Eco-Optimism | Marie Claire - video Dailymotion

Marie Claire

11/29/2024

Eco-Optimism discussion

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00:00I do have three panelists that are optimistic about the future of fashion and sustainability.

00:13Hassan, you were talking about sustainability and fashion long before it became cool.

00:21You started a company, you started a fashion line, and then you started Maison du Monde.

00:28What prompted you?

00:30What was the aha moment, the light that went off that made you think, okay, this is a very

00:36important conversation that we need to have?

00:39And what were the conversations around that sustainability?

00:44At the time, it was very segmented.

00:46You had Bergdorf Goodman with one brand, Fred Siegel with another, Barneys with another,

00:51and it wasn't really a shared floor space for these brands.

00:56The real aha moment came when we realized that there's about 10 brands at the time that

01:03were all in this sustainable fashion movement, who were all being pretty well recognized

01:10from a retail and media perspective.

01:12But if we could put them all under one umbrella, we could actually move this entire conversation

01:16forward.

01:18The goal has always been to prove that sustainable fashion is actually luxury.

01:21Natasha, that's very interesting.

01:24You have a solution called E.ON, and I want you to tell everyone in the room about this

01:30who may not know exactly what this solution is and what digital ID, because it's the technology

01:36that you use for this, for finding out the provenance of a specific product.

01:42And since we're talking about optimism, where does optimism lie in reporting on provenance

01:50of a specific product or collections?

01:53By way of introduction, I'm Natasha, and I founded a company called E.ON, and we power

01:57product digitization for brands and retailers.

02:01In some ways, our goal is to almost make sustainable fashion not a reality.

02:08Every single product becomes sustainable, rather than it being this segment of the market.

02:14How we do that is we move to give every single physical product a digital twin, and we connect

02:20that physical product with an identity.

02:24And so what that does is that bridges the gap between the digital and physical.

02:28And if you think about today, there are hundreds of billions of products produced every single

02:34year.

02:35Where do those products go?

02:36Where are they made?

02:37What are the materials?

02:38How are they managed?

02:40Who purchased it?

02:41How do you manage that item through resale?

02:43How do you manage that item through recycle?

02:45That requires all those end-to-end business processes, require data and intelligence,

02:52and we don't even have so much as a barcode for the circular economy, yet we say we're

02:56going to scale resale.

02:57I think the idea of understanding supply chain has really become at the forefront.

03:03When my mother can tell me about supply chain, and she's 77 years old, it really has become

03:08part of the conversation, and especially when you can figure out the provenance of that.

03:14Abrima, when we talk about sustainability, there are multi-layers to that.

03:18We're not just talking about the environment, we're talking about economic and social impact.

03:24How is Studio 189 really layered in this conversation?

03:29And how have you pushed the conversation forward for these specific areas of sustainability?

03:36I think it's connected to how we began.

03:41I was actually at Caring, I was at Bottega Veneta for nine years, and I was very interested

03:49in the connection of what luxury stands for, but there's so many incredible artisans all

03:55over the world that I felt like we're not in the conversation.

03:58I'm West African, I'm also Ghanaian and Ivorian, and so I had this opportunity through the

04:04Caring Foundation of Women's Digging Rights to go to Uganda with an organization that

04:08was making washable sanitary napkins for girls at slip school when they have their

04:11period.

04:12And what I found so incredible about that was that it was a really kind of sustainable

04:18solution, right?

04:19So it was made locally, created locally, it created jobs, and also girls got to make their

04:24decision.

04:25Some women make a choice and some don't, but the choice is theirs.

04:30There's something very special about making your own decision and not being told what

04:33decision to make.

04:35So every time they would sell something, they would buy farmland, feed their kids to

04:38school and save their money, and it was really beautiful to see what real sustainability

04:42looks like.

04:43But what it did for me is it took me from this idea of thinking I have great ideas and

04:47going kind of top down, but really realizing that it has to go bottom up, and this is happening

04:52all over the world in communities everywhere, also in our backyard here, and we have to

04:57lift up other voices.

04:58I moved to Uganda and then to Ghana and started something in 2013 called Fashion Rising, which

05:04was Studio 19, which is this idea of adding more voices to the room, right?

05:09Every time a consumer votes, they vote for the type of world they want to live in.

05:12And so what happens if we change the way we talk about Africa?

05:16What happens if we tell a multidimensional view of what happens inside the supply chain?

05:21And so to me, a lot of it is connected to the actual people, right?

05:26You come and you go, right?

05:28You have to be there because the information changes every second of every moment of every

05:32day.

05:33And you know what's going on if you're not on the ground.

05:37Empowering the consumer is one of the most important things, but also empowering the

05:42status quo.

05:43So in Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything, she said, part of the optimism around the

05:50environment and the conversation around it is the horror that there's a status quo around

05:55activism.

05:56Natasha, do you think that that is something to be optimistic about?

06:00The fact that there's a status quo and now people are motivated to change and maybe that

06:06conversation would be easier to have with companies or with the consumer.

06:12Can we be optimistic about a status quo and that potentially changing?

06:17I think everybody's doing their part within change, you know, and I think there are some

06:22really exciting initiatives, whether it's customers and social media awareness, which

06:26is, you know, or supply chain systems.

06:29I think everybody's kind of biting off pieces of the wheel.

06:31I do think what's quite powerful is legislation.

06:34So across the EU, you will actually be required to have a digital ID or a digital product

06:38passport for every single item.

06:40So you will not be allowed to make an item unless you can tell exactly where it came

06:44from, exactly where it made up.

06:45And also because the digital ID records the life cycle of the product, you will be basically

06:50will have the data to say, hey, you can be taxed on this product and material because

06:55it's not recyclable or wasn't resold.

06:57So that full continuity, and I think that's elevates the whole ship.

07:01Abrima, how do we sustain empowerment through fashion?

07:05That is a big question.

07:07I think if we're going to, it's about people, you know, like you can't.

07:13How can you sustain anything if people can't sustain themselves?

07:15It doesn't really mean anything, right?

07:17Like for most of the people that work in the system are women and most of them are in informal

07:24industries and you will never know their names like they're in their homes.

07:27They're with their kids, they're everywhere, you know, and so if they're, you know, we're

07:32wearing clothes that they've touched that they've, you know, like it has to be in the

07:37fabric of what you're wearing, you know, it's always been there and it needs to be there.

07:41And so to me, for it to be sustainable, like we need to sustain people.

07:45So what does that mean?

07:46It's topics we talked about, it's policy, it's healthcare, it's infrastructure.

07:50If I can't get to work, it doesn't matter that I have a job if I can't show up.

07:54If I can't afford to feed my kids, it doesn't matter, you know, it doesn't do anything.

07:58You know, right now currency exchange, the currency is devalued a lot, you know, so a

08:03lot of people, we may be calling them fair wages or living wages, but if the currency

08:07has fallen 70%, they can't even buy milk, you know, so it's a question of, it's beautiful

08:14in that there's something we can do about it.

08:16So to me, that's the part where I see optimism.

08:19A lot of layers to this conversation, especially when it comes to the consumer, the people,

08:26the media, and of course technology.

08:28I want to thank all three of you for being on this panel today.

Eco-Optimism | Marie Claire

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