Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
Supported by
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
Organizers of Copenhagen Fashion Week have created sustainability requirements for participating designers with the goal of setting a new industry standard.
By Daniel Penny
Fashion weeks are wasteful. One 15-minute runway presentation in Paris, London, Milan or New York can take six months to create, and moments after the lights come up and the music stops, much gets tossed into the garbage: the paper invites, plastic water bottles, leftover food and a lot more.
And then there is the travel. Researchers measured the impact of buyers and designers traveling to attend international shows during four major fashion seasons and found the amount of carbon emitted in one year was about 241,000 tons — or equivalent to the energy used to light up the Eiffel Tower for 3,060 years.
But the organizers of Copenhagen Fashion Week, which begins this week, are trying to set a new industry standard in a business that is largely self-governed.
After a decade of positioning itself as a fashion week and community that advocated sustainability, organizers of the small Danish fashion week are making concrete attempts to require it. These reforms apply to both the event itself (including carbon credits to offset the travel of attendees), as well as to the 28 brands that are participating in the official schedule, such as Ganni, Helmstedt and Stine Goya. Beyond the runway, designers must meet 18 requirements around materials, labor and business practices.Brands that do not meet the requirements are not allowed to participate.
“We don’t want guidelines. We need to ultimately, at some point, say ‘no’ to someone because they don’t live up to our standards,” said Nicolaj Reffstrup, the former chief executive officer of the Danish fashion brand Ganni and a member of Copenhagen Fashion Week’s sustainability advisory board. “That’s when you prove that you’re serious about it.”
Copenhagen’s standards are based on the United Nations’ sustainable development goals and were created with input from a panel of international experts and consultants. They include a promise to use textiles made from at least 50 percent certified, deadstock, upcycled, recycled, preferred or new-generation materials. Designers must not destroy unsold clothes, as brands like Burberry and H&M have been criticized for doing in the past, and they must commit to exercising due diligence in their supply chains to ensure that factories are safe and free of child labor.
Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
