Sustainability has become one of the most important issues in the global fashion industry. Looking to China, young fashion consumers are paying increasing attention to sustainable concepts, but which local companies are practicing sustainable concepts and what kind of sustainable products are they producing?
Case 1 ICICLE
Start from the most controversial category – jeans
The production of traditional denim has a huge impact on the environment in terms of water consumption and sewage discharge. In the field of sustainability, it can be said that denim is the least environmentally friendly fashion item after fur and is often criticized. But on the other hand, denim is a classic, easy-to-wear fashion item with a youthful, street-like feel. ICICLE, a clothing brand that is committed to pursuing the harmonious coexistence of man and nature and uses mostly natural materials, launched the 2021 spring and summer women’s environmentally friendly denim series in February this year. It is worth noting that this is the third time the brand has launched this series. As early as April 2019, Zhihe launched an environmentally friendly denim series. The denim fabric at that time used 40% cotton certified by BCI (Swiss Better Cotton Development Association). The fabric originated from Parco Del Ticino near the Italian nature reserve. town, while saving water by using only pre-reduced indigo dye. In April 2020, Zhihe officially joined The Jeans Re design, and launched the Zhihe X The Jeans Re design environmentally friendly denim series in September. The new series launched this time is made of environmentally friendly cotton, including indigo and primary colors. For the indigo model, Zhihe has adopted innovative indigo dyeing technology – N-DENIM nitrogen dyeing technology and INDIGO JUICE easy-fading dyeing technology, which reduces the dye liquor ratio during the dyeing process, further saving water consumption, and enabling the dye to be The natural polymer chitosan, which penetrates into the yarn to prevent fading and is obtained from recycled food residues, replaces the chemical agents commonly used in the original production process and also reduces water and energy consumption. The original color denim series uses undyed environmentally friendly plantation cotton base fabric, with traces of natural and primitive cotton seed shells vaguely visible. Since its inception, Zhihe has used natural raw materials such as cashmere, wool, linen, silk and cotton as the core materials of clothing, and used natural dyes from plants to reduce the harm of harmful chemicals to the human body. In the field of sustainability, Zhihe chose denim – the launch of environmentally friendly products in this single category shows the brand’s determination to practice sustainability; on the other hand, it also allows the denim series to become a platform for the brand to reach more young consumers. window.
Case 2 ERDOS Ordos
Use Italian fabric factory directly The named series
is committed to “giving cashmere the meaning of fashion”. Ordos began formulating the “ERDOS WAY” at the end of 2017 to promote sustainable changes in the cashmere industry, and officially launched it in 2019 release. Since then, Ordos Group has launched a series of measures in terms of sustainability: such as building ultra-fine cashmere pastures, protecting and breeding goat breeds, supporting herders, introducing new technologies and production models, and communicating the concept of sustainable development with consumers at retail terminals. . In the sustainable transformation and reform of the fashion industry, a prominent feature is that the visibility of upstream supply chain companies has been rapidly increased, and they have even moved to the front desk to face consumers directly. In March 2020, Ordos once again cooperated with the Italian fabric factory Bonotto since 2019 to launch the BONOTTO Gardening series named after the fabric factory, using its innovatively developed “BONOTTO GARDENING” environmentally friendly series of products to make ready-made garments. The fabrics produced by Bonotto are mainly worsted woolen fabrics and have many unique fabric technologies, such as silk protein finishing (silk protein finishing), enzyme treatment (enzyme treatment) and carbon-diamond brushing (carbon diamond brushing). In addition, Bonotto also uses many traditional fabric spinning techniques to produce various retro-style fabrics. Bonotto adheres to the concept of “Slow Plant” and abandons the industrial low-cost, standardized production method. All production machines are manually operated and automated production is abandoned. Unlike most other companies, the Bonotto Group directly manages every production step of its products and provides fabrics for many well-known brands around the world. In China, clothing companies Giffen and Masfil, and designer Gao Yang have cooperated with it. This new series of fabrics uses polyester yarn made from recycled plastic bottles and post-industrial processing. The steps of recycling plastic bottles, turning them into yarn and weaving them are 100% made in Italy, adhering to the strict regulations of global recycling standards. Ordos said that every kilogram of yarn produced from recycled materials can reduce 32% of carbon dioxide emissions, save 94% of water resources, and reduce 60% of electricity consumption compared with polyester fiber yarns that do not use recycled materials.
Case 3 ERDOS Ordos
Choose for the sustainable series Celebrity spokesperson
Just like the articleAs mentioned by ��, young people pay more attention to the topic of sustainability. In the autumn and winter of 2019, Ordos launched a special series with sustainable fashion as the core concept – the Good Series. The series includes six product categories, recycled cashmere, yak cashmere, undyed cashmere, self-cleaning cashmere sweaters, and fully formed sweaters. and traceable cashmere launched in 2020. In October 2020, Ordos announced that singer Hua Chenyu would be the brand’s first “good” spokesperson, jointly advocating the concept of sustainable fashion. Hua Chenyu is extremely influential among the younger generation, and his official Weibo quickly received more than 1 million retweets. , more than 600,000 comments and 960,000 likes. In the same month, the Ordos “Be Good to the World” themed press conference was held in Shanghai. Wang Zhen, chairman and general manager of Ordos Resources Co., Ltd., Hua Chenyu, the good spokesperson, contributors to the good industry chain, and people from all walks of life who care about sustainable fashion attended the event. Explore the sustainability topic in the fashion industry from different dimensions. Ordos said that he hopes that through the lifestyle and attitude conveyed by kindness, as well as the excellent wisdom of harmonious coexistence between humans and all things in the world, he calls on more people to recognize the relationship between fashion consumption patterns and the environment, and to practice together to be kind to the world. In January 2020, Erdos launched a joint series with Hua Chenyu – Marsper There is also a look of pride.
Case 4 EP YAYING Yaying
Relying on China’s origin , Sustainability + Public Welfare
In the autumn and winter of 2020, EP YAYING relies on the east-west industrial collaboration between “Jiaxing, Zhejiang and Aba, Sichuan” to launch a new season of sustainable yak down series. In 2018, Yaying launched the concept of “tracing back to the source” and determined the promotion of sustainable fashion from the perspective of raw materials. Yaying searched for high-quality natural raw materials on the spot across the country. After tracing the origin of raw materials such as mulberry silk, cotton, linen, and velvet, Yaying established that it would start from yak plush, a material for innovative development and in-depth application. Yak mainly lives on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is the only mammal that can live above 5,000 meters above sea level and can withstand severe cold temperatures of -30°~-40°. Yak plush is therefore extremely precious and is known as “Plateau Snow Velvet”. The warmth of yak plush is 30% higher than that of wool, its air permeability is 1.6 times that of cashmere, and its fiber strength is 1.5 times that of cashmere. It has good toughness, high strength, and is better than cashmere in moisture resistance. However, as a special fiber material, yak plush has not been used much in the fashion industry before. In each collection, only about 25% of the short velvet is truly suitable for use in clothing, 35% is impurities removed during washing, and 40% is long hair that cannot be used if its thickness exceeds a certain standard. Yaying established a research and development project team for the comprehensive utilization of yak plush, working with partners upstream and downstream of the industry chain to excavate and improve it. At the same time, it began to develop and comprehensively utilize the “long hair” resources that had been neglected and discarded. Yaying’s sustainable yak velvet series also returns to the traditional garment-making process, which goes through six processes of wool blending, carding, spinning, winding, stitching, and double twisting, without any chemical treatment, reducing ecological pollution. This time, Yaying also specially invited brand friend and well-known actress Tan Zhuo to jointly promote yak plush and the warm story behind it to the public. Yaying Group stated that it can better protect the grassland ecology, give Tibetan herders a more prosperous life, and allow the Tibetan yak culture to be passed on.
For the global fashion industry, sustainability is the most strategic challenge. Facing such challenges requires Determination and perseverance require broadening horizons, understanding and learning from best practices in China and overseas, and actively engaging in sincere dialogue with consumers. </p
