People at the Forefront of sustainable luxury and Fashion

Sustainability as an ethical concept has been imbibed by multiple brands over the years, but is only being vastly executed since the recent past. With the rising rate of socio-economic and environmental impacts that brands leave behind due to malpractices or simply following irresponsible strategic choices, initiating sustainably led business choices has become one of the driving factors across the market today. Products that are created and marketed sustainably have observed a relatively faster growth, compared to their conventional counterparts.

The luxury industry has seen a major shift in not just the way that brands approach their manufacturing techniques but also in how consumerism has been impacted. With the advent of social media and blogging, consumers are exposed to a lot more information and therefore have a heightened awareness about brands, their policies and associations. Recently during an interview, Stella McCartney, renowned fashion designer and luxury brand owner mentioned that there is a very huge transition taking place, where consumers are not just concerned about what their purchase is but also want to be involved and informed about the brand story. This not only helps the company in building a stronger brand loyalty but also helps in spreading the importance of sustainable products that are durable and not harmful to the environment in any way. It makes a huge difference in influencing consumer’s choices today.

What does building a Sustainable Business mean?

A sustainable business is one where all operations occur keeping the environmental health as a fulcrum. It serves as the central focus of every practice and ensures that everything ranging from the materials, production, manufacture, marketing to consumption are all aligned with the company’s sustainability policies.

The main aim of introducing sustainable practices to a business is to understand the impacts of using materials and resources that do not deplete nature, by reducing the environmental footprint. These practices will differ depending upon the industry or nature of the business. Some businesses, for example a corporate company dealing in the IT sector can introduce small steps like banning the use of plastic in any form or going paperless, as opposed to a fashion brand that might replace industrial cotton with other sustainable materials like jute, bamboo or khadi. Using clean products, reducing energy consumption or working in collaboration with environmental firms, these are all contributing factors to making building a more efficient and sustainable business.

Here are a list of unique change-makers, who have contributed to revolutionizing the Sustainable Luxury and Fashion Industry in their own ways:

Stella McCartney

Ever since she founded her company in association with Kering Group, her main philosophy was to create a brand that provides a range of ethical and cruelty-free products, standing completely against the use of fur, leather or anything that was inconsiderate towards animal species. In 2001, where multiple luxury brands were being launched, each displaying a wide variety of collections- Stella stood clear in her intent of only abiding by sustainable practices despite all the competition that surrounded the brand.

The brand chose a responsible method of informing and educating their customers on the impacts of using non-biodegradable and faux materials. It completely redefined the interpretation of the term luxury, replacing it with a more mindful approach of taking proper care of their purchases and ensuring that it is maintained to fulfill long-term use. The brand has managed to do this by measuring the effects of production at every point, starting from water consumption, air pollution to waste generation. Every aspect is checked, measured and translated into monetary value, in order to understand consumption, effects and benefits from each operation.  

Its main focus is to create luxurious apparel and serve their target audience by using ethical, innovative and environment friendly technologies. They also collaborate with sustainable brands in order to raise awareness and continue to use new and innovative techniques of highlighting sustainability.

Eileen Fisher

For over 30 years, Eileen Fisher has been a pioneer in the field of fashion and is well known for her creative yet simple designs. A few years after launching her brand, she observed the impact that the fashion industry was having on the environment globally. Since then, sustainability and environmental practices have been instilled at the core of her brand. Every fabric is ensured to either be organic or recycled from old garments and textiles in order to protect and preserve the environment.

The brand has been around since 1984 but only shifted into the sustainable way of production a few years later. Her creative process and designs continued to remain unaffected by the materials being used but what gradually changed is the price point. Since the brand began investing in organic cotton and other sustainable fabrics, they were forced to hike their price point considering factors like the cost of labor, materials and production. But her dedication to sourcing materials, believing in improving the fashion cycle and truly being a socially conscious brand, her designs still continue to remain one of the most popular eco-friendly fashion brand.

She introduced the concept of sustainable and clean purchase when very few brands were associated with it. She is also the reason behind initiatives like ‘Green Eileen’ and ‘Vision 2020’ in which the brand helps with recycling and upcycling clothes along with spreading awareness and encouraging brands to further implement socially conscious strategies into their structure.

Kate Fletcher

Kate Fletcher is a well renowned Academician and Professor of sustainability, fashion and design at the London College of Fashion. Apart from having written over 70 scholarly research publications on the origin, foundation, ethics and importance of sustainability, she is also an author and has written numerous books on the subject of sustainable fashion, textiles, growth of fashion and its environmental impacts.

Her work spans over a range of concepts from practicing slow fashion to minimalism and the benefits of using eco-friendly textiles. The mission behind her teachings and writing is to understand community based sustainability issues and act upon them, with accurate knowledge and wisdom. She believes that in today’s world people consume fast fashion because brands market them without highlighting the impacts of their purchase. This in turn leaves consumers unaware and contribute to being a part of the damage process. Through her work, she aims to reach a diverse audience and educate them about the different ways in which the global fashion industry impacts the planet and how we can be part of initiating a shift in consumerism by making more efficient and informed choices.

Since over a decade, she has been engaging in consultancy services that work towards designing different ways to foster sustainable practices for businesses, service providers, enterprises, researchers and the education establishments.

Celine Semaan Vernon

Celine is a Canadian-Lebanese fashion designer, activist and sustainability expert whose work revolves around recreating fashion policies in order to transform the space into a zero waste industry. She has founded brands like ‘Slow Factory’ and ‘Study Hall’ in support of the initiative and continues to bring new and ethical ways of creating designs on a large scale.

She founded ‘Slow Factory’, a fashion label that collaborates with Non-profit organizations to shed light on unethical product manufacturing and various social issues. Another brand that she founded in order to enhance sustainable literacy in the fashion industry is ‘The Library’, which features informative publications and research on how to make the fashion and textile industry sustainable.

She began her journey in fashion activism with her brand and went on to work with NASA in context to sustainable literacy and received much appreciation globally. She recently launched her latest initiative called ‘Study Hall’, which brings like-minded people who are passionate about sustainability together, to engage in thought provoking discussions and share their opinions on the change that can brought about. There are two conferences that have taken place, one during the New York fashion week and in Los Angeles. The most recent event was organized in collaboration with brands like Adidas and G-Star with the United Nations office for partnerships.

Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne Westwood is known to be one of the largest global fashion brands to have incorporated sustainable practices on a production level. The brands mission is to change the way in which the world perceives fashion and to use it to express the importance of protecting the planet. Through their clothes, fashion shows and brand story, they promote unique, thoughtful designs and continue to explore new ways of using fashion to integrate socio-economic and environmental changes.

The main issues they target at resolving are those regarding climate change, over-consumption of clothing and human rights. The brand stands testament to the concept of reducing consumption of buying too many clothes and preserving the quality of existing ones, in an attempt to reduce the negative impact textiles can have on the environment. The materials that are used in creating the collection are always sourced from raw mediums and then dyed if required using organic vegetable coloring.

The brand is extremely mindful about reducing landfills and therefore always track the contents of their textile waste, to check if any raw materials can be further reused in their designs. Over the last 20 years, the brand has collaborated and been part of numerous ecological campaigns in order to help and show support towards various human rights and climate change issues. They have fundraised for Environmental Justice Foundation, Friends of the Earth, War child and many more shows in order to raise money for a cause.