Value

One of the misconceptions around sustainability is that something new needs to be invented in order to create less damaging systems, but systems are not made of things. Ultimately, systems are made of decisions and people, whether those come from an individual or a company often determines how far reaching the consequences of those decisions may be.

Or, to put it differently, we can invent all of the new things we like, but if we are still using the new inventions in the same way, we won’t see a meaningful positive impact on our communities or the planet.

Personal Sustainability is (mostly) not buying a “green” alternative to the thing you’re already buying, it’s looking at whether you need the thing in the first place, and, if you do actually need it, why. One of my favorite confessions from the stylist Rachael Wang was when she shared that upon her decision to stop wearing leather products because of their impact on the earth, getting rid of all of the leather and fur items in her wardrobe only to realize how wasteful it is to just get rid of things.

One of my favorite people on the internet to follow for talks about sustainability, and particularly the behavior around sustainability is Aja Barber (author of Consumed, The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism). Her commentary often provides me with a glimpse of what’s going on in sustainable conversations that take place on platforms other than Instagram (there are many! I only have bandwidth for one or two platforms), and one of those things is the viral Stanley water tumbler debacle.

In summary (and as if you have not already encountered this viral news), via the concentrated efforts of a duo of e-commerce marketing editors, Stanley water tumblers have been pushed into a viral consumer frenzy over the last year, going so far as to TikTok influencers making videos showing off their collections of tumblers in dozens of colors to match each of their outfits. I could go on with judgey language about this kind of frenzied mindless consumerism but I doubt I need to, and if I’m being introspective I bet I also look ridiculous doing something or another if I was followed around through my every day life for long enough.

The point is, in 2024 (and earlier) nearly every consumer product can be consumed in the same way that people tend consume Shein, or Rumi Life, or Class A narcotics, or toilet paper and bottled water during a storm watch. It’s impulsive, it’s individualistic, but it’s also most interesting because it’s highly engineered by teams of marketers that have perfected the art of driving people into a frenzy by hijacking their brain’s mesolimbic system and offering them a sense of belonging and identity. And, in the state of the current world, belonging and identity are perhaps some of the highest currency available.

In apparel (and its cousins, shoes and jewels), constant thought is given to value. When you take a merchandising class in school, they teach you a formula that takes you from COGs to margin to retail price, but once you hit the real industry, this becomes far less relevant. What ends up mattering is: what is the *perceived value* of an item, how much people will pay for it, what are others charging for it? These are the ethereal pieces of information that inform the actual end price - sometimes to the great advantage of the brand, with a super high margin, and sometimes to the great detriment of the margin in order to make something truly fabulous actually sellable.

So my proposal is: when something is abundantly available (ie. a $45 water tumbler available at Target and Walmart that even my kid’s elementary school classmates have started carrying around in their tiny hands (because the bottles don’t even fit in their backpacks)), the value is no longer the thing itself but the belonging and identity that that thing signals. The value is a feeling, and the feeling is safety.

How, where and when can that feeling be transposed to things that don’t create waste, or harm the planet, or take advantage of unethical labor (that’s not a judgement targeted specifically at Stanley but I think you know the companies I’m referring to), so that that feeling can be accessed without wasting a lot of money, or standing in line at Target or Starbucks, or amassing a collection of a thing you will not use and will eventually be found in a landfill?

A challenge for everyone to think about!

I haven’t bought a new pair of jeans in a few years now, and I got to play around with some styles from the brand Triarchy recently. I am always happy to see brands striving for responsible standards in their production and methodology, especially in denim, an industry which has truly for decades sat at the intersection of:

extremely pollutive

highest trend and fit turnover

most destructive production process, after leather

Triarchy is partnered with Candiani denim on a plastic-free stretch denim that launched last year.

If you have ever seen denim made after the year 2005 (the advent of plastic in denim) thats gone through a compost process, you will see the cotton disappear and the plastic stay behind, like this:

Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and when it breaks down it only does so into smaller parts, which incorporate themselves into our drinking water, crops, and animal life.

Beyond plastic-free stretch, Triarchy also hit a few markers for me in terms of transparency and responsibility, and they are:

• partnership with Renoon for transparency and individual item life cycle traceability

• more progressive wash processes for a lower impact and less poisonous production process, heavily partnered with Jeanologia 

• responsibly sourced fibers and dyed, once again audited by Renoon

• certifications and collaborations with OEKO-TEX, ZDHC, GOTS, and Ellen MacArthur Foundation

• positive presence on the Good On You directory

If you work in fashion there’s a highly likelihood that you are already very familiar with these organizations, but I’m sharing this info for anyone who came to this newsletter from outside of fashion sustainability in the hopes that talking about this stuff will encourage a level of civilian literacy for us all. I wish we would all talk about it more. Every time we do we raise the bar higher and bring more people into the fold.

Anyway, here is me playing with Triarchy’s denim, which I so far love for its comfort and the flattery of its fits (though flattery is subjective!). Looking forward to seeing how these age and grow with my wardrobe.

Thanks as always for being here!

x A

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