At Otrium, we are committed to a fashion industry where all clothing is worn. Our core mission is to connect excess inventory with its perfect owners, ensuring a win-win situation for brands and consumers alike, while preventing this unsold stock from finding its way into landfill. Alongside this mission, we aim to empower our customers to shop responsibly through our collaboration with Good on You, a leading impartial organisation that rates brands against three key criteria - labour rights, environmental impact and animal welfare. In line with this partnership, we are showcasing brands for whom conscious fashion is at the very heart of what they do.This month, we meet Amahlia Stevens, founder and CCO of Vitamin A.Sustainability: what does it mean to you? Our outlook is “sustainability is sexy.” We believe style and sustainability are inseparable and we commit to conscious fashion in all that we do. We adhere to our conscious goals through our fabric innovations, our packaging, our supply chains and manufacturing processes, and the quality of products that we create in the first place.Even our HQ reflects our commitment to sustainability, with every lightbulb having been replaced with an LED alternative, the use of solar cooling fans in our warehouse and ensuring that all of our water fixtures are low-flow. We also support our team working from home whenever possible — reducing pollution and trading community time for self-care. Tell us more about the Vitamin A journey and its founding philosophies.I grew up on the beaches of Southern California, so a love of nature (and bikinis) has always been in my DNA. Before launching Vitamin A, I was a creative consultant developing California brand and product stories for friends in the surf, skate, and snowboard industries for companies such as  Stüssy, DC Shoes, Levi Strauss and Co., and Patagonia. I was deeply inspired by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s mission to create microfleece fibers from melted down plastic bottles, and I figured I could do something similar for swimwear. Researching and developing the first premium swim fabric made from recycled nylon, EcoLux, set Vitamin A apart as a brand committed to sustainability.  Now I lead a team who also believes that style and sustainability are inseparable. Our bikinis and one-pieces are produced locally in California, and stay true to the original design and brand ethos, inspired by 70’s California beach style, that does better for our planet. Every piece in our collection is made from plant-based and recycled materials and we also give back to organizations that work to protect our oceans through our membership to 1% for the Planet. You are working with a lot of innovative, plant-based, and recycled materials. Which material are you working with the most, and which are you proudest of using? Can you tell us a bit more about them? We consider ourselves to be fabric fanatics and in 2010, we launched EcoLux, a super-fine matte jersey swim fabric made from recycled nylon fibers, to conserve natural resources, and LYCRA XTRA LIFE fiber, a material that gives a long-lasting fit and extends the life of your swimsuit beyond that of traditional spandex. Although we sell globally, this material is produced in California, allowing us to stay true to our roots. As a reference, this material uses 77% less water than virgin nylon and conserves energy in the production process. We also work with fabrics such as BioSculpt - a breathable swim fabric made from plant-based fibres - and  EcoTex - which similarly to EcoLux, is made from recycled nylon, with added Lycra. Working with sustainable materials is luckily becoming more mainstream in the swimwear industry, and we have continued to innovate in the years since developing EcoLux. Our newer collections feature bikinis made from materials such as castor beans and discarded plastic bottles.Our conscious mentality also extends to our packaging and all of our orders are shipped plastic-free in biodegradable and recyclable mailers. These are made from 90% post-consumer kraft paper and printed with biodegradable algae-based ink. Instead of shipping our bikinis in plastic bags, we use a fully biodegradable and backyard compostable paper material called Glassine, which is made from tree pulp and produced without chemical coatings. This is the same material that confectioners and European bakers use to wrap their food products.You are donating a portion of sales to environmental organizations working with ocean protection. Do you have any organizations that stay extra close to your hearts? As proud members of 1% for the Planet, we directly support organizations working on the ground to protect the environment. Some of our preferred causes are Oceana, One Tree Planted, Surfrider Foundation, and Women’s Earth Alliance. Can you tell us more about 1% for the Planet?1% for the Planet is an organization co-founded by Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia. It acknowledges that if brands take from the planet, they must also actively give back. They donate to causes such as Oceana, One Tree Planted, Women’s Earth Alliance, Surfrider Foundation, and Greenpeace, amongst others.Collectives such as Oceana and Surfrider, for example, work to protect and restore the world’s oceans and take care of their abundance and biodiversity. They do so by lobbying to create legislation that stops plastic waste at its source. One Tree Planted, meanwhile, focuses on planting trees and supporting biodiversity, while Women’s Earth Alliance provides leadership, strategy, and technical training for female leaders.The organizations that 1% for the Planet support mix people, planet and animal initiatives, and Vitamin A are proud to engage with them.You are producing most materials and products locally in California. What are the benefits of this? Our motto is ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’. The vast majority of our collection is manufactured locally in Southern California in an effort to reduce the emissions caused by shipping and transporting raw materials. In addition, California is subject to the strictest environmental laws in the United States, so by manufacturing here, we are bound by those. When this isn’t an option, we partner with fair trade artisan groups that promote women’s empowerment. When working with these groups, we endeavor to ensure the production of materials is ethical, the women are provided with fair wages, and that their working conditions are safe. We make sure to visit these factories and remain in constant contact with these partners to ensure that they are meeting the same high standards as the local factories.Tell us more about how you commit to sustainability within your supply chain.Within our manufacturing supply chain, we utilize waterless digital printing instead of traditional wet printing, which saves water, removes the use of and dramatically reduces fabric waste. Whenever possible, we work with vertically integrated facilities where everything from dyeing to knitting is done in one location, to reduce our carbon footprint. And since we mostly produce in California, which has the strictest environmental laws in the US, we and our manufacturing partners are held to the highest possible standards. How can your customers work with you to support the brand’s conscious goals?We develop our pieces to be built to last, meaning less waste overall. Beyond that, we encourage our customers to spot clean their items with an all-natural biodegradable soap and rinse in cold water. The unfortunate truth is that all synthetic fabrics, even recycled ones, shed microscopic particles when they’re agitated, so we advise that our garments are washed gently by hand in cold water. This is to minimize the potential of micro particles finding their way into our oceans and rivers.What do customers value most about the brand and products? Our customers come to Vitamin A because we combine sustainable innovation with high-quality fabrics and fit. We also design for women, by women, meaning that we have an inherent understanding of the types of designs that will both flatter and deliver excellent performance and longevity.What brand values do you want to be known for? We want to be known as the brand that brought sustainability to the swim industry while creating a community of female allyship and inclusivity. What is one thing you hope other fashion brands will learn from your journey?So many new swim brands are using recycled fabrics and so many top-level fabric mills are now offering sustainable alternatives to traditional nylon swim fabrics. This was simply not the case when I started, but now many established brands are switching over. It's clear that the future of fashion is sustainability and I hope I am doing my part to influence my tiny segment of the industry.

At Otrium, we are committed to a fashion industry where all clothing is worn. Our core mission is to connect excess inventory with its perfect owners, ensuring a win-win situation for brands and consumers alike, while preventing this unsold stock from finding its way into landfill. Alongside this mission, we aim to empower our customers to shop responsibly through our collaboration with Good on You, a leading impartial sustainability organisation that rates brands against three key criteria - labour rights, environmental impact and animal welfare. In line with this partnership, we are showcasing brands for whom sustainability is at the very heart of what they do.This month, we meet Bendetta Pompetzki, CSR Manager at erlich textil. This German brand produces lingerie and home textiles with a focus on extra comfort in every possible way. Sustainability: what does it mean to you?For us at erlich textil, sustainability is not just a buzzword, but our corporate core. Social and ecological responsibility is at the forefront of all of our actions and decisions. This "green thread", as we call it, flows through the entire value chain. Whenever we see an opportunity to make things more environmentally friendly, fairer, or more efficient, we will do so. As a company, we’re still not perfect, but we place social and ecological sustainability at the centre of all we do and are continuing to develop in this area. Where did the journey of erlich textil start?The company was founded in 2016 by Sarah Grohé and Benjamin Sadler. The two of them had, and still have, one goal in mind: to produce lingerie and home textiles with fair supply chains at honest prices. They wanted to provide an all-around feeling of well-being without a guilty conscience. Fairness, sustainability, and a positive working environment are particularly close to our hearts as a company and team. As well as sustainability credentials, erlich works with classic timeless styles and cuts, rather than fast-changing trends, and our products are size- and age-inclusive, so that they can be worn by everyone.  This core value of supporting body neutrality and empowerment has been part of the erlich textil journey from the beginning.  You have a collaboration with FEMNET e.V. where you collect money to prevent child labour, gender-specific violence and to improve working conditions for women in areas such as Southern  India. Can you tell us a bit more about this collaboration?In the last two years, we have again donated part of our proceeds from the Black Friday Weekend to FEMNET e.V.. We  want to offer consumers a sustainable alternative to all the fast and ultra-fast fashion offers associated with Black Friday, and support social projects with our profits during this time. FEMNET is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works in the most vulnerable areas, namely with at-risk groups  of people worldwide, such as children and women. It delivers projects around human and worker rights in textile supply chains in areas such as Southern India or Myanmar.  We want to support their important work on these urgent issues at  a global level. In 2020, we raised almost 40,000 euros, which we donated to a project in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. This project is run by the organisation, SAVE, who are helping establish and better equip Local Complaint Committees for incidents of sexual abuse and harassment. In 2021, we raised almost 45.000 euros. This was distributed among  several different projects. The Myanmar emergency fund benefited trade unionists and textile workers who depend on outside help to continue to exist. Another donation was made to a legal aid fund in India and Bangladesh, which supports workers in enforcing their human and worker rights. The organisation SAVE supported homeworkers to officially organise within the trade union Anukatham, representing circa 200,000 informal workers. Lastly, the awareness campaign #eintshirtzumleben aims to draw attention to the precarious situation of women in the textile industry in the Global South and to make consumers rethink their approach to fashion. There are still donations left to be made and we will update this when it is set. What are you working on regarding sustainability at the moment?At the moment we are working on our Impact Report 2020/2021, as well as looking at supply chain transparency for each and every single product of ours. This will be done through leveraging  retraced, the blockchain tool we work with. We’re also preparing for a certification audit, CO2 calculations, improvement of our  packaging from an environmental standpoint, onboarding of new suppliers and regular assessments of all existing suppliers. Can you tell us more about your recycling system for old clothing and materials?Our responsibility does not end with the customer's purchase. We are also interested in the dirty, post-consumer details, such as disposal, care and reuse. We inform our customers about these topics through an informative guide. We have also developed a waste hierarchy that defines criteria on how clothes can be recycled so that we can reuse defective or worn-out goods. A milestone for us is the introduction of a take-back system, which is already in the works. Here we are working with a selected recycling partner, I:Collect GmbH, to efficiently send in, sort, and reuse damaged or worn-out goods from our customers. Where do you see your brand in 5 years? - What do you want to have achieved by then? Our goal as a company is to continue to make a positive contribution to society by promoting production practices and consumer behaviour that focuses on people and nature, both locally and globally. We want to continue focusing on the accessibility and timelessness of our products, diversity, and representation in our communication, and education and raising awareness around  fashion issues and social engagement.  What will the perfect future of the fashion industry look like?A perfect future for the fashion world is one in which apparel brands must fully disclose and communicate openly, regularly, and demonstrably about their supply chains, including status quo, progress, and regress in their social and environmental sustainability. Hopefully it is a world where brands' sourcing practices do not exert price pressure that negatively impacts the wages and labour rights of workers in textile supply chains. Brands should also  work together more to improve working and environmental conditions in factories around the world, and  companies should know not only their direct suppliers, but the entire supply chain from the agricultural gathering points onwards, and work towards social and environmental justice on this front. Greenwashing should be prohibited by law, claims should be verified and false claims should be sanctioned. Every company should demonstrate that it is meeting its corporate responsibility throughout the supply chain. Other problems we have today such as overproduction and petroleum derivatives will  hopefully decrease to an extremely limited extent, if they exist at all. I think that Lifecycle Assessments should be used on a product level - both for natural virgin fibres and textile materials. A perfect world of fashion is one in which companies dedicate a significant portion of their profits to a holistic social and ecological sustainability strategy that is not just a greenwashing tool.  What is one thing you hope others will learn from your journey?erlich textil aims to offer ecologically and socially sustainable alternatives in the fashion world to inspire change. Contrary to the fast fashion industry that is responsible for high emissions, overproduces, generates waste, and creates social inequality globally, the erlich philosophy is to create high-quality clothing within transparent and fair supply chains at honest prices and with timeless designs. We hope that we can inspire others to follow this aspiration. It’s not about being perfect, but about trying your best and countering the logic of fast fashion which is focusing merely on profits instead of humans and nature.  You have a very transparent and informative website with interesting facts e.g. covering certifications that you use. What importance do you think these certifications have in  the fashion industry?There are now an incredible variety of certifications, labels, and multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI) out there, within the textile sector. Labels can refer to many different criteria such as pollutants and chemicals, biodiversity, natural resources, energy consumption, waste and wastewater, soils, and animal welfare. Also social criteria such as working conditions and the prohibition of child and forced labour are an integral part of sustainability. In order to give the best overview  of social and ecological aspects within our value chain, some certifications can be a good and needed proxy for verification, especially considering the complexity of supply chains. We always carefully check which certifications, labels, and MSI memberships are necessary for our value chain. We have chosen some that are particularly trustworthy, perform well in benchmarking and try to provide information to our customers about what these comprise and mean.  What’s the most important aspect you keep in mind when shopping for sustainable fashion? I always ask myself the question one of my parents would ask me as a teen: “Do you really need it?”. I shop by this quote and always ask myself twice whether I need this piece and if I really will wear it as often as I believe at that specific moment. Naturally, I also like to check the brand’s sustainability claims on their webpage and sustainability reports. 

At Otrium, we are committed to a fashion industry where all clothing is worn. Our core mission is to connect excess inventory with its perfect owners, ensuring a win-win situation for brands and consumers alike, while preventing this unsold stock from finding its way into landfill. Alongside this mission, we aim to empower our customers to shop responsibly through our collaboration with Good on You, a leading impartial sustainability organisation that rates brands against three key criteria - labour rights, environmental impact and animal welfare. In line with this partnership, we are showcasing brands for whom sustainability is at the very heart of what they do.This month, we meet Sofia Tahiri, CEO and Co-Founder of French sportswear brand Kysal, whose contemporary designs and technical fabrications are underpinned at every step by a commitment to more sustainable practices. What does sustainability mean to you?For me, sustainability is a holistic way of being. It’s about how I live my private life being as sustainable as how Kysal is run. I didn’t always feel like this, but I was thinking of starting a family and realised that I needed to be more conscious about the kind of world my children would be inheriting. Launching Kysal was a bit of a revelation for me in terms of wanting to live more consciously. I used to buy a lot of clothes in multiple different colours. Now I try to shop more responsibly by buying more expensive basics that will last - an outlook that I’ve brought into how Kysal creates its own season-agnostic lines. Beyond this, the personal mirrors the professional - I try to take short showers and have banished plastic bags from our home. Similarly, I run Kysal in a manner that is mindful of consumption and the kinds of materials we use. The two worlds are completely linked. Tell us more about the brand!I founded Kysal more than four years ago. I had just returned from a six-month university exchange programme in New York and was fascinated by the way that athletic wear was so ubiquitous in American wardrobes. When I was on my way to study, I had to walk past a gym, and noticed that people were going in in sportswear, but then those leaving would still be wearing activewear to go about their day. This way of dressing simply wasn’t the norm in France. When I returned home, I wanted to recreate this type of clothing but for a specifically French sensibility. In the US, there’s a more extravagant approach to dressing with really vibrant colours, whereas the French tend to have a more classic colour palette. The result was that I needed to make athletic classics with a twist, to bridge the gap stylistically. I also wanted the Kysal brand to have a strong sense of ethical responsibility, and was inspired by businesses such as Organic Basics - although they didn’t have sportswear within their collection at the time. Tell us more about the start of the journey?My biggest fear was creating the brand alone, but I didn’t have to look far because I found the perfect support in my husband. He believed in me and in this project, so we launched the brand together just as we were coming back from our honeymoon. There were challenges along the path, with the biggest one being facing our fear and quitting both of our jobs at the same time. We realised that the brand would need our full dedication and focus if it was going to work. Running a clothing label is not the sort of thing you can do at night and on your weekends. Letting everything else go all at once was a major leap of faith, but it was so worth it.What achievement are you proudest of?There were opportunities to produce our garments overseas for less, but we wanted to ensure a positive impact throughout the whole value chain by having 100% of our production in Europe. It was ethically important to us for a few reasons, with one of the big drivers being that we now only need to transport product by road, rather than by plane. We have also minimised the distances that these journeys cover by working within a relatively limited area within Europe, with the aim to lower our emissions. Part of the first collection was made in Morocco, but now with a view to minimising our footprint, our fabrics come from Italy or Portugal. Production takes place in Porto, while our warehouse is in France. It was necessary for us to undertake production in Porto due to the specialist technical skillsets our providers have there in terms of working with our recycled polyester material. We have also reduced the number of intermediaries in our value chain to the smallest number possible, which allows us to deliver the best quality we can at the fairest prices, for all involved. Lastly, it is worth noting that we endeavour to produce items that are seasonless classics that can be worn for lengthy periods of time. We wanted to create items that were less about seasons and trends and more about durability. The French market tends to favour classic taste, with many preferring to buy quality over quantity. This allowed us to work easily with more classic, basic lines that we sell throughout the year, therefore minimising overproduction. We also run small pop-up collections such as our Yogi Fit capsule. These are limited run projects that feature a small number of pieces, again to fit with our wishes to move away from overproduction. How do you pick the best and most sustainable materials for your clothing? We aim to use natural and organic fabrics wherever possible, and also work extensively with lyocell, a material made from wood fibres. We also use bamboo in the production of some of our garments - for example, a recent yoga line we designed. The benefit of working with bamboo is that, as a fast growing plant, it’s easy to replenish the supply that you consume quickly. One of our ongoing product development challenges is finding natural fabrics that conform to body shapes and maintain a tight fit, as required in sport. For this reason, we also work with recycled polyester when developing our lines. The polyester we use is sourced from a company that reclaims bottles from the ocean. We work with a specialist in the field who has allowed us to use this material as a type of yarn that we use to knit our garments. Through doing this, we have no excess fabric as we only work with the amounts required for each garment. The items are also seamless - similar to tights and stockings - meaning not only are we conserving material resources, but they’re also extremely comfortable as athletic wear, due to seams not rubbing. Lastly, all of our products are OEKO-TEX certified, meaning they do not contain substances that are harmful to either the environment or the body. Where do you see your brand in five years? What do you want to have achieved by then? I have so many new ideas! Five years from now, I would love to have a bigger team working with me to create more products, including collections for men and teens, that stay true to our brand vision. We would like to be carried by more retailers, to make our product accessible to everyone, as well as having a store of our own where we can really showcase the brand vision. What is one thing you hope others learn from your work?There is often resistance to trusting small labels, with many people waiting until there’s significant brand recognition before buying from a company. However, when buying from small independents, you can be sure that everything that’s created has a personal touch and is made with real heart. Also, don’t be afraid to move away from trends and consume more consciously. Lastly, it’s important to believe that anything is possible with hard work. Even if you don’t succeed, see it as a lesson, not a failure.