Billionaire clothing dynasty heiress launches Everybody & Everyone to make fashion sustainable
It was around the time that Chou had her kids, she says, that she realized the significance of making a brand name that was both environmentally sustainable and inclusive.
Veronica Chou’s family has actually made its fortune at the leading edge of the quick fashion business through investments in companies like Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. Today, the heiress toan approximated $2.1 billion fortune is launching her own company, Everybody & Everyone, to prove that the fashion business can be both environmentally sustainable and profitable. There’s no argument about the unfavorable effects
“I began building Everybody & & Everyone from the ground-up, first by getting the finest team in location then by discovering the ideal vendors, producers and partners who were already making strides in the sustainability space,” Chou said in a statement. “I desired this brand to be for every single lady, so body positivity, sustainability and inclusivity were going to be the foundation of everything we did. We then built the brand names sustainable & & technical pillars, which include activation, recycled, dyeing & & printing, naturals done much better, bio-based fibers and end use to guarantee our products would minimize negative impacts. We are sustainable to the labels sewn into each garment.”
Everyone & & Everyone uses the lessons that Chou has actually discovered sustainability to a new style brand name that she hopes can serve as a model for how to weave sustainability into every facet of the industry.
The company’s attention to its ecological impact also extends to its supply chain. “Most of our materials are knit near to where our garments are made. That is definitely minimizing our carbon footprint,” states Chou. “I put an emphasis on having factories in America … our jeans is produced in America and in the future we’re taking a look at athletics and tee shirts to be made in America.”
“For our brand name, recycled is a big story for us,” says Chou. “Our t-shirts, our socks, our product packaging, our mailers, our labels, our stickers are all made from recycled materials that can be recycled once again.”
As the style business has broadened, so has the wealth of the Chou family. South Ocean Knitters, the knitwear producer started by Chou’s grandfather, was accountable for among the very first foreign financial investments into mainland China in 1974. It is now one of the biggest providers of knitwear on the planet, and, together with the Hong Kong producer Li & & Fung, is behind the Cobalt Fashion Holding conglomerate.
For Chou, an understanding of the ecological toll that the family service was taking on the planet started six years back– a couple of years before Iconix Brand Group acquired the China subsidiary she had actually co-founded with her father in a deal supposedly worth $56 million.
well. About 20 %of commercial water contamination globally can be traced to the dyeing and treatment of fabrics– and microplastics from polyester, acrylic and nylon are polluting the world’s oceans. Meanwhile, the rise of quick style has encouraged consumers to speed up waste. Approximately one trash truck full of clothing is landfilled worldwide every second, according to a 2017 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. That indicates consumers are tossing away around $400 billion worth of valuable products every year as low rates and more “seasons” develop an impression of disposability.
Some clothes are likewise made with fabrics that have recycled silver in them– so that the clothes can be worn several times without smelling or the requirement for a wash.
The new brand, which sells ladies’s clothing for every single size from 00 to 24 and at costs varying from $18 to $288 (most fall in the $50 to $150 range, given a fast scroll through the company’s brand-new site) partners with companies like Naadam and Ecoalf for sustainable cashmere and recycled fabrics made from plastic.
Everybody & & Everyone has also partnered with the organization One Tree Planted to plant a tree for each purchase that’s made with the business. In addition, the business has determined its carbon footprint from all of its pre-launch activities and has bought and retired offsets to stabilize its emissions, Chou states.
Since that discovery, Chou dove into the world of sustainable production head-first. Through her household’s investment automobiles she has dealt with business like Modern Meadow, which uses bio-engineering to make leather products in a laboratory. Chou has actually also led investments in Thousand Fell, a soon-to-launch maker of fully recyclable shoes; Dirty Labs, which is developing more sustainable laundry cleansing items; and Carbon Engineering, which is developing a direct air capture technology for co2.
Digital printing is used in place of screens to avoid lots of water waste, the company stated, and several of the business’s fabrics are not dyed at all. rather, the company depends on an upcycling process by separating recycled fibers mechanically by color.
“It was 6 years ago I started finding out about sustainability and five years ago that I stated that I required to have a sustainable brand name,” says Chou.
Image courtesy of World Resources Institute
of the style market on the environment. The textiles industry mainly utilizes non-renewable
resources– on the order of 98 million lots each year. That includes the oil to make synthetic fibers, fertilizers to grow cotton and harmful chemicals to color, treat and produce the textiles used to make clothing. The greenhouse gas footprint from textiles production was approximately 1.2 billion heaps of CO2 equivalent in 2015– more than all worldwide flights and maritime deliveries combined(and a great deal of those maritime shipments and global flights were transporting clothes). The litany of catastrophes that can be attributed to the clothes market reaches contamination, as
And her father, Silas Chou, made millions as a financier in Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. As an executive at Iconix Brand Group China, Veronica Chou contributed in the acceleration of the market– bringing American brand names to Chinese consumers. Chou also worked as the co-founder of the Beijing-based personal equity fund China Consumer Capital and as a director of Karl Lagerfeld Greater China.
Veronica Chou’s family has made its has actually at the forefront of the leading edge fashion business through investments in companies financial investments Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. And her dad, Silas Chou, made millions as a financier in Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. As an executive at Iconix Brand Group China, Veronica Chou played a role in the velocity of the industry– bringing American brand names to Chinese consumers. Because that discovery, Chou dove into the world of sustainable manufacturing head-first.”For our brand, recycled is a big story for us,” says Chou.