What Eileen Fisher is Doing Right for the Environment
On May 17th, 2016, Eileen Fisher visited The New School in New York City to have a chat with Hazel Clark, a professor of Design and Fashion. The topic of discussion was Fisher’s thriving business that emphasizes sustainable fashion.
Growing up in a big family, Fisher had her share of struggles. Being one out of six children, Fisher had little financial support from her parents. She had to work as a waitress to support herself through university, but eventually she graduated with a major in Interior Design. In 1973 she moved to New York City where she tried working as an interior designer and graphic artist. By 1984 she started up her own company, Eileen Fisher Inc., a woman’s clothing brand known for its “simplicity, sustainability, and great design.” Since her first retail store opened in 1986, Fisher has made remarkable strides in the fashion industry and towards bringing about a more environmentally-friendly future. Through the company’s recycling program, Fisher has helped bring awareness to sustainable fashion.
Fisher began her journey in this industry by drawing inspiration from the Japanese Kimono. Widely distributed, the basic cardigan is a descendant of the aforementioned silhouette. The kimono is like a uniform, it’s timeless and traditionally made out of natural fibers such as cotton, linen, or silk. In general, her brand is about creating these timeless, capsule collection, where all the color palettes and silhouettes complement each other.
By creating capsule collections, Fisher promotes slow fashion, a movement against the mega-capitalist fast fashion. Trends within the fast fashion cycle are so quick, clothing items possibly be worn once or twice before it’s no longer in “fashion.” The life of a trendy item can be short-lived, and end up in our overfilling low-capacity landfills. One solution is to refrain from impulse buying and think about where our clothes is coming from and where they are going to end up.
Fisher has come up with multiple solutions to the problem we are facing. Created by Fisher, “Green Eileen,” a separate store from her original brand that repurposes previously loved clothes into something new and exciting. The purpose of this program is to encourage customers to donate their “gently-used” Eileen Fisher Inc. items so that they may be recycled and/or resold. The benefits of this program include a cleaner closet, less textile waste going to landfills and a second chance for clothing items to be loved again.
All 9 of Green Eileen locations host up-cycling workshops that can help people learn to mend and to repair their damaged clothes. Participants can also learn fun activities like felting or other important “How To’s” like sewing a button or hand washing a sweater. With these workshops, the up-cycling possibilities are endless.
Transparency is also another important topic of discussion in the fashion revolution- ”Who are the Makers behind our clothes?” “Are the workers paid fairly?” “Are they in a safe work environment?”
In the fashion industry, majority of companies produce their merchandise overseas in Asia or Europe because factories overseas offer competitive pricing. Fisher was honest about how approximately 80% of Eileen Fisher’s merchandise is produced in China, and approximately 20% is produced in the U.S. because of that reason.
Another area of transparency, she addressed, is the material the designers chose to use, how it gets processed, and its impact. Fisher emphasizes that it’s important to know what is happening at each step of the supply chain of materials. For example, rayon is a mixture of raw materials that can be made into fabric. The company tries to trace the rayon and pinpoint where it has been. Materials can also include recycled polyester. By 2020, if the tracing is inconclusive, they will stop using the unidentifiable rayon. She aspires to slowly ween off dependency in China and on untraceable rayon.
Eileen Fisher is walking toward the future of fashion with more conscious steps creating a revolution of transparency and sustainability. I think more companies should follow in her footsteps
For more information visit:
Trying to make a difference one post at a time
Joanne Kim
Revised by Addie Leung