Eco-Optimism | Marie Claire - video Dailymotion

Marie Claire

4/27/2025

Eco-Optimism discussion

Transcript

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

00:11and sustainability. Hassan, you were talking about sustainability and fashion

00:18long before it became cool. You started a company, you started a fashion line, and

00:23then you started Maison du Monde. What prompted you? What was the the aha moment,

00:32the light that went off, that made you think, okay, this is a very important

00:37conversation that we need to have? And that we're, what were the, what were the

00:42conversations around that sustainability? At the time, it was very segmented. You had

00:46Bergdorf Goodman with one brand, Fred Siegel with another, Barneys with another, and it

00:51wasn't really a shared floor space for these brands. So the real aha moment

00:57came when we realized that there's about 10 brands at the time that were all sort

01:04of in this sustainable fashion movement, who were all being pretty well

01:09recognized from a retail and media perspective. But if we could put them

01:13all under one umbrella, we could actually move this entire conversation forward.

01:17And the goal has always been to prove that sustainable fashion is actually

01:21luxury. So Natasha, that's very interesting. You have a solution called Eon. And I want

01:28you to tell everyone in the room about this, who may not know exactly what the

01:33solution is and what digital ID, because it's the technology that you use for this, for

01:38finding out the provenance of specific product. And since we're talking about

01:43optimism, what, what was that, I mean, where does optimism lie in reporting on

01:50provenance of a specific product or collections by way of introduction? I'm

01:54Natasha and I founded a company called Eon and we power product digitization for

01:59brands and retailers. So in some ways, our goal is to almost make sustainable

02:04fashion, not a reality, right? Every single product becomes sustainable rather than it

02:11being this segment of the market. And so how we do that is we move to give every single

02:17physical product a digital twin. And we connect that physical product with an identity. And

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

02:29the today, there are hundreds of billions of products produced every single year, where do those

02:35products go? Where are they made? What are the materials? How are they managed? Who purchased it?

02:40How do you manage that item through resale? How do you manage that item through recycle? That requires

02:46all those end to end business processes require data and intelligence. And we don't even have so much as a

02:53barcode for the circular economy. Yet we say we're going to scale resale. I think the idea of

02:59understanding supply chain has really become at the forefront. When my mother can tell me about supply

03:05chain and she's 77 years old, it really has become part of the conversation. And especially when you can

03:11figure out the provenance of that. Abrima, when we talk about sustainability, there are multi layers to

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

03:23How has Studio 189 really layered in this conversation? And how have you pushed the

03:31conversation forward for these specific areas of sustainability?

03:35I think it's connected to how we began. So I was actually at Caring. I was at Bottega Veneta for nine

03:44years. And I was very interested in the connection of what luxury stands for. But there's

03:53so many incredible artisans all over the world that I felt like we're not in the conversation. So

03:58I'm West African. I'm also Guinean and Ivorian. And so I had this opportunity through the Caring

04:04Foundation of Women's Indigenous Rights to go to Uganda with an organization that was making washable

04:09sanitary napkins for girls at slip school when they have their period. And what I found so incredible

04:14about that was that it was a really kind of sustainable solution, right? So it was like made locally,

04:20created locally, it created jobs, you know, and also girls got to make their decision. You know,

04:25some women make a choice and some don't. But the choice is theirs. You know, there's something very

04:31special about making your own decision and not being told what decision to make. So every time

04:35they would sell something, they would buy farmland, feed their kids to school, you know, and save their

04:40money. And it was really beautiful to see what real sustainability looks like. But what it did for me

04:44is it took me from this idea of thinking I have great ideas and going kind of top down,

04:48but really realizing that it has to go bottom up. And this is happening all over the world in

04:53communities everywhere, also in our backyard here, and we have to lift up other voices. I moved to

04:59Uganda and then to Ghana and started something in 2013 called Fashion Rising, which was Studio 99,

05:04which is the idea of, you know, adding more voices to the room, right? Like every time a consumer votes,

05:10they vote for the type of world they want to live in. And so what happens if we change the way we

05:14talk about Africa? What happens if we tell a multi-dimensional view of what happens inside

05:19the supply chain? And so to me, a lot of it is connected to the actual people, right? Like

05:25what you come and you go, right? Like you have to be there because the information changes every

05:31second of every moment of every day. How can you know what's going on if you're not on the ground?

05:36Empowering the consumer is one of the most important things, but also

05:40empowering the status quo. So in Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything, she said part of

05:48the optimism around the environment and the conversation around it is the horror that there's

05:54a status quo around activism. Natasha, do you think that that is something to be optimistic about? The

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

06:07would be easier to have with companies or with the consumer. Can we be optimistic about a status

06:15quo and that potentially changing? I think everybody's doing their part within change,

06:21you know, and I think there's some really exciting initiatives, whether it's customers and social

06:25media awareness, which is, you know, or supply chain systems. And I think everybody's kind of biting

06:30off pieces of the wheel. I do think what's quite powerful is legislation. So across the EU, you will

06:35actually be required to have a digital ID or a digital product passport for every single item. So you will

06:40not be allowed to make an item unless you can tell exactly where it came from, exactly where it made

06:45of. And 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 it's not recyclable

06:56or it wasn't resold. So that full continuity. And I think that's elevates the whole ship.

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

07:04That is a big question. I think if we're gonna, it's about people, you know, like you can't, how can you

07:13sustain anything if people can't sustain themselves? It doesn't really mean anything, right? Like for most of

07:19the people that work in the system are women, and most of them are in informal industries, and you will never

07:25know their names, like they're in their homes, they're with their kids, they're everywhere, you know, and so if

07:31they're, you know, we're wearing clothes that they've touched, that they've, you know, like, it has to be in

07:37the fabric of what you're wearing, you know, it's always been there, it needs to be there. And so to me, if it

07:43needs, for it to be sustainable, like we need to sustain people. So what does that mean? It's topics we

07:47talked about, it's policy, it's healthcare, it's infrastructure, if I can't get to work, it doesn't

07:52matter that I have a job if I can't show up. If I can't afford to feed my kids, it doesn't matter, you know, it doesn't do

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

08:03people, we might be calling them fair wages, or living wages, but if the currency has fallen 70%,

08:09they can't even buy milk, you know, so it's, it's, it's a question of, it's, it's beautiful in that

08:15there's something we can do about it. So to me, that's the part where I see optimism.

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

08:24uh, the, the people, uh, the media, and of course, technology, I want to thank all three of you for being on this

08:30panel today. Thank you.

Eco-Optimism | Marie Claire

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