Fashion's Map to the Future
Fashion's Map to the Future
It may not feel good right now, but there is a way out of this. Bring on the blueprint.
You know we like the good stuff on It’s Not Sustainable, and this week is no exception. I suspect you’re desperate for it - what with all the £40billion doom mongering prep, the impending Halloween budget, plummeting sales figures and the nail biting race going on over the pond. It’s absolutely not all bad, there are some glorious oases of positivity and I’ve been falling on these like a hungover It Girl in search of a Berocca.
One emerged on Thursday last week. It was the Circular Fashion Innovation Network (CFIN) Interim Report - never mind the title, it’s good, I promise - and it was 53 pages of sunny economic uplands, (albeit with a bit of a journey to get there).
CFIN is a joint venture between the British Fashion Council and the UK Fashion and Textile Industry and the report is a blueprint for how the fashion industry can accelerate towards a circular system by 2032. It is packed with good ideas, real life examples and strategies of how this can be done. CFIN have spent a year talking to stakeholders, and the report is their midway pitstop to drawing a map to the future. “By focussing on the three areas of Circular Business Models, Sustainable Manufacturing and Recycling Infrastructure,” CFIN say, “the fashion and textile sector will have an innovative, sustainable and economically vibrant future.” Hurrah!
Once you cut through the business jargon, the report is a fascinating collation of best in class examples (John Lewis, pretty much gold standard, please do shop there if you can), pilot projects, (including a fascinating onshoring project for denim washing) and all sorts of groovy and inspiring ideas emerging from the tsunami of AI and new technologies that is about to break on our shores. From ‘Just In Time Manufacturing’ (solving the problem of waste), to ‘cobots’, (collaborative robots who will work alongside humans in a lab), it puts a real spring in your step when you start to think about how we are going to get out of this mess. Fashion just needs someone to put it all together, and the collective will of business, consumers, finance and government to make it happen.
The good news is the government is on side. My mole in the BFC says Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary, is right behind the need for the creative industries to thrive, and is actively listening (long forgotten skill set), to the support we need to get there. Of course she should be behind the fashion industry - it’s an economic and creative powerhouse, but let us not forget that some of us have in living memory the time when government dismissed fashion as an embarrassing and self indulgent folly of the vain and the shallow, (yes indeed).
Business - well, like it or not, there’s a need in the post. Extended Producer Responsibility is coming, supply chain disruption is real and if you are a high volume low cost player, the Chinese are about to eat your lunch. So focus elsewhere.
And consumers - well, we all know more these days. We have questions, we want brands we can trust, and we are no longer fooled by an expensive influencer campaign involving some quick changes in a fashion week street style contest. We want quality, craft, heritage, responsibility - we want value. We want insight and understanding (some jokes too please because it’s quite grim out there). Describe that to us how you will, but know that we’re not buying it if we already have it. Show us something new, clever and responsible.
More oases arrived in the form of a couple of British brands I support. They are growing, not because they have compromised any of their values or mission, but perhaps because of the opposite - they’ve stuck to their guns. One is the British knitwear brand NavyGrey, who set out to make the purest, most perfect navy blue jumper several years ago. Wool was sourced abroad, but UK mills with high spinning standards were engaged, circular takeback systems put in place and every touch point available was negotiated with thought to people and planet. They have just enjoyed their best year of sales yet, says founder Rachel Carvell-Spedding, and to celebrate have opened a pop up shop in Notting Hill, which is great because you just can’t appreciate the quality and fit of this knitwear until you go and try it on.
I bought a navy jumper from them in their very first season five years ago, and have worn it ever since, (now, alas, a little moth eaten but I’m sending it for mending). This season I’ve gone back again for a cable knit version, The Cheviot, inspired by their new range made entirely of British wool. The blend, which is wonderfully soft, but not soft like a merino or a cashmere, British soft, so with a bit of an edge, a bit of grist to it, is comprised of 30% Cheviot, which is a breed found in the Orkneys, and 70% Blue Faced Leicester (a champion shagger sheep I have written about in my book What to Wear and Why). The fit of this jumper is just so good, and its glorious weight delivers the kind of warmth that must signal some ROI via your heating bill, (it costs £285 but this is a jumper for life).
The Blue Faced Leicester wool comes from Herd, which is the brainchild of Ruth Rands, an entrepreneur from the food business who took everything she knew about seaweed supply chains to British wool. She sources the wool from Blue Faced Leicester sheep in Lancashire and washes, cards and spins the fleece into yarn all within a 150 mile radius of the farms. You can buy the yarn direct from her website for £8 a ball, and if you are a knitter then you simply have to give it a go. It is again soft with a bit of Lancashire edge. If you are knot a knitter, Herd clothing is going from strength to strength: standby for the imminent release of a new collection designed in collaboration with vintage queen Bay Garnett.
Otiumberg, the cool every day jewellery brand that uses recycled gold, responsibly sourced stones and diamonds, was founded by two sisters seven years ago with a view to making it as responsible as possible. It is manufactured in Thailand, but everything, from compostable packaging to materials, has been set up to create minimum footprint. Now, after seven years of careful, responsible growth, Otiumberg has built a community of cool girls who love everything they do. They just opened their first shop in Holland Park and it’s everything they deserve.
All these business are female founded, on a specific set of values about how fashion should be made and worn. They have built themselves slowly and carefully and they are inspiring commercial blueprints. They haven’t got some awful private equity firm breathing down their necks demanding 10x ROI, or some vampiric retail titan buying up shares so he can asset strip them after a hostile takeover. And they never will, because none of this is their business style.
This week also elicited a report from the UK manufacturing sector with a new industrial strategy to revive the sector. Happily, among the eight growth driving sectors listed as ripe for investment, is the creative industries. When I think of our last lacemaker in Nottingham, and the last horn button manufacturer in the south of England, I get excited that maybe the cavalry are coming. Hang in there!
Everyone’s got a plan for Rachel Reeves these days, the UK Chancellor of the Excequer. Whether she will put on a fright wig on October 30th or the costume of a benevolent angel remains to be seen. I would imagine she’ll be going for a bit of both, but I’d ask her to please water the oases.
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See you next week
Tiff
It's exciting to hear about women led companies that are building a brand based on values. I was even happier to hear that they are not willing to compromise their business by taking on a private equity partner. Businesses like this should be celebrated!
Yay good news! Loved the mini roundup of great women-led businesses as well. Saving these for later! 💗