Billionaire clothing dynasty heiress launches Everybody & Everyone to make fashion sustainable
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 velocity of the market– bringing American brands to Chinese customers. Chou likewise functioned as the co-founder of the Beijing-based private equity fund China Consumer Capital and as a director of Karl Lagerfeld Greater China.
Digital printing is used in place of screens to avoid loads of water waste, the company said, and numerous of the company’s fabrics are not dyed at all. instead, the business relies on an upcycling procedure by separating recycled fibers mechanically by color.
For Chou, an understanding of the ecological toll that the family business was taking on the world started six years ago– a couple of years prior to Iconix Brand Group got the China subsidiary she had co-founded with her father in a deal reportedly worth $56 million.
Some clothing are also made with materials that have actually recycled silver in them– so that the clothes can be worn several times without smelling or the requirement for a wash.
Image courtesy of World Resources Institute
As the fashion industry has actually broadened, so has the wealth of the Chou household. South Ocean Knitters, the knitwear producer begun by Chou’s grandpa, was responsible for among the very first foreign investments into mainland China in 1974. It is now among the biggest providers of knitwear on the planet, and, together with the Hong Kong manufacturer Li & & Fung, is behind the Cobalt Fashion Holding corporation.
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 polluting the world’s oceans. Meanwhile, the increase of quick fashion has actually motivated customers to speed up waste. Approximately one garbage truck loaded with clothes is landfilled all over the world every second, according to a 2017 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. That suggests consumers are tossing away around $400 billion worth of important goods every year as low prices and more “seasons” create an illusion of disposability.
The new brand name, which offers women’s clothes for every size from 00 to 24 and at costs varying from $18 to $288 (most fall in the $50 to $150 range, given a quick scroll through the company’s new site) partners with business like Naadam and Ecoalf for sustainable cashmere and recycled materials made from plastic.
“I began building Everybody & & Everyone from the ground-up, very first by getting the best group in location then by discovering the right vendors, makers and partners who were already making strides in the sustainability area,” Chou stated in a declaration. “I desired this brand name to be for each lady, so body positivity, inclusivity and sustainability were going to be the backbone of whatever 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 negative effects. We are sustainable to the labels sewn into each garment.”
of the fashion market on the environment. The fabrics industry mostly 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 toxic chemicals to dye, treat and produce the fabrics utilized to make clothes. The greenhouse gas footprint from textiles production was approximately 1.2 billion lots of CO2 equivalent in 2015– more than all international flights and maritime deliveries combined(and a lot of those maritime shipments and worldwide flights were carrying clothes). The litany of disasters that can be credited to the clothes market reaches pollution, as
Veronica Chou’s family has actually made its fortune at the leading edge of the quick fashion industry through financial investments in companies like Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. Now, the heiress toan approximated $2.1 billion fortune is releasing her own business, Everybody & Everyone, to prove that the fashion business can be both lucrative and environmentally sustainable. There’s no argument about the negative effects
“For our brand name, recycled is a huge 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.”
It was around the time that Chou had her kids, she states, that she recognized the importance of making a brand name that was both environmentally sustainable and inclusive.
Everyone & & Everyone applies the lessons that Chou has actually learnt more about sustainability to a new fashion brand that she hopes can work as a design for how to weave sustainability into every element of the market.
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 calculated its carbon footprint from all of its pre-launch activities and has bought and retired offsets to stabilize its emissions, Chou says.
The company’s attention to its environmental effect likewise reaches its supply chain. “Most of our materials are knit near where our garments are manufactured. That is certainly decreasing our carbon footprint,” says Chou. “I put a focus on having factories in America … our denim is made in America and in the future we’re taking a look at athletics and t-shirts to be manufactured in America.”
“It was six years ago I began learning more about sustainability and 5 years ago that I stated that I needed to have a sustainable brand name,” says Chou.
Because that revelation, Chou dove into the world of sustainable production head-first. Through her family’s financial investment lorries she has actually worked with business 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 manufacturer of fully recyclable shoes; Dirty Labs, which is establishing more sustainable laundry cleansing products; and Carbon Engineering, which is establishing a direct air capture innovation for co2.
Veronica Chou’s family has made household has actually at the forefront of the fast fashion business through investments in companies like Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. And her daddy, Silas Chou, made millions as an investor in Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. As an executive at Iconix Brand Group China, Veronica Chou played a role in the velocity of the market– bringing American brand names to Chinese customers. Because that revelation, Chou dove into the world of sustainable manufacturing head-first.”For our brand name, recycled is a big story for us,” says Chou.