Reflections on the United Nations DPI/NGO Sustainable Fashion Briefing

I woke up on the morning of the UN DPI/NGO sustainable fashion briefing to this Business of Fashion article, 4 Anxieties Keeping Fashion CEOs Awake at Night. After reading through Tim Noaks’ four anxieties, which include the outdated business model, the rise of AI, human resources, and environmental sustainability, I thought to myself, but isn’t this all just a symptom of the outdated business model? This could easily be condensed into one overarching issue of an industry stuck in the past, with subheadings for technology, fair and safe workplaces, and sustainability.

Improving these standards and embracing a people-planet-profit triple bottom line seems to be the answer for the 4 anxieties, and I was excited to go to the United Nations to hear more about how we are working towards this as an industry. As I got ready to leave for the briefing, Marie-Claire Daveu’s words from the article stuck in my mind, “We cannot advance alone.”

The UN DPI/NGO Sustainable Fashion briefing has been buzzing around online between thought leaders and influencers in the fashion industry. With the weight of the UN behind it, the event garnered a lot of attention and (at least for me personally) high expectations for solutions and steps forward for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The panel comprised of leading actors in various arenas of the sustainable fashion industry, from transparency within artisan cooperatives, private public partnerships and socially conscious fashion brands, to nonprofits saving the world’s endangered forests. Patrick Duffy, the founder of the Global Fashion Exchange, served as the moderator and panelists included, Shivam Punjya (Founder and CEO of behno), Andrea Reyes (Fair Trade Advocate, Educator, and Small Business Owner), Amanda Carr (Director of Strategic Initiatives at Canopy), Ashia Dearwester (Chief strategy & Partnerships Officer at Nest), and Lilian Liu (Manager of Partnerships & UN Relation at the United Nations Global Compact). 

After listening to the panelists and talking to students, business owners and advocates attending, I came away from the panel discussion with the following two conclusions: 1) Like Daveu stated in the BoF article, collaboration is how we’ll move forward in sustainable fashion, and 2) we have an information problem. Consumers are either unaware of how their clothes are made, or even if they are, they are overwhelmed about the idea of shopping sustainably.

Collaboration for Sustainability

All panelists highlighted collaboration as a way to accomplish the UN SDGs using fashion as a vehicle for change. From bringing together communities and working with garment workers to improve labor standards to leveraging corporate power for change. 

Specifically, three panelists struck a chord for me on the impact of working with profit driven companies to drive social change. Amanda Carr from Canopy, Lillian Liu from the UN Global Compact and Ashia Dearwester from Nest all told stories of collaborating with major corporations from Patagonia to H&M in order to accomplish their organization’s missions.

Canopy has been particularly successful in working with big name brands to persuade them to change their policies and stop sourcing from endangered forests for their rayon and viscose fabrics. Starting in 2013 with no brands committed to eliminating endangered forests from their fabrics, Canopy has been able to garner the support of 105 brands in just 4 years to commit to the initiative. The UN Global Compact guides corporations on how to partner with the UN to accomplish specific SDGs. They have focused on eliminating competition between companies and creating a collaborative environment for corporations to solve the SDGs. Ashia Dearwester spoke of Nest collaborating with West Elm to create artisan made baskets in the Philippines, all while maintaining a transparent supply chain. 

The bottom line is to get rid of barriers for solving the increasing sustainability problem in fashion. Although it’s slow going, this mentality is catching on throughout the fashion industry from large luxury conglomerates like Kering to fast fashion brands like H&M and American companies like PVH and Gap Inc. As these policies are put in place and organizations like Canopy unite brands for sustainable causes, I’m interested to see how the impacts are measured and in company environmental, social and governance (ESG) tracking and corporate social responsibility reporting.

Breaking Through the Noise

Reaching consumers and building a movement is challenging when people are over stimulated by smartphones and so far removed from the problem. They don’t see the on average 20 hands their clothes pass through to get to them and therefore don’t think about these people when they’re buying a $5 t-shirt. (This Fashion Revolution video is a great example of this) Or from an environmental perspective, there’s the fact that a t-shirt takes 2,700 liters of water to produce, enough water for one person to drink for 900 days. Another factor that is not a part of the average consumer’s buying decisions. 

On top of that, there are a vast array of causes to get behind in the realm of “sustainability” and it can feel daunting the throw your weight behind the whole cause. The UN Global Compact has taken on this challenge as the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative and has identified 17 SDGs. But even with these defined areas and the trendiness of sustainability, people still don’t understand the scope of the problem and how they can be agents of change on a personal level. 

I was surprised that at an event like this, where people are aware of sustainable fashion issues, the audience was shocked to realize that production of fabrics like rayon and viscose are made of wood pulp and are leading to deforestation of endangered forests. It also made me wonder how many issues like this are swept under the rug because people are not looking? 

I didn’t come away with a strong sense of how to fix this issue, and it’s something I’ve struggled with since starting on my conscious fashion journey. You want to have everyone care about sustainability, but it tends to move in increments with topics that are trending. Right now there is the viral videos about plastic micro fibers being washed into our water streams as the result of washing our polyester athleasure wear, but there are so many issues that deserve their own viral videos. 

I’m hopeful that every step helps, building a movement is by nature a slow build. We’re at a tipping point of making sustainable fashion top of mind for consumers as they walk into their favorite store, and maybe they’ll start moving to clothing swap memberships instead or deciding that they don’t need anymore clothes. 

The panel discussion was concluded with a fashion showcase of sustainable designs, which were a beautiful reminder of what is possible and a welcome departure from discussing the complex issues of low-income populations having access to sustainable fashion, deforestation in the amazon, and subcontracting issues in garment manufacturing. I look forward to strengthening this community in future events and allowing space for the teamwork that was championed during the panel.

What I Learned Working in Fast Fashion

Stepping into the office every morning felt a little like working for the enemy. My constant mantra was, “This is just to understand the problem, to gather information, to expose fast fashion.” Curiosity and eagerness to learn kept me upbeat, even when I was faced with their questionable business practices.

I left my comfortable ethical fashion start-up job in October 2016 knowing that grad school was on the horizon, but still had almost a year before it started and was pondering my next steps. Since arriving in New York City I had the luxury of staying in my bubble working at a brand where I trusted the product, knew exactly who made the clothes and the materials going into them. The mass market, price-driven fashion world was foreign and incomprehensible, yet this was the world I was going back to graduate school to change. It dawned on me that I needed to have that understanding in order to become the impactful leader that I was striving to be. So I started applying to production jobs at mainstream fashion brands.

Cautiously hopeful – this was my attitude on the first day. It was all a bit of chaos, no one knew I was coming. For the first couple weeks I just sat there, observed and listened. They made off-price mens clothing and I was managing production. The work was a bit monotonous, but I grew to really enjoy my co-workers. A couple of them had been in the industry for decades and I loved hearing about the good old days when the NYC garment district was bustling.

My last day was June 23rd and I walked away feeling grateful for the experience, and also incredibly relieved I no longer had to pretend. I’m happy to be able to carry what I’ve learned into my next chapter, here are three of the biggest takeaways I had from my time there. 

 

Throw away culture – from product to people

Now, I don’t want to over generalize and say that all fast-fashion companies operate in this way, but the one I worked for did and I have a suspicion that many others do too. There is a lot of turnover within fashion as a whole and a lot of this is due to do with the volatile market and an uncertain future for retail. Yet, the “employee as dispensable” is very different from a struggling business model trying to find it’s place in an ever-changing market.

From the moment I started, I got the feeling that if I left they’d just go find someone else eager to break into the fashion industry. Pay was horrible, there were no benefits, zero vacation, and we worked most holidays. I would get into the office at 9:30am and would stay till at least 7pm, sometimes staying till 8pm or later. I wasn’t the only one that felt under-appreciated and cast aside, my co-workers would rant about being talked down to, and overworked. 

This sense of being expendable wasn’t just with the employees, it started with the product. When developing pieces and producing for customers, the product just had to be good enough; most important was affordability. There was no pause to question, what is the process of creating this wash effect? Or, how are the factories sourcing their materials? It just had to look like the CAD (kind of) and be at the right price. A product isn’t coming out right? Cancel the order and move on, create more. Employee not working out? Get rid of them and find someone who will do the job, for the least amount of money. 

 

100% trend driven – constant pressure to copy

This might be obvious, but it shocked me to what extent the designs were merely copied. I had heard the horror stories of independent designers getting their designs ripped off, and have seen how quickly the trends go from the runway to Forever 21, but the blatancy of it was unsettling.

If we didn’t have the specs for style, we’d go out and buy one from a competitor and copy it. I understand buying reference samples to base a design off of, but to make no tweaks or adjustments didn’t feel quite right. Maybe I was living in an idealized world before but I had seen designers work hard to create new shapes and innovative designs, and to see that is being stolen without any thought was tough. Especially since this was so normalized and encouraged.

One day we got some samples from a factory, we opened the box to discover that the designs were not ours. Seeing the fresh new designs, our boss loved them and wanted to produce it for ourselves. Immediately the designers were told to tweak the colors and and make CADs for the next sales meeting. These decisions were made without even the blink of an eye. 

 

Business is booming – Americans want a deal

Even with retailers facing uncertainty and consumers shifting their buying habits, the off-price market seems to be having a moment. Most Americans are looking for cheap clothes that they feel like they’re getting a deal on. I had no idea that new garments were being made with price stickers advertising reduced special pricing even though they were never sold at the higher price. The mind game had sure worked on me, they got me fooled. Many Americans are falling for it too, feeling good about all the money they “saved”.

The off-price market is huge, and although it might be a little daunting to try and make it more sustainable or ethical, the potential is massive. It’s not really about the consumer, they don’t particularly care if it’s sustainable. It’s about creating new methods and technology to make sustainable practices a better business model, think Ray Anderson and how he radically reduced waste and environmental harm in his carpet company by adopting sustainable business practices. It’s not a necessarily a marketing tool or value add like it has been in the luxury and contemporary markets, although it could be as our society shifts towards a more sustainable future. With a combination of making sustainability more attainable and shifting the mindset of the consumer, there could be an amazing opportunity to crack into this market. It’s probably all a bit idealistic, but I’m a bit of a dreamer. 

I never went overseas where the clothes were manufactured, but I could only imagine the working conditions. I saw the prices we were buying the clothes for and knew that only about 10%, if that, would go to the person making the garment. It made me sick. Not to mention the washing, dyeing and sandblasting done on the jeans creates hazardous environments and were probably making the workers sick. This would be a whole other research project, something I hope to better understand and figure out solutions for while at NYU.

Ultimately, I’m left with more questions than answers. I saw the inside of a very small price-driven fashion company, but one that is making a significant impact in the world of off-price fashion. I feel more motivated than ever as I enter graduate school, knowing that I have more clarity on the industry I’m trying to innovate and change.

Next Chapter: Graduate School – Impacting the Global Fashion Industry

I’ve been hinting at something big on the horizon for a few weeks now. This Friday is the last day at my job and I think it’s about time to let the cat out of the bag. After two and a half years in New York City, reinventing myself and adjusting to the curve balls thrown at me, I’ll be starting a new chapter: Graduate School.

As of this Fall, I’ll be pursuing an Master’s in Public Administration at NYU, studying international human rights and environmental policies. It might be a bit crazy to get a second graduate degree, but I couldn’t think of a more natural step. My work had me feeling stunted, I was learning about the intricacies of the fashion industry, but not how to impact change in the global community.

So how exactly did my NYC journey lead me here? I left Hawaii in January 2015 hopeful that New York City would be the answer, that the city would take me in and cultivate my curiosity for sustainable fashion. I imagined a world that would be hard, yet gentle and guiding. What I found was infinite opportunity with people stepping all over each other to grab it.

To be honest, my life since landing at JFK has been filled with uncertain, anxious and overwhelming experiences, with some splashes of accomplishment and excitement. By far the most challenging part has been finding my own balance and acceptance as part of this chaos. It was a crash course in dealing with stubborn, aggressive and erratic people. That’s not to say that New Yorkers aren’t friendly when they want to be, it’s just a different kind of human interaction. Coming from Hawaiian and Japanese cultures, it was a culture shock.

I still remember my first day working in the industry, running around picking up markers, visiting sample makers and checking-in on the factory, all within a few blocks in the garment district. I thought “I’ve done it, I made it, and it will all work out”. How cute I was, thinking it was that simple. Maybe if I had moved to the city to work in fashion, but I hadn’t, I moved to the city to disrupt the fashion industry, to be a changemaker.

At the very beginning, seeing the process from design to delivery at a small Brooklyn start-up helped ease me into the industry. As my role grew and the responsibility piled on, strains in working with complex personalities were magnified. Even more revealing, my limitations were made painfully clear. We were a young team, I craved mentorship and cross industry  development. Learning about the fashion industry was important, but I wanted to reach beyond to understand the complexities of community organizing, creating policies and shaping the industry both locally and abroad. So I left, even though I loved the job, the company, and the people.

I’m not entirely sure where this degree will lead me, but I’m excited at all the possibilities and opportunities it will open up. Maybe this is my ever-optimist mindset, but I’m confident that this will unlock the roles that I’ve been craving and the the jobs I’ve been dreaming of (as cliche as that sounds). I can’t wait to share this journey with you and bring you along as I find out where I can make the most impact to make the garment production more sustainable and ethical.