“I’ve already reached out to our team in Italy and said: ‘These are the three things I would like to try to do. So, I don’t want to get to that point - I want to do sewing trials, I want to make sure we give our sustainability team enough time to vet the materials, so that by the time we’re ready to make the garments, we feel really confident that we’re going to like the product,” she says.Īs an example, she previously wouldn’t have started planning her Autumn/Winter 2024 collection until the summer, she says. “If we don’t like the way the fabric is sewing, or we’ve selected something and fallen in love with it and it doesn’t pass our vetting, often there’s no other options. She needs time to research and develop the right materials, and to run trials and produce samples with enough time to find a workaround if it doesn’t turn out right, without compromising on the brand’s values. The biggest shift is all about timing, and how much farther in advance she starts working on a collection. The learning curve during Giardina’s first year at Another Tomorrow has been “completely vertical”, she says: “There are considerations I’ve never had in the past.” Working with a flexible vision, and a lot of extra time However, some younger startups have managed to only work with suppliers that meet their standards and have developed a base of customers seeking those values. Established brands face challenges such as overhauling massive supply chains, for cotton or wool for example, and educating their customers about shifts in manufacturing practices and why they’re important. While sustainability strategies are common in fashion now, the work looks different at established brands that are striving, some with impressive speed and scale, to reform and improve existing supply chains and operations, than it does at brands founded with certain values in place from the start. Speaking the day after her one-year anniversary at Another Tomorrow, Giardina reflects on what is different about working at a brand like Another Tomorrow - which has put sustainability first since its founding in 2018 - compared to working at brands that operate under the industry’s more traditional production model. The company wants to prove it’s also possible to keep that list of values intact, rather than picking and choosing specific issues, whether it’s agricultural practices or labour standards, based on availability or cost. Luxury itself is out of reach for average consumers, and while many brands, luxury included, take on new sustainability initiatives one at a time, Another Tomorrow says it aims to show it’s possible to deliver the whole package: fashionable, high-end products that are made in alignment with the ethical and environmental criteria that so many brands and customers say they value. While it’s unlikely that Another Tomorrow will shift that perception, there’s potential to shift the larger context. On the flip side, fashion marketed as eco-friendly has often been criticised as being elitist and out-of-reach for the average consumer - just as products in the food sector, among others, have been. It could become less rare, if Another Tomorrow is successful in modelling a future for what the fashion industry could look like, something that Giardina says the team talks regularly about trying to do. The career move is a reminder of how rarely the worlds of high fashion and sustainable-first fashion meet.
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