On November 13, Fashion Positive kicked off its definite launch partners G-Star RAW, Stella McCartney, Bionic Yarn, Loomstate and the manufacturer Saitex. Alongside them are an array of supporters including Wendy and Eric Schmidt, Scott Mackinlay Hahn, Amber Valleta and Julie Gilhart. Fashion Positive is an all-inclusive program that helps fashion brands, suppliers and designers continuously enhance the way clothes are made. The program, funded by the DOEN Foundation and Schmidt Philanthropies, helps fashion businesses look at five categories of durability: material reuse, material health, water stewardship, social fairness and reusable energy. Through the Fashion Positive partnerships, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute is designing the next generation of fashion building blocks, and the desired suppliers of those materials, in order to bring the fashion industry into the future.
“We are excited to partner with the industry leaders who are on the cutting edge of fashion design and manufacturing,” said Lewis Perkins, senior vice president of Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. “Together, we are creating a vision within the industry that is about abundance rather than resource constraints. We want beautiful, must-have clothes made in such a way that everything and everyone along the supply chain helps create this better future.”
Industry leaders such as Stella McCartney and G-Star RAW are joining Fashion Positive’s cooperative of leadership brands to evolve materials and advance manufacturing to meet the Cradle to Cradle Certified GOLD-level standard beginning in 2016. Certified materials will then be added to Fashion Positive’s Material’s Library’s, cataloging natural and synthetic materials to assist other industry stakeholders source superior materials and to make them widely available. These leadership brands and designers will make use of the Fashion Positive Innovation Fund to classify and invest in key suppliers who will create these new materials for use by the entire fashion industry. Fashion Positive partners have also concurred to benchmark the environmental and social effect of products and materials before and after they have been certified.
“I am honored to be partnering and working with the Cradle to Cradle Certified team on Fashion Positive as we share the belief that what will carry fashion forward is rethinking the way we make clothing and accessories,” explained Amber Valletta, fashion icon, actress and social entrepreneur. “We have a shared passion that what we will create now can truly change the future through beauty, innovation and common sense.”
One of the industries that creates the most pollution in the world is fashion. According to the National Resources Defense Council, the creation of textiles in China alone releases three billion tons of soot into the air each year. There is increasing demand among investors, consumers and other fashion stakeholders for sustainable products. Fashion Positive gives fashion brands, suppliers and designers a platform to surpass industry challenges such as modernizing manufacturing equipment, sourcing materials, ensuring healthy and safe working conditions and influencing collaboration to create highly desirable and sellable clothing that is beautiful inside and out.
“Designers are uniquely responsible for the impacts and stories our products tell, both good and bad. Fashion Positive is the connective tissue empowering designers to take full accountability for the beautiful products we deliver to the world,” said Scott Mackinlay Hahn, environmental and social entrepreneur and co-founder of Loomstate and Rogan.
Under the Canopy/Portico, the new sustainable fashion brands of Michael Stars, are additional partners joining Fashion Positive that will launch in 2015.
For more information about Fashion Positive visit fashionpositive.org and for more info on Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute visit c2ccertified.org.
– Sia’ Richards
Photo: Julie Gilhart, fashion consultant; Lewis Perkins, senior vice president, Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute; Wendy Schmidt, President of The Schmidt Family Foundation; Scott Mackinlay Hahn, social and environmental entrepreneur and co-founder of Loomstate and Rogan. (PRNewsFoto) ©Patrick McMullan
