Eco-Optimism | Marie Claire
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - I do have three panelists that are optimistic
00:09 about the future of fashion and sustainability.
00:13 Hassan, you were talking about sustainability and fashion
00:18 long before it became cool.
00:20 You started a company, you started a fashion line,
00:24 and then you started Maison du Monde.
00:28 What prompted you, what was the aha moment,
00:32 the light that went off that made you think,
00:35 okay, this is a very important conversation
00:37 that we need to have?
00:39 And what were the conversations around that sustainability?
00:44 - At the time, it was very segmented.
00:46 You had Bergdorf Goodman with one brand,
00:49 Fred Siegel with another, Barneys with another,
00:51 and it wasn't really a shared floor space for these brands.
00:55 So the real aha moment came when we realized
01:00 that there's about 10 brands at the time
01:03 that were all sort of in this sustainable fashion movement,
01:07 who were all being pretty well recognized
01:09 from a retail and media perspective.
01:11 But if we could put them all under one umbrella,
01:14 we could actually move this entire conversation forward.
01:17 And the goal has always been to prove
01:19 that sustainable fashion is actually luxury.
01:21 - So Natasha, that's very interesting.
01:23 You have a solution called EON.
01:27 And I want you to tell everyone in the room about this
01:30 who may not know exactly what this solution is
01:33 and what digital ID, 'cause this is the technology
01:36 that you use for this, for finding out the provenance
01:40 of specific product.
01:41 And since we're talking about optimism,
01:44 where does optimism lie in reporting on provenance
01:50 of a specific product or collections?
01:53 - So by way of introduction, I'm Natasha
01:55 and I founded a company called EON
01:56 and we power product digitization for brands and retailers.
02:00 So in some ways, our goal is to almost make
02:04 sustainable fashion, not a reality, right?
02:07 Every single product becomes sustainable
02:10 rather than it being this segment of the market.
02:13 And so how we do that is we move to give
02:17 every single physical product a digital twin
02:19 and we connect that physical product with an identity.
02:23 And so what that does is that bridges the gap
02:26 between the digital and physical.
02:27 And if you think about today, there are hundreds
02:31 of billions of products produced every single year.
02:34 Where do those products go?
02:36 Where are they made?
02:37 What are the materials?
02:38 How are they managed?
02:39 Who purchased it?
02:40 How do you manage that item through resale?
02:42 How do you manage that item through recycle?
02:45 That requires all those end-to-end business processes,
02:48 require data and intelligence,
02:51 and we don't even have so much as a barcode
02:54 for the circular economy,
02:55 yet we say we're gonna scale resale.
02:57 - I think the idea of understanding supply chain
03:00 has really become at the forefront.
03:03 When my mother can tell me about supply chain
03:05 and she's 77 years old, it really has become part
03:08 of the conversation and especially when you can figure out
03:12 the provenance of that.
03:13 Abrema, when we talk about sustainability,
03:17 there are multi layers to that.
03:18 We're not just talking about the environment.
03:20 We're talking about economic and social impact.
03:23 How has Studio 189 really layered in this conversation
03:28 and how have you pushed the conversation forward
03:32 for these specific areas of sustainability?
03:36 - I think it's connected to how we began.
03:40 So I was actually at Caring.
03:42 I was at Bottega Veneta for nine years
03:45 and I was very interested in the connection
03:50 of what luxury stands for,
03:52 but there's so many incredible artisans all over the world
03:56 that I felt like we're not in the conversation.
03:58 So I'm West African.
03:59 I'm also Ghanian and Ivorian.
04:01 And so I had this opportunity through the Caring Foundation
04:05 of Women's Digging Rights to go to Uganda
04:07 with an organization that was making washable
04:09 sanitary napkins for girls that slip school
04:11 when they have their period.
04:12 And what I found so incredible about that
04:15 was that it was a really kind of sustainable solution.
04:18 So it was made locally, created locally, it created jobs,
04:23 and also girls got to make their decision.
04:25 Some women make a choice and some don't,
04:28 but the choice is theirs.
04:30 There's something very special
04:31 about making your own decision
04:32 and not being told what decision to make.
04:34 So every time they would sell something,
04:36 they would buy farmland, feed their kids to school
04:39 and save their money.
04:40 And it was really beautiful
04:41 to see what real sustainability looks like.
04:43 But what it did for me is it took me from this idea
04:45 of thinking I have great ideas and going kind of top down,
04:49 but really realizing that it has to go bottom up.
04:51 And this is happening all over the world
04:53 in communities everywhere, also in our backyard here,
04:56 and we have to lift up other voices.
04:58 I moved to Uganda and then to Ghana
05:00 and started something in 2013 called Fashion Rising,
05:03 which was Studio 19, which is this idea
05:06 of adding more voices to the room.
05:08 Like every time a consumer votes,
05:10 they vote for the type of world they wanna live in.
05:12 And so what happens if we change
05:14 the way we talk about Africa?
05:15 What happens if we tell a multi-dimensional view
05:18 of what happens inside the supply chain?
05:20 And so to me, a lot of it is connected
05:23 to the actual people, right?
05:24 Like you come and you go, right?
05:27 Like you have to be there
05:29 because the information changes every second
05:31 of every moment of every day.
05:32 How can you know what's going on
05:34 if you're not on the ground?
05:36 - Empowering the consumer
05:37 is one of the most important things,
05:39 but also empowering the status quo.
05:43 So in Naomi Klein's book, "This Changes Everything,"
05:46 she said part of the optimism around the environment
05:50 and the conversation around it
05:52 is the horror that there's a status quo around activism.
05:56 Natasha, do you think that that is something
05:58 to be optimistic about?
05:59 The fact that there's a status quo
06:02 and now people are motivated to change,
06:05 and maybe that conversation would be easier
06:08 to have with companies or with the consumer.
06:12 Can we be optimistic about a status quo
06:15 and that potentially changing?
06:17 - I think everybody's doing their part within change,
06:21 and I think there's some really exciting initiatives,
06:23 whether it's customers and social media awareness,
06:26 which is, or supply chain systems.
06:28 And I think everybody's kind of biting off
06:30 pieces of the wheel.
06:31 I do think what's quite powerful is legislation.
06:34 So across the EU, you will actually be required
06:36 to have a digital ID or a digital product passport
06:39 for every single item.
06:40 So you will not be allowed to make an item
06:42 unless you can tell exactly where it came from,
06:44 exactly where it made it,
06:45 and also because the digital ID
06:47 records the life cycle of the product,
06:49 you will be, basically, we'll have the data to say,
06:51 hey, you can be taxed on this product and material
06:54 'cause it's not recyclable or it wasn't resold.
06:57 So that full continuity,
06:58 and I think that elevates the whole ship.
07:01 - Abrima, how do we sustain empowerment through fashion?
07:05 - That is a big question.
07:06 I think it's about people.
07:10 How can you sustain anything
07:14 if people can't sustain themselves?
07:15 It doesn't really mean anything, right?
07:17 For most of the people that work in the system are women,
07:22 and most of them are in informal industries,
07:24 and you will never know their names.
07:26 They're in their homes, they're with their kids,
07:28 they're everywhere.
07:29 We're wearing clothes that they've touched,
07:34 that they've, it has to be in the fabric
07:37 of what you're wearing.
07:38 It's always been there and it needs to be there.
07:41 And so to me, for it to be sustainable,
07:44 we need to sustain people.
07:45 So what does that mean?
07:46 It's topics we talked about.
07:47 It's policy, it's healthcare, it's infrastructure.
07:49 If I can't get to work,
07:51 doesn't matter that I have a job if I can't show up.
07:54 If I can't afford to feed my kids,
07:56 it doesn't matter, it doesn't do anything.
07:58 Right now, the currency is devalued a lot.
08:03 So a lot of people, we might be calling them fair wages
08:06 or living wages, but if the currency has fallen 70%,
08:09 they can't even buy milk.
08:10 So it's a question of, it's beautiful in that
08:15 there's something we can do about it.
08:16 So to me, that's the part where I see optimism.
08:19 - Clearly a lot of layers to this conversation,
08:22 especially when it comes to the consumer,
08:24 the people, the media, and of course, technology.
08:28 I wanna thank all three of you
08:30 for being on this panel today.
08:30 - Thank you. - Thank you.
08:32 (upbeat music)
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