IN THIS INTERVIEW Eliina Brinkberg, CSR Manager and Ida Toll, Retail Design and Development Manager at Nudie Jeans head office in Gothenburg answered questions concerning sustainability and what changes they believe lie ahead regarding retail.
Eliina Brinkberg is the Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Nudie Jeans and has the overall responsibility to develop Nudie Jeans CSR work and to communicate it both externally and internally.
HOW DOES NUDIE JEANS DEFINE SUSTAINABILITY?
"Sustainability is for us to be responsible for the impact that our business makes on the environment. This includes everything from choosing the right type of material, which producers we work with to our offer of free repair service and our reselling of old jeans. Since 2012 we have a collection of denim made of 100 % organic cotton. We are very careful when we select suppliers and we demand high standards regarding their environmental and social conditions policies."
HOW DO NUDIE JEANS COMMUNICATE THEIR VISION?
"One way to communicate our philosophy is the fact that we call our shops repair shops. Consumers should use their jeans for a long time, take care of them and repair them instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. We also communicate our CSR work and the fact that it is possible to produce clothes in a sustainable way through our website and on social media. We regularly visit universities, attend branch meetings and talk about our approach to sustainability. We hope this inspires and contributes to future developments in the fashion industry."
HOW CAN EXISTING AND FUTURE TECHNOLOGY CONTRIBUTE TO SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS WITHIN THE FASHION INDUSTRY?
"We are very eager to see what technical development concerning recycling of cotton and other textile materials can bring.
Recycling cottonfibres from denim to new denim is today possible but the quality aspects are the challenging ones. Recycled cotton have shorter fibres which lower the quality and the durability of the fabric. We hope that technology will improve and meanwhile we keep collecting customer’s old jeans so by the time technology is in place we have resources to use.
Within the fashion industry there is a rapid development of resource-saving technologies, for example recycled water, energy efficient machines and a larger part of recycling “left over” materials.
I personally believe in a combination of a more sustainable consumption and a technical development that enables a much more environmentally adapted textile industry."
Ida toll is the Retail Design and Development Manager at Nudie Jeans. She is responsible for Nudie Jeans' shop concept globally.
HOW DO YOU ACTIVATE SUSTAINABILITY IN YOUR SHOPS?
"The most important and easiest way to explain it, is that we strongly believe that quality is equal to sustainability. We choose sustainable materials which have the capacity to be reused and recycled. Furthermore, we use vintage furniture in our shops to save resources and our lighting installations are, apart from vintage, exclusively LED in order to reduce energy. Perhaps the most sustainable energy and resource consumption is to avoid unnecessary refurbishing. When we set up for a new shop we do it with the ambition to save as much as possible from the original facility. New floors and painting walls are not always necessary."
HOW DO YOU INVOLVE YOUR CUSTOMERS IN YOUR IDEAS?
"We recommend our customers avoid washing their jeans! Our washing habits contribute to a major part of the energy consumption. Jeans that have not been exposed to any kind of pre-abrasion from the factory age most beautifully if they are worn for at least six months before they are washed. Not only do they last longer, the movement patterns appear as abrasions and wrinkles and the jeans becomes like a second skin. We recommend customers to wear their jeans for a long time, have them repaired and return them to the shop."
WE SEE TENDENCIES THAT DIGITALISATION IS CHALLENGING RETAIL. HOW DO YOU THINK THE FUTURE OF RETAIL WILL CHANGE?
"The hunt for omnichannels is constant. Omnichannel means putting the customer in focus making sure that the customer receives an equally good experience regardless of which channel he or she chooses in contact with the brand. The purchase does not only take place in the shop or online, but both. I believe that we are going to see more and more touch screens in the shops, offering consumers an increased number of choices.
In the physical shop it is possible to create experiences that evokes several senses at the same time in order to enhance the brand. Temperatures, humidity, sound, light and scent are some examples of this. However, this is still at the experimental stage and maybe not something that many brands are up for yet.
Personally, I think we will see more attempts to engage customers by offering a greater physical shopping experience. Not by doing the reality more digital – on the contrary – it needs to be more analogue. In a shop you can twist and turn a pair of jeans and feel the fabric instead of the ones the web shop has decided to show you. It will be an undirected shopping experience putting the consumer in command instead of a directed version. A higher level of awareness from consumers place higher demands on the fashion industry to produce sustainable high quality products".
Learn more at: www.nudiejeans.com