The fashion and textile industry that entrepreneur and businesswoman, Veronica Chou knows today is different from what it was yesterday — and newly launched eco-friendly, inclusive women’s brand Everybody & Everyone aims to exemplify that.
Everybody & Everyone hopes to simplify the lives of the wearer, while prioritizing every body, with an assortment of elevated and versatile essentials ranging from sizes 00 to 24. But within the 23 styles, there are multiple ways of wearing each. And fabric innovations encourage garments to be washed less — even the workout gear.
The brand is “thinking about sustainability from the very beginning,” according to Chou, who is the founder and chief executive officer of the company, even being one of the initial signatories of the Kering-led Fashion Pact — now numbering 56 signatories. The pact was formed during the G7 Summit hosted by France in the city of Biarritz earlier this year.
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That’s on top of launching as a carbon-neutral brand and partnering with renewable energy firm 3Degrees, which aided in offsetting all of the brand’s pre-launch activities which were unavoidable.
“I want the brand to be a friend, a shoulder to lean on and a source of information,” said Chou, describing Everybody & Everyone. WWD sat down with the founder to delve further into the brand’s sustainable ethos, even highlighting how the brand’s priorities and objectives are different in regards to the industry her father, fashion financier and industry textile veteran, Silas Chou, knew.
For Chou, this starts at the fabric mills, investing in eco-innovative materials and processes, looking to nearby factories to cut down on transportation costs and emissions, as well as producing in the U.S.
“Transparency is important,” Chou said. “Companies need to go back and talk to their suppliers and manufacturers,” she added. She hopes the industry will see the economic and environmental advantages in acting more sustainably.
With consultancy firms such as Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Co. projecting rising costs in labor, energy and raw materials. “The more people that are doing things the right way, the more affordable prices and fabric options there will be,” Chou added.
For Everybody & Everyone, reaching commitments across the life cycle of products means stringent attention to the fiber, raw material and end of use phases at the stockkeeping unit level. And as Chou mentioned, collaboration is key to achieving that.
First and foremost, the brand vets its factory partners for eco-certifications. In engineering its products, Everybody & Everyone collaborated with cashmere and wool brand Naadam for its natural and bio-based materials used in its sweaters and Spanish B-corp Ecoalf to create the brand’s signature puffer coat from reclaimed ocean plastic bottles.
Material innovation can be seen across categories: with a top, blazer, pants and leggings made from fermented sugar from agriculture waste; recycled silver-infused T-shirts, sweatshirts and sweatpants for odor-resistant properties, and water-based stain-resistant treatments applied to encourage less washing.
More specifically, the material innovations include Ecovero viscose, Tencel Lyocell, Profits Fund Mulberry silk, Gots-certified organic cotton and a bio-fiber created from sugar extracted from agricultural waste.
Circular initiatives such as a take-back program are made possible by a partnership with I:CO recycling, allowing Everybody & Everyone’s customers to download a free shipping label and return any item to I:CO whereby items will be recycled into a similar product or down-cycled into insulation, or otherwise.
Chou said that no toxic dyes are used with many fabrics not being dyed at all (and all dyes or rather pigments are certified eco-friendly to the highest standards available from Reach, Oeko-Tex and Bluesign). All garments are made to be worn in more ways and washed less.
“We’ve been able to check a lot of the boxes — even down to the buttons and packaging,” she reiterated. And in some instances, a heat seal is able to be used (e.g. T-shirts) omitting the need for extra labels.
Cho already touts credibility in green investments, leading the investment of brands including: a Canadian company called Carbon Engineering, which is focused on large-scale capture of atmospheric carbon dioxide; Thousand Fell, a soon-to-be-launching circular shoe brand; The Tot, non-toxic product innovation for babies; Dirty Labs, a home and laundry care brand focusing on user safety, efficacy and environmental responsibility launching next year.
For More Sustainability News, See:
Two Dozen Companies Join Kering-Led Fashion Pact