Billionaire clothing dynasty heiress launches Everybody & Everyone to make fashion sustainable
“I started developing Everybody & & Everyone from the ground-up, first by getting the finest team in location then by discovering the right suppliers, makers and partners who were already making strides in the sustainability area,” Chou said in a declaration. “I desired this brand to be for each female, so body positivity, inclusivity and sustainability were going to be the backbone of everything we did. We then constructed the brands sustainable & & technical pillars, which include activation, recycled, coloring & & printing, naturals done much better, bio-based fibers and end usage to guarantee our items would lessen unfavorable effects. We are sustainable to the labels sewn into each garment.”
well. About 20 %of commercial water pollution worldwide can be traced to the dyeing and treatment of fabrics– and microplastics from polyester, acrylic and nylon are contaminating the world’s oceans. The increase of fast style has encouraged customers to accelerate waste. Approximately one garbage truck complete of clothes is landfilled worldwide every second, according to a 2017 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. That suggests consumers are discarding around $400 billion worth of important products every year as low prices and more “seasons” produce an illusion of disposability.
Everyone & & Everyone applies the lessons that Chou has discovered about sustainability to a brand-new style brand name that she hopes can act as a design for how to weave sustainability into every element of the industry.
Veronica Chou’s family has made its fortune at the leading edge of the quick fashion company through financial investments in business like Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. Now, the heiress toan estimated $2.1 billion fortune is releasing her own business, Everybody & Everyone, to prove that the fashion market can be both ecologically sustainable and rewarding. There’s no argument about the negative impacts
For Chou, an understanding of the ecological toll that the family service was taking on the planet started 6 years ago– a few years before Iconix Brand Group obtained the China subsidiary she had actually co-founded with her daddy in a deal reportedly worth $56 million.
Digital printing is utilized in place of screens to avoid lots of water waste, the company said, and numerous of the company’s fabrics are not dyed at all. instead, the company depends on an upcycling procedure by separating recycled fibers mechanically by color.
It was around the time that Chou had her children, she states, that she realized the significance of making a brand that was both inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
Some clothes are likewise made with fabrics that have actually recycled silver in them– so that the clothing can be worn multiple times without smelling or the requirement for a wash.
And her daddy, 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 acceleration of the market– bringing American brands to Chinese customers. Chou likewise served as the co-founder of the Beijing-based personal equity fund China Consumer Capital and as a director of Karl Lagerfeld Greater China.
“For our brand, 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 products that can be recycled once again.”
Everyone & & Everyone has actually also partnered with the company One Tree Planted to plant a tree for each purchase that’s made with the company. In addition, the company has actually determined its carbon footprint from all of its pre-launch activities and has bought and retired offsets to balance its emissions, Chou says.
As the style business has expanded, so has the wealth of the Chou family. South Ocean Knitters, the knitwear maker started by Chou’s grandpa, was accountable for one of the first foreign investments into mainland China in 1974. It is now one of the biggest suppliers of knitwear on the planet, and, together with the Hong Kong manufacturer Li & & Fung, lags the Cobalt Fashion Holding conglomerate.
Image thanks to World Resources Institute
The company’s attention to its environmental effect also extends to its supply chain. “Most of our fabrics are knit close to where our garments are manufactured. That is certainly lowering our carbon footprint,” states Chou. “I put a focus on having factories in America … our denim is manufactured in America and in the future we’re looking at sports and tee shirts to be made in America.”
Because that discovery, Chou dove into the world of sustainable production head-first. Through her family’s investment automobiles she has dealt with companies like Modern Meadow, which utilizes bio-engineering to make leather products in a laboratory. Chou has likewise led investments in Thousand Fell, a soon-to-launch producer of totally recyclable shoes; Dirty Labs, which is establishing more sustainable laundry cleansing items; and Carbon Engineering, which is developing a direct air capture innovation for carbon dioxide.
The new brand, which offers females’s clothes for each size from 00 to 24 and at prices ranging from $18 to $288 (most fall in the $50 to $150 range, offered a quick scroll through the company’s brand-new website) partners with companies like Naadam and Ecoalf for sustainable cashmere and recycled materials made from plastic.
“It was six years ago I began learning more about sustainability and 5 years ago that I stated that I required to have a sustainable brand,” states Chou.
of the fashion business on the environment. The textiles market mainly uses non-renewable
resources– on the order of 98 million tons each year. That includes the oil to make artificial fibers, fertilizers to grow cotton and hazardous chemicals to color, treat and produce the textiles used to make clothes. The greenhouse gas footprint from textiles production was approximately 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent in 2015– more than all global flights and maritime deliveries integrated(and a lot of those maritime shipments and international flights were transporting clothes). The litany of catastrophes that can be credited to the clothes industry reaches contamination, as
Veronica Chou’s family has made its has actually at the forefront of the fast fashion business through investments in companies like 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 function in the acceleration of the industry– bringing American brand names to Chinese customers. Because that revelation, Chou dove into the world of sustainable production head-first.”For our brand name, recycled is a big story for us,” says Chou.