Billionaire clothing dynasty heiress launches Everybody & Everyone to make fashion sustainable
of the fashion business on the environment. The textiles market mainly uses non-renewable
resources– on the order of 98 million tons per year. That includes the oil to make artificial fibers, fertilizers to grow cotton and toxic chemicals to dye, deal with and produce the textiles utilized to make clothes. The greenhouse gas footprint from textiles production was approximately 1.2 billion loads of CO2 equivalent in 2015– more than all worldwide flights and maritime shipments integrated(and a lot of those international flights and maritime deliveries were hauling clothes). The list of disasters that can be attributed to the clothes market extends to pollution, as
As the fashion industry has broadened, so has the wealth of the Chou family. South Ocean Knitters, the knitwear maker started by Chou’s grandfather, was accountable for one of the very first foreign financial investments into mainland China in 1974. It is now among the largest providers of knitwear worldwide, and, together with the Hong Kong manufacturer Li & & Fung, is behind the Cobalt Fashion Holding conglomerate.
For Chou, an understanding of the environmental toll that the household business was taking on the world began six years back– a few years prior to Iconix Brand Group acquired the China subsidiary she had actually co-founded with her dad in a transaction reportedly worth $56 million.
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 function in the velocity of the market– bringing American brands to Chinese customers. 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.
Everyone & & Everyone uses the lessons that Chou has actually discovered sustainability to a brand-new fashion brand name that she hopes can function as a model for how to weave sustainability into every element of the market.
“It was six years ago I began learning about sustainability and 5 years ago that I stated that I required to have a sustainable brand name,” states Chou.
“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 materials that can be recycled once again.”
“I started building Everybody & & Everyone from the ground-up, first by getting the finest group in place then by finding the best vendors, partners and makers who were currently making strides in the sustainability area,” Chou said in a declaration. “I desired this brand name to be for every female, so body positivity, inclusivity and sustainability were going to be the foundation of everything we did. We then constructed the brand names sustainable & & technical pillars, which include activation, recycled, coloring & & printing, naturals done better, bio-based fibers and end usage to ensure our items would decrease negative impacts. We are sustainable down to the labels sewn into each garment.”
Image courtesy of World Resources Institute
Since that revelation, Chou dove into the world of sustainable manufacturing head-first. Through her family’s financial investment lorries she has actually dealt with companies like Modern Meadow, which uses bio-engineering to make leather items in a laboratory. Chou has actually also led investments in Thousand Fell, a soon-to-launch maker of totally recyclable shoes; Dirty Labs, which is developing more sustainable laundry cleaning products; and Carbon Engineering, which is establishing a direct air capture innovation for carbon dioxide.
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. Meanwhile, the increase of quick fashion has actually motivated customers to accelerate waste. Roughly one trash truck complete of clothing is landfilled around the globe every second, according to a 2017 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. That implies consumers are discarding around $400 billion worth of important goods every year as low rates and more “seasons” create an illusion of disposability.
Digital printing is utilized in place of screens to avoid tons of water waste, the company stated, and several of the business’s fabrics are not colored at all. instead, the company counts on an upcycling process by separating recycled fibers mechanically by color.
The new brand, which sells females’s clothes for every size from 00 to 24 and at costs varying from $18 to $288 (most fall in the $50 to $150 variety, offered a fast scroll through the business’s brand-new site) partners with business like Naadam and Ecoalf for sustainable cashmere and recycled fabrics made from plastic.
Some clothing are also made with materials that have recycled silver in them– so that the clothes can be used numerous times without smelling or the requirement for a wash.
Veronica Chou’s household has made its fortune at the forefront of the fast fashion industry through financial 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 business can be both profitable and environmentally sustainable. There’s no argument about the negative effects
It was around the time that Chou had her children, she states, that she realized the importance of making a brand that was both inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
The business’s attention to its environmental impact also encompasses its supply chain. “Most of our fabrics are knit near to where our garments are produced. That is definitely minimizing our carbon footprint,” says 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 t-shirts and athletics to be made in America.”
Everyone & & Everyone has also 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 actually determined its carbon footprint from all of its pre-launch activities and has actually purchased and retired offsets to balance its emissions, Chou states.
Veronica Chou’s family has made its has actually at the forefront of the fast fashion business through investments in companies financial investments 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 function in the acceleration of the market– bringing American brand names to Chinese consumers. Since that revelation, Chou dove into the world of sustainable manufacturing head-first.”For our brand, recycled is a big story for us,” states Chou.