5 STRATEGIES YOU CAN LEARN FROM SUSTAINABLE BRANDS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA (PART 2)
The second installment of 5 strategies series. Read the first part here
4. Go online, go global
It’s digital age, baby. Thanks to the Internet, small businesses and independent brands can now reach a larger potential customer base, and technology has given rise to some very interesting new business models.
Efaisto is an online platform which connects customers directly to the artisans (the company which owns the web is based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam). You can place orders for bespoke garments & leather goods through its website, communicate with your chosen tailor (or shoe/leather maker) to customize your product from A to Z, and the Efaisto team will oversee the production process, before shipping the product to you. Even more good news for your unique hipster souls: the artisans only produce 1 to 100 units per design. "This is the nature of ultra-limited edition. It’s the core of individual expression through style."
Now, before you fuss about the carbon footprint of shipping products trans-atlantic, consider its many benefits. For the customer, it means high quality, unique product "made just for you" and the wonderful experience of custom-made purchase at a very reasonable price ($36 for a wallet and $164 for a pair of shoes). For the makers: international market, and the freedom to decide the price of the product, 100% of which go straight to their pockets (Efaisto adds service fees on top of their price). From a sustainable point of view, this business model empowers the artisans, creates personal connection between the buyer and the product - thus elongates its life cycle, and as product is made from demand, there is no unsold stock and minimal material waste. Efaisto is a very young business - it first went online in May 2016. However, judging by the very positive customer feedbacks on its website, it’s safe to say that Efaisto has a very promising future ahead. Go to their website and try the customize button now!
5. Be thorough – think pre-production and post-production
Running a fashion label means more than simply designing & selling clothes, and there are many areas you can work on to make your brand more climate positive. For example, it's pretty ironic and hypocritical to wrap your eco-friendly linen shirt in a disposable (however chicly designed) plastic bag. Check out the creative ways these following brands are saving resources (and our Earth): avoid overpackaging, upcycle, and zero-waste production.
Nhat la, da ong bo, a small boutique in Hanoi, Vietnam that offers naturally dyed items and upcycled products, has a rather extreme (but in a good way) packaging policy. They do not print out name cards, and their brown paper bags are intentionally left blank for the customers to reuse. Customers are encouraged to go by bike or on foot to the boutique and carry their own bag to store purchased goods, and in fact are discounted 10% for doing so. Information on the hangtags are written with pencil so that they can be retrieved and erased for reuse.
At Dorsu (Kampot, Cambodia), clothing made from remnant fabric wastefully discarded by mass-manufacturers are wrapped in packaging made in-house, using their own fabric scraps. The swing tags are printed on 100% recycled card using vegetable ink, and hung by non-bleached strings and safety pins. The neck and care labels are made from Polyester Certified Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 for harmful substances.
Tonlé, another Cambodia-based brand which operates on the zero-waste principle, has an ingenious way of working every bit of their fabric into the production process. Just like Dorsu, tonle sources factory castoffs as material for their collection. Excess fabric from the first production are then hand cut into strips and sewn together to make yarn. New pieces would be knitted or woven from this yarn, "article of clothing made from twice-recycled fabric". Last but not least, the tiniest scraps are combined with used office or pattern making paper and natural glue to produce recycled cards that would become their hangtags. In their words: " when you purchase a tonlé product, check for tiny threads in your hangtag and know that it was put there with both you and our planet in mind." Tonlé also tries to minimalize packaging waste by shipping products in bags made from 100% recycled materials, and for wholesale deals they do not pack products in separate plastic bags unless requested.
Conclusion
I do believe that tough time makes us better thinkers - as proved here by these incredible industry players. I hope that this article will inspire you to do good, and do better. All for a more sustainable future.
