It is becoming a well-known fact that the fashion industry is the second-largest polluter in the world but while working in corporate luxury fashion for over ten years I had blinders on to the massive environmental impact of my industry...
I, along with countless other consumers and industry insiders, just simply hadn’t been awoken to the devastating impact. I observed the unsustainable rate at which new collections were demanded from brands – more is more became the mantra with the onset of fast fashion – but I thought of this more from the perspective of the demand on the designers as well as the inventory management complexities. It truly wasn’t until I had my first baby five years ago that everything about the industry and my role within it came into sharper focus. As they say, becoming a mother can change everything and within weeks of his birth, I knew I didn’t want to go back to a role which perpetuated consumerism without a conscience. I felt that we were on the precipice of requiring innovative solutions to rethink our engagement with fashion and I wanted to ensure that I was contributing to a better future for my children.
Founder of Retykle Sarah Garner
Through my own confrontation with bursting closets of outgrown baby clothes, I became interested in creating a circular fashion model that could present secondhand as a desirable option for the most stylish of parents and children. It was important to me to create aspiration and a badge of eco-honour associated with secondhand so that it didn’t feel like a compromise for anyone who participated in buying or selling.
For me, sustainability starts with reducing consumption and choosing high-quality items. I’ve always lived by less is more in my personal wardrobe and have invested in timeless pieces that I don’t tire of wearing. This likely stemmed from sitting at countless runway shows seeing so many trends swoosh by and become out of fashion in a blink. For kids, we can’t exactly abide by minimalism when they outgrow every item that comes before them, hence the need for creative solutions for managing their wardrobes to avoid disposal. The average child speeds through at least 1500 items of clothing before they are fully grown. How you choose to dress your children can be one of the biggest impacts you can have on your and their environmental footprint. When it comes to making the initial purchase decision, the sustainable choice is to choose something that will outlast your child’s wear and avoid buying from fast fashion brands which have much lower durability.
Propelled by a growing consumer conscience, the fashion industry is moving towards more sustainable objectives and sustainability is at the core of our ambition at Retykle. As the largest online resale platform for kids, we want to make life easier for parents, not only easier on their wallets but on their ability to make a positive change to their community and the environment. With the resale market, we have the opportunity to avoid increasing volumes of fashion in landfill as well as give parents a higher quality alternative to budget-friendly disposable fast fashion. We have an opportunity to drastically change the relationship children have with their clothing, impacting future generations with the aim of “Sustainability in Fashion” no longer being a topic of conversation but a way of life.