Billionaire clothing dynasty heiress launches Everybody & Everyone to make fashion sustainable
It was around the time that Chou had her children, she states, that she understood the significance of making a brand name that was both ecologically sustainable and inclusive.
Veronica Chou’s household has actually made its fortune at the leading edge of the fast fashion industry through investments in companies like Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. Now, the heiress toan approximated $2.1 billion fortune is launching her own business, Everybody & Everyone, to prove that the fashion market can be both environmentally sustainable and successful. There’s no argument about the negative effects
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 need for a wash.
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 contributed in the velocity of the industry– bringing American brands to Chinese customers. Chou likewise worked as the co-founder of the Beijing-based personal equity fund China Consumer Capital and as a director of Karl Lagerfeld Greater China.
“I started developing Everybody & & Everyone from the ground-up, very first by getting the very best group in location then by discovering the best suppliers, 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 female, so body sustainability, positivity and inclusivity were going to be the backbone of whatever we did. We then constructed the brand names sustainable & & technical pillars, which include activation, recycled, dyeing & & printing, naturals done better, bio-based fibers and end usage to guarantee our items would minimize negative impacts. We are sustainable down to the labels sewn into each garment.”
For Chou, an understanding of the ecological toll that the household service was taking on the planet began 6 years earlier– a few years prior to Iconix Brand Group got the China subsidiary she had actually co-founded with her dad 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 fast style has actually encouraged customers to accelerate waste. Approximately one trash truck full of clothing is landfilled worldwide every 2nd, according to a 2017 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. That suggests consumers are getting rid of around $400 billion worth of important items every year as low costs and more “seasons” develop an illusion of disposability.
Everyone & & Everyone has likewise partnered with the company One Tree Planted to plant a tree for each purchase that’s made with the business. In addition, the business has computed its carbon footprint from all of its pre-launch activities and has actually purchased and retired offsets to balance its emissions, Chou states.
Image thanks to World Resources Institute
The company’s attention to its ecological effect likewise encompasses its supply chain. “Most of our fabrics are knit close to 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 looking at sports and tee shirts to be manufactured in America.”
Since that discovery, Chou dove into the world of sustainable manufacturing head-first. Through her family’s investment vehicles she has worked with companies like Modern Meadow, which utilizes bio-engineering to make leather goods in a lab. Chou has actually likewise led financial investments in Thousand Fell, a soon-to-launch maker of completely recyclable shoes; Dirty Labs, which is developing more sustainable laundry cleansing products; and Carbon Engineering, which is establishing a direct air capture technology for co2.
Everybody & & Everyone applies the lessons that Chou has found out 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.
The brand-new brand, which sells women’s clothes for every size from 00 to 24 and at prices varying from $18 to $288 (most fall in the $50 to $150 variety, given a quick scroll through the business’s brand-new website) partners with companies like Naadam and Ecoalf for sustainable cashmere and recycled fabrics made from plastic.
As the style business has actually broadened, so has the wealth of the Chou family. South Ocean Knitters, the knitwear producer begun by Chou’s grandfather, was accountable for one of the very first foreign investments into mainland China in 1974. It is now among the largest providers of knitwear in the world, and, together with the Hong Kong manufacturer Li & & Fung, is behind the Cobalt Fashion Holding corporation.
“For our brand, recycled is a big story for us,” says Chou. “Our t-shirts, our socks, our packaging, our mailers, our labels, our stickers are all made from recycled products that can be recycled once again.”
“It was six years ago I began discovering sustainability and five years ago that I said that I needed to have a sustainable brand,” says Chou.
Digital printing is used in place of screens to prevent lots of water waste, the company said, and several of the company’s materials are not colored at all. rather, the company depends on an upcycling process by separating recycled fibers mechanically by color.
of the fashion business on the environment. The fabrics market primarily utilizes non-renewable
resources– on the order of 98 million heaps per year. That consists of the oil to make artificial fibers, fertilizers to grow cotton and harmful chemicals to color, treat and produce the textiles utilized to make clothes. The greenhouse gas footprint from textiles production was roughly 1.2 billion lots of CO2 equivalent in 2015– more than all worldwide flights and maritime deliveries combined(and a great deal of those global flights and maritime deliveries were carrying clothing). The list of catastrophes that can be credited to the clothes market reaches contamination, as
Veronica Chou’s family has made household fortune 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 velocity of the market– bringing American brand names to Chinese consumers. Since that discovery, Chou dove into the world of sustainable production head-first.”For our brand, recycled is a huge story for us,” states Chou.