REGARDS CROISÉS 2
SUSTAINABLE FASHION A discussion on sustainability, eco-responsibility, recycling, alternative fabrics, and slow fashion
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 AT 6PM CULTURAL SERVICES OF THE FRENCH EMBASSY, NEW YORK
REGARDS CROISÉS 2
SUSTAINABLE FASHION MODERATED BY
Michelle Millar Fisher Louis C. Madeira IV Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art FEATURING
Laurent Claquin Head of Kering Americas Suzanne Lee Chief Creative Officer of Modern Meadow Nicole Rycroft Founder and Executive Director of Canopy Benjamin Simmenauer Professor at Institut Français de la Mode Pascal Morand Executive President, Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode
More than 150 million trees are logged every year and turned into cellulosic fabric.
Textiles production (including cotton farming) uses 93 billion cubic meters of water annually.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
FACTS & FIGURES
Each year over 80 billion pieces of clothing are produced worldwide, and after a short consumer lifespan, three out of four garments will end up in landfills or be incinerated. Only a quarter will be recycled.
170 million children are engaged in child labor, with many making textiles and garments to satisfy the demand of consumers in Europe, the U.S., and beyond.
The textiles industry relies mostly on non-renewable resources – 98 million tons in total per year. / In 2015, greenhouse gas emissions from textiles production = 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent. / 20% of industrial water pollution globally is attributable to the dyeing and treatment of textiles. / Eliminating today’s negative health impacts due to poor chemicals management in the industry would have an economic benefit of USD 8 billion annually in 2030.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
FASHION FOOTPRINT: FACTS
I. SUSTAINABILITY MEANING AND MEASURES
AMOUNT
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
NATURAL RESOURCES
TIME
Economic growth
(production, consumption)
Environmental degradation (species extinction, climate change...)
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
SUSTAINABILITY: THE PROBLEM
ECONOMY FIRST
Francis Bacon
ECOLOGY FIRST
René Descartes
Nature is a tool for human activity Tech and science sustainability
Development must be limited Tech and science are not sufficient
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
TWO APPROACHES
1962 Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, exposes chemical use and effects on people and the planet
1970 The first Earth Day; recycling symbol designed
1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Stockholm
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
SUSTAINABILITY: THE AWAKENING
1987 Brundtland Report Classic definition of sustainable development: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Tiffany Facebook post (and later, NYT ad), 2017
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
SUSTAINABILITY: TODAY
“If we had to go to yet another conference where we hear pledges, promises, targets to achieve, discussions on what it will look like, we will all become old before it actually happens.” Livia Firth
CHANGING THE WAY OF PRODUCING
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
CHANGING THE WAY OF CONSUMING
Public Reports: – Ellen MacArthur on circular economy – The Pulse of Fashion industry report
Actions to protect the environment
CONSUMERS
Conscious behavior?
COMPANIES
Brands charter and guidance
Foundations Investments
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
WHO DOES WHAT?
When you set off around the world, you take with you everything that you need for your survival ‌ for three and a half months, you’re on a boat. You know that you only have so much food, you only have so much diesel, and you become incredibly connected to those resources that you use. Our current linear economy is predominantly driven through taking in material at the ground, making something out of it, and ultimately that material, that product, gets thrown away. Within a circular economy, from the outset, you design the economy to be regenerative. So you design a car for remanufacture, you design a car for disassembly, for de-componentization. -Dame Ellen MacArthur, champion of the circular economy
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
HOW TO PROMOTE CIRCULAR THINKING?
The Higg Index, the apparel and footwear industry self-assessment standard, developed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to measure environmental and social labor impacts across the supply chain.
WHERE DO THE IMPACT OCCUR?
MATERIALS
TRANSPORTS
PACKAGING
USE & SERVICE
MANUFACTURING
END OF LIFE
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
HOW CAN WE MEASURE SUSTAINABILITY?
RED HOT THIS SEASON: THE HOT BUTTON RANKING
BACKSTAGE AT THE SHOW: THE CANOPYSTYLE AUDIT
• Powerful tool in ranking viscose producer.
Conducted by The Rainforest Alliance, the CanopyStyle Audits were developed by Canopy and approved by the CanopyStyle Leaders for Forest Conservation.
• 24 sustainability criteria.
Audit findings help both fashion brands and viscose producers see the current level of risk of their materials originating from ancient and endangered forests, be it Indonesia’s high-carbon peatland rainforests, the Amazon, or Canada’s Boreal forests. This comprehensive verification process is a major step toward transforming the environmental footprint of the rayon-viscose supply chain.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
CANOPYSTYLE AND SOLUTIONS
II. FASHION: ENDGAME?
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
SUSTAINABLE FASHION: A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS?
FASHION MEANS CHANGE ONLY THE NEW IS VALUABLE
INDIVIDUAL STRUGGLE FASHION IS A WEAPON FOR SELF EXPRESSION
TO ME, CLOTHING IS A FORM OF SELFEXPRESSIONS–THERE ARE HINTS ABOUT WHO YOU ARE IN WHAT YOU WEAR. -MARC JACOBS
More than half of fast fashion produced is disposed of in under a year. The average number of times a garment is worn before it ceases to be used has decreased by 36% compared to 15 years ago.
Average number of times a garment is worn before it ceases to be used Source: Euromonitor International Apparel & Footwear 2016 Edition (volume sales trends 2005–2015); World Bank, World development indicators – GD (2017)
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
OVERCONSUMPTION AND OVERPRODUCTION
FOR LACK OF COORDINATION, OR A CONSENSUAL DEFINITION OF ‘SUSTAINABLE FASHION’...
...SUSTAINABILITY MIGHT JUST BE A TREND AMONG OTHERS.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
IS SUSTAINABLE THE NEW BLACK?
III. SUSTAINABLE FASHION INITIATIVES
In 2016, the Walmart Foundation awarded grants of nearly $3 million to five US universities to support research on improving the sustainability and efficiency of textile manufacturing.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
EDUCATING DESIGNERS AND PUBLICS
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
ALTERNATIVE FABRICS
The 2017 EcoChic Design Award drew applications from 46 countries
EVERLANE THE DISRUPTOR
The city anorak
The slouchy chino pant
The box cut tee
REFORMATION, A FASHION REBOOT
SAVINGS 1733 METRIC TONS
SAVINGS 124 MILLION GALLONS
SAVINGS 134 METRIC TONS
FOOTPRINT 2333 METRIC TONS
FOOTPRINT 25 MILLION GALLONS
FOOTPRINT 120 METRIC TONS
CARBON DIOXIDE EQ.
WATER
WASTE
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
INITIATIVES: SUSTAINABLE BRANDS
Franรงois-Henri Pinault Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kering
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
INITIATIVES: THE LUXURY TAKE ON SUSTAINABILITY
HOW CAN WE RECONCILE CONSUMER DESIRES AND SUSTAINABILITY? CAN KEY PLAYERS ENFORCE TRANSPARENCY AND TRACEABILITY AT EVERY STEP OF THE VALUE CHAIN?
MCKINSEY RECOMMENDATIONS Develop standards and practices for designing garments that can be easily reused or recycled. Invest in the development of new fibers that will lower the environmental effects of production and garment making. Encourage consumers to care for their clothes in low-impact ways. Clothing makers and retailers can help steer consumers toward clothing-care practices that have a smaller environmental toll and keep garments in good shape for longer. Support the development of mechanical- and chemical-recycling technologies.
Establish higher labor and environmental standards for suppliers and set up mechanisms to make supply chains more transparent. For example, the software company EVRYTHNG and packaging maker Avery Dennison have together launched an effort to tag clothing so consumers can trace how individual items were produced all along the supply chain. Provide suppliers with guidance and resources for meeting new labor and environmental standards and hold them accountable for performance shortfalls.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
CHALLENGES
KATE FLETCHER Craft of Use
PETRA RIVOLI The Travels of a T-Shirt in a Global Economy
JEREMY SEABROOK The Song of the Shirt
EMILY SPIVACK Worn Stories
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SUSTAINABLE FASHION
SAFIA MINNEY Slow fashion
SASS BROWN Eco Fashion
Laurent Claquin Head of Kering Americas After having completed studies in both France and the UK, majoring in business economics, Laurent Claquin followed different career choices, before becoming the head of international luxury group, Kering. He began his career as a consultant for Coopers & Lybrand, where he worked for three years, before acquiring a job working for the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume and Centre Pompidou. While working as a deputy chief of staff at France’s Ministry of Culture and Communication, he met the Pinault Family and began his career at Kering, where he served as an advisor to Artemis, the Pinault family’s investment arm and became the group’s senior vice president of communications. He is currently working as the Head of Kering Americas, which includes north, central and South America, where he developed the Kering Foundation, combating violence against women. Suzanne Lee Chief Creative Officer, Modern Meadow Suzanne brings 20 years of experience in design research and fashion including being an early pioneer and proponent of biotechnology in textiles. She started growing microbial materials in 2003 and went on to establish Biocouture the first biocreative consultancy. In 2014 Suzanne founded Biofabricate, a now annual summit to unite design, biology and technology. She is a graduate of the celebrated design school Central Saint Martins in London and her work has been featured widely in the media and exhibited globally. She is the author of ‘Fashioning the Future: tomorrow’s wardrobe’ and her thought-leadership has been acknowledged by a prestigious TED Senior Fellowship and as a Launch Material Innovator, an initiative of NASA, Nike, USAID and the State Department.
Michelle Millar Fisher Curator and Architecture and Design Historian Michelle Millar Fisher is a curator and an architecture and design historian. The recipient of an MA and an M.Phil in Art History from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, she received an M.Phil from the City University of New York (CUNY) where she is also currently completing her doctorate in architectural history. She is currently The Louis C. Madeira IV Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 2014-2018, she was a Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Architecture & Design at the Museum of Modern Art, where she co-organized, amongst others, exhibitions and the accompanying catalogues for Design and Violence (2013-15) and Items: Is Fashion Modern? (2017), the latter including a wide analysis of fashion. Previously, she held positions at the Solomon. R. Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She frequently lectures at conferences, and has taught at Parsons The New School for Design, as well as CUNY’s Baruch College and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Pascal Morand Executive President, Fédération de la Couture et de la Mode Taking over the post of executive president of the Fédération Française de la Couture in 2015, Pascal Morand is known today as being the head of France’s most important and powerful fashion governing body. After graduating from HEC Paris business school, and the University of Paris Dauphine, he completed a PhD in economics. He became the director general and associate lecturer of Institut Français de la Mode, where he still lectures today, even though he left IFM to become dean of ESCP Europe business school and later Deputy Director General of the Paris
Chamber of Commerce and Industry in charge of Studies, Public Affairs and Policy. He is a published author, having written many books including “Religions and luxury”, “Economics of fashion” or “The New Vision of Innovation”. Nicole Rycroft Executive Director and Foundar, Canopy Born in Australia, Nicole Rycroft is the Founder and Executive Director of award winning environmental not-for-profit, Canopy. One of Nicole’s guiding philosophies in life, “ask for what you want, you might just get it”, is foundational to her work in guiding Canopy’s team to transform unsustainable supply chains and advance forest conservation and community rights. Named one of Canada’s 50 Most Influential People in Graphic Communication for four years, Nicole is an Ashoka Fellow, the recipient of a Canadian Environment Award Gold Medal, and a recipient of the Meritorious Service Cross of Canada. Benjamin Simmenauer Professor, Institut Français de la Mode With a degree from Ecole Normale Supérieure and a Research Master’s degree in Science Philosophy from Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Benjamin Simmenauer has an academic background in both humanities and mathematical logic. He has a 10 years carrier in market research and marketing consulting. At IFM his teaching expertise is about brands and semiotics applied to fashion. He also teaches regularly in executive education programs about brand strategy issues related to offline and online communication.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION
BIOGRAPHIES
THANK YOU