Reformation at Sustainable Fashion Forum by Jo Zugic

Over the weekend we were lucky enough to be given access to the Sustainable Fashion Form held earlier during the week in Los Angeles. The forum focused on sustainable fashion and textile processes and practices, offering tangible ways fashion businesses can lead in sustainability, ethical responsibility & climate change. 

The presentation I focused on was by Carrie Frieman (director of sustainability) and Kathleen Talbot (VP of operations and sustainability) at Reformation.

Reformation was started in 2009 by Yael Aflalo following the exit from her first company Ya-Ya after witnessing terrible factory conditions in China. Reformation was developed in order to make changes to the way business was done in the past, and today Reformation is popular not only because of their fashionable garments but because they have become a leader in sustainability in the fashion world.

The presentation by Kathleen and Carrie was very informative and engaging. The focus of the presentation was on the way Reformation is reducing its environmental footprint, and boy do they do a lot!

I found circularity, a part of the Tool Box (what sustainability looks like at Reformation), particularly interesting because I didn’t know much about it. Mission at Reformation is to slow down harmful textile waste by extending the life of every existing material. And when you look at facts that there are already enough textiles and garments in existence today to meet annual demand, that the volume of textile waste has increased by 40% between 1999 and 2009 and that we are buying 5 times the amount of garments than we did in 1980, it is obvious why circularity is important. Circularity is defined as looking beyond current take-make-dispose extractive business model and focusing on re-use and recycling to eliminate waste.

In 2015 Reformation developed a program called RefRecycle, which was designed to allow customers to donate unwanted garments. By partnering up with Community Recycling, all the garments returned would either be reused or recycled. The process was made extremely easy for the customer. All they have to do is long into their Reformation account print off a return label, place their unwanted garments into any box and schedule a pickup. However, while the idea of recycling garments no longer wanted was a great idea, Reformation found that the participation rate was lower than expected. And while they were honest enough to admit when something wasn’t working they still believed in the program enough to explore other options in order to make it work. And this is how Reformation teamed up with Thread Up. Thread Up is the largest e-commerce platform in the world that allows customers to sell unwanted clothing. Thread Up will buy back product that is resalable from customers and in return customers will be given cash or Reformation vouchers, this way customers are incentivized to recycle. By teaming up with Thread Up Reformation admitted that their initial program didn’t achieve the expected results and that they don’t have the platform to run such a program in-house. By trying new methods, thinking outside the box, they are able to achieve results.

Besides circularity, reformation focuses on backward model when it comes to design. Their designers and product development team work backwards, meaning they design for what’s on hand, rather than designing for  new materials and resources for particular styles. Additionally they follow very strict fiber standards from all stars (mostly natural fibers that are rapidly renewable such as organic linen and hemp), to never use (such as fur). These strict fiber standards were developed as a result of previous use of synthetic fibers, which were meant to be a part of the solution, but instead were part of the problem when it came to sustainability. Their factory is based in Los Angeles and this vertical integration allows them total control, meaning there are no minimums and they can do limited runs of garments which all allow speed to market.

One of the most intriguing things I have taken away from the presentation was that Reformation don’t have all the answers, and that some processes require trial and error, but that their focus is on continuous improvement and efforts that have the biggest impact. Even though Reformation is pushing the boundaries of what it means to be sustainable in a positive way, they are still setting goals to be better. One of their goals is that 75% of fibers used to make garments will come from all stars category or better than most category. Additionally another goal set for this year was to have 75% of garments to be hand or machine washed using cold water. Educational customer engagement was seen as imperative as the customer plays a critical role in the lifecycle of their garments.

The mission at Reformation is simple, to lead and inspire a sustainable way to be fashionable, with commitment to minimizing environmental impact as well as achieving fair, safe and healthy working conditions throughout the whole supply chain.

This should be a lesson for other businesses, small and large alike, that if you believe in doing the right thing, there is always a way. And if that isn’t a hopeful fashion future to look forward to I don’t know what is!