Fashion brand Eileen Fisher has always been a pioneer of sustainability in the clothing industry, but now, the company is doing more than taking responsibility for much of its fashion footprint. A new zero-waste initiative called “Waste No More” is merging architects with designers and ethics with business, creatively tied together with an oversized sustainable bow to bring more awareness to the importance of being more conscious of the massive environmental impact that the fashion industry continues to have on the planet.
Since 1984, Eileen Fisher has been creating garments made to sustain the test of time, along with a conscious effort to protect social and environmental rights by creating a buy-back program that has collected more than one million garments in just 10 years to upcycle them into eco-preferred products. But for this brand, that has only been the beginning. The Waste No More initiative is threefold and includes a new campaign, a redesigned store, and a new exhibition in Milan launching in early April.
“Textiles and apparel have a huge environmental impact—and our industry’s current model is unsustainable,” says Fisher. “We’re using up natural resources faster than they can be renewed. We’re making more and more stuff. And after each season, we toss out the old and move onto what’s next. Where does this mountain of used and unsold clothes go?”
A mountain of waste. Photo: Courtesy of Eileen Fisher
With Waste No More, the goal is making the planet better through the creation of fashion instead of continuing to deplete its resources. “We want to create an industry that actually helps restore the planet,” she says. “For us, it all starts with taking responsibility for what we make—and where it ends up. We believe the future is circular.”
The initiative will cater to just about everyone, from consumers to corporate offices and public spaces, where unusable scraps from produced clothing will be created into new garments, cushions, textiles, and even acoustic panels used in various spaces throughout the country. The idea behind the creation of these new materials is developing new technology that decreases the environmental impact overall, like a unique needle-punch felting technique that no longer requires water or dying, making it better for the planet, and, of course, recycling wasted materials and turning them into something instead of tossing them in the trash.
Turning recycled clothing into something else. Photo: Courtesy of Eileen Fisher
Customers can go check out this concept from April 4 to 7 at Eileen Fisher’s Brooklyn store in New York City, which will showcase the Waste No More garments and interior products.
And finally, the Waste No More campaign will launch its new exhibition at Salone del Mobile 2019 at Rossana Orlandi in Milan, curated by Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano. It will showcase various shade of white that were discovered during the groundbreaking process of which this concept was created.
