00:05I 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
00:24then you started Maison du Monde. What prompted you? What was the aha moment, the light that
00:33went off that made you think, okay, this is a very important conversation that we need
00:38to have? And what were the conversations around that sustainability? At the time, it was very
00:45segmented. You had Bergdorf Goodman with one brand, Fred Siegel with another, Barneys with
00:51another, and it wasn'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 of in
01:04this sustainable fashion movement, who were all being pretty well recognized from a retail
01:10and media perspective. But if we could put them all under one umbrella, we could actually
01:15move this entire conversation forward. And the goal has always been to prove that sustainable
01:20fashion is actually luxury.
01:21So Natasha, that's very interesting. You have a solution called Eon. And I want you to tell
01:29everyone in the room about this who may not know exactly what the solution is and what digital
01:35ID, because it's the technology that you use for this, for finding out the provenance of specific
01:41product. And since we're talking about optimism, what was that? I mean, where does optimism lie
01:49in reporting on provenance of a specific product or collections?
01:53By way of introduction, I'm Natasha, and I founded a company called Eon, and we power product
01:58digitization for brands and retailers. So in some ways, our goal is to almost make sustainable fashion
02:05not a reality, right? Every single product becomes sustainable, rather than it being this segment of
02:12the market. And so how we do that is, we move to give every single physical product a digital twin,
02:19and we connect that physical product with an identity. And so what that does is that bridges
02:26the gap between the digital and physical. And if you think about today, there are hundreds of billions
02:32of products produced every single year. Where do those products go? Where are they made? What are
02:38the materials? How are they managed? Who purchased it? How do you manage that item through resale? How do
02:43you manage that item through recycle? That requires all those end-to-end business processes, require data
02:49and intelligence. And we don't even have so much as a barcode for the circular economy, yet we say we're
02:56going to scale resale. I think the idea of understanding supply chain has really become
03:01at the forefront. When my mother can tell me about supply chain, and she's 77 years old,
03:07it really has become part of the conversation. And especially when you can figure out the provenance
03:13of that. Abrima, when we talk about sustainability, there are multi-layers to that. We're not just talking
03:19about the environment. We're talking about economic and social impact. How has Studio 189 really
03:26layered in this conversation? And how have you pushed the conversation forward for these specific
03:33areas of sustainability? I think it's connected to how we began. You know, so I was actually at
03:42Caring. I was at Bottega Veneta for nine years. And I was very interested in the connection of,
03:50you know, what luxury stands for. But there's so many incredible artisans all over the world
03:56that I felt like were not in the conversation. So I'm West African. I'm also Guinean and Ivorian.
04:01And so I had this opportunity through the Caring Foundation of Women's Indian Rights to go to Uganda
04:07with an organization that was making washable sanitary napkins for girls at slip school when they have
04:11their period. And what I found so incredible about that was that it was a really kind of sustainable
04:18solution, right? So it was like made locally, created locally, it created jobs, you know, and also girls
04:24got to make their decision. You know, some women make a choice and some don't. But the choice is
04:29theirs. You know, there's something very special about making your own decision and not being told
04:33what decision to make. So every time they would sell something, they would buy farmland, feed their kids
04:38to school, you know, and save their money. And it was really beautiful to see what real sustainability
04:42looks like. But what it did for me is it took me from this idea of thinking I have great
04:46ideas and
04:47going kind of top down, but really realizing that it has to go bottom up. And this is happening all
04:52over the world and communities everywhere. Also in our backyard here, and we have to lift up other
04:57voices. I moved to Uganda and then to Ghana and started something in 2013 called Fashion Rising,
05:03which was Studio 89, which is this idea of, you know, adding more voices to the room, right? Like
05:09every time a consumer votes, they vote for the type of world they want to live in. And so what
05:13happens
05:13if we change the way we talk about Africa? What happens if we tell a multi-dimensional view of what
05:19happens inside the supply chain? And so to me, a lot of it is connected to the actual people, right?
05:24Like you come and you go, right? Like you have to be there because the information changes every second
05:31of 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 empowering the status
05:42quo. So in Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything, she said part of the optimism around
05:49the environment and the conversation around it is the horror that there's a status quo around activism.
05:56Natasha, do you think that that is something to be optimistic about? The fact that we
06:01there's a status quo and now people are motivated to change and maybe that conversation would be
06:07easier to have with companies or with the consumer. Can we be optimistic about a status quo and that
06:15potentially changing?
06:17I think everybody's doing their part within change, you know, and I think there are some
06:22really exciting initiatives, whether it's customers and social media awareness, which is, you know,
06:27or supply chain systems. And I think everybody's kind of biting off pieces of the wheel.
06:31I do think what's quite powerful is legislation.
06:33So across the EU, you will actually be required to have a digital ID or a digital product passport for
06:39every single item. So you will not be allowed to make an item unless you can tell exactly where it
06:44came from, exactly where it made of. And also because the digital ID records the life cycle of the
06:48product, you will be basically will have the data to say, hey, you can be taxed on this product and
06:54material because it's not recyclable or it wasn't resold. So that full continuity. And I think that's
06:59elevates the whole ship.
07:01Abrima, how do we sustain empowerment through fashion?
07:04That is a big question. I think if we're going to, it's about people, you know, like you can't,
07:12how can you sustain anything if people can't sustain themselves? It doesn't really mean anything,
07:17right? Like for most of the people that work in the system are women and most of them are in
07:23informal industries and you will never know their names. Like they're in their homes,
07:27they're with their kids, they're everywhere, you know? And so if they're, you know, we're wearing
07:33clothes that they've touched, that they've, you know, like it has to be in the fabric of what
07:38you're wearing. You know, it's always been there that needs to be there. And so to me,
07:43for 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,
07:51it doesn't matter that I have a job if I can't show up. If I can't afford to feed my
07:55kids,
07:56it doesn't matter, you know, it doesn't do anything. You know, right now, currency exchange,
08:00the currency is devalued a lot, you know? So a lot of people, we might be calling them fair wages
08:05or living wages, but if the currency has fallen 70%, they can't even buy milk, you know? So it's,
08:12it's, it's a question of, it's, it's beautiful in that there's something we can do about it. So
08:16to me, that's the part where I see optimism. Clearly a lot of layers to this conversation,
08:22especially when it comes to the consumer, uh, the, the people, uh, the media, and of course,
08:28technology. I want to thank all three of you for being on this panel today. Thank you.
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