“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
Tara St. James, the Canadian sustainability-focused designer and founder of Study New York – an environmentally and socially conscious apparel brand – opened her Network Masterclass at the CFDA with this William James quote.
The morning’s focus was to educate and encourage brands and designers to begin or continue their journey implementing sustainability by providing insight, resources, and guidance. This can range from sourcing responsible fabrics through mills using the Re:Source textile library to product life cycle thinking, setting sustainability goals, local and international production, and issues within the present supply chain, and sustainable innovation.
St. James introduced her brand which works with responsible fabrics, ethical production, zero waste, and slow fashion strategies. Her sustainable trajectory began when she launched her first fashion brand Covet, where she decided to commit to sustainability by completely changing her supply chain and production methods after researching the harmful impact of material waste and conventional production on the environment.
“I’ve been working in the sustainable fashion space for over 15 years and while the community is very open, collaborative and supportive, for the most part it’s been relatively lonely and uncharted territory,” she noted. “Thanks to organizations like Fashion Revolution and the CFDA taking on the challenge of educating their audience, the industry is now full of people ready to make a difference. As dire and depressing as the news is, I’m excited about the future of the fashion.”
The initial exercise was to identify the current problems in the conventional fashion supply chain system, such as the impossible speed needed for production, over-complications, the extraneous demand for creativity output from designers, and the lack of collaboration in the supply chain.
St. James shared resources and successful examples of how brands can create systems and strategies to market sustainability to customers by highlighting projects like the Nudie Jeans “No Wash Campaign,” Eileen Fisher’s “Remake program.” “Make It Black” Dye Service, The New Denim Project, Biomimicry Design, and Nike’s “Make Mobile Application”. Additionally, she introduced and explained TED’s Ten sustainable strategies.
“It’s so refreshing and inspiring to walk into a room full of people eager to learn about sustainability and ready to start making changes in their businesses and brands,” St. James noted.
At the end of the Masterclass, Tara St. James encouraged participants to attend Textile Tuesdays sustainable events featured on Study-ny.com, and offered 20% off of all services and events with discount code CFDA20.
