.
It also comes down to consumer buy-in. Ganni has transitioned to vegan leather, but Reffstrup said that customers still want calf leather. “It’s a learning experience. Humans spent thousands of years wearing hides. We’ve only spent 10 years maybe trying to create an alternative.”
How do you define fast fashion?
Last year, resale platform Vestiaire Collective took a stance against fast fashion, banning retailers including Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing, Asos and Shein from the site. Last month, it expanded the ban off the back of a two-year push to define fast fashion. The criteria — which includes a low price point, an intense renewal rate, the size of the product range, the speed to market, and the frequency and intensity of sale promotions — proved controversial. In this session, led by Rachel Cernansky, Vestiaire Collective’s Dounia Wone broke down the reasons behind the move and the methodology for defining fast fashion.
While fast fashion was not a significant segment of the platform’s income, it was an opportunity to take a political stance and influence broader industry change. “A feeling and an idea — which fast fashion feels like right now — does not make policy. If we want to change fashion for the better we have to draw the line,” added Liz Ricketts, co-founder of US-Ghanaian non-profit The Or Foundation, whose activism around textile waste helped inform the ban. “We cannot transition from linear to circular until we transition from disposable to valuable.”
Is this fashion’s most sustainable dress?
Mara Hoffman didn’t set out to make fashion’s most sustainable dress, nor does she claim to. But the garment — which is the outcome of five years’ worth of work with textile startup Circ — could “change everything”, the designer told executive Americas editor Hilary Milnes in conversation with Circ CEO Peter Majeranowski.
That’s what Hoffman has been looking for in the 10 years since she overhauled her entire business model in order to build more sustainable operations. “The catalyst was discomfort — that leads to solutions and transformations. Without that, you have deep disease and heartbreak. What started our overhaul was that I couldn’t stand what already existed and I couldn’t stand being a part of that.”
The dress is made from a new fabric using Circ’s recycled Lyocell, which is now open source, so any other fashion designer can use it. End of life was taken into consideration throughout the process, concerning its repairability and how it would wear down over time. Hoffman plans to use the fabric in more of her collections.
She still struggles with the ethics of output, but said that this kind of innovation energises her.
“I haven’t fully resolved the conflict of scaling and what that means. But some of this work is so inspiring I can get behind scaling — but it’s still more. When we prioritise recycled fibres and programmes it gives me the engine to keep doing what I do. But part of my job is to keep asking myself, ‘Should I be doing what I’m doing?’”
Laying the foundation for fashion’s future
Sustainable business is good business. That was the topic of discussion across a panel featuring GXO’s chief compliance and ESG officer Meagan Fitzsimmons, PDS advisory board chairman Mark Green, Decarbonization Partners managing director Tyler Christie and Platform-E CEO Gonçalo Cruz.
“The cost of overproduction is really starting to hurt the industry. Massive inventories and markdowns. Social and moral imperative, pressure from institutional investors, consumers, NGOs, shining a light on the importance of having goals that are meaningful, not greenwashing. Those imperatives are making a difference. And now you have the regulatory imperative. A lot of people are worried about it, and it’s making people sit up in boardrooms. If you’re not making changes, you’re going to have problems,” said Green.
Communication can help solve some of these problems, says Cruz. Platform-E offers an instant messaging service to keep brands and their suppliers in conversation. But as startups require capital to scale, mistakes can be a setback for the whole industry, Christie added. Ultimately, sustainability makes business sense. But what about when it doesn’t?
“Sometimes you need a longer-term perspective,” Fitzsimmons said. “Where’s the consumer going? How are they going to vote with their wallet? If you look longer term, you can almost always find a return.”
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