Reykjavík Grapevine - des. 2020, Blaðsíða 23

Reykjavík Grapevine - des. 2020, Blaðsíða 23
23The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 10— 2020 Take Action Áslau! Ma!núsdóttir’s Katla brin!s sustainability to the forefront of fashion Áslaug Magnúsdóttir wears a lot of hats. When she talks, she’ll transform from a shrewd businesswoman to a staunch activist to a forward-think- ing consultant to a good old fashioned fashion-devotée—often mid-sentence. A veteran of the fashion world known for co-founding Moda Ope- randi, the luxury direct-to-consumer webstore that more or less changed the game for high-end retailers, as well as her early work at Gilt, another game-changing webstore that brought luxury flash-sales to the online world, you can’t help but desperately want to know Áslaug’s next move. She has a finger firmly on the pulse of fashion. If there’s anyone who can predict the next wave, it’s Áslaug. Today, she’s wearing a sweatshirt from her new brand Katla, which de- buted earlier this year with a mixture of everything from cosy separates to gorgeous flowing sundresses. The print is a play on the traditional Icelan- dic butter logo; the word smjör being replaced by Katla. On the back reads ‘Áfram me! smjöri!”—an old Icelandic saying that translates to “On with the butter.” “I interpret it as ‘Take action! Or ‘Move!’” Áslaug explains, sitting back at her kitchen table, a cup of coffee in her hand. And perhaps, there could be no better catchphrase for the brand. Taking responsibility “I wanted to try to create a brand that was as holistically sustainable as possible,” Áslaug says on the origins of Katla. “As I looked at the industry, there are many people trying to do beautiful sustainable brands, but it’s such a small part of the landscape.” And there were even fewer brands, Áslaug noted, that were focused on be- ing entirely and comprehensively sus- tainable. “When I started this, people said to me, ‘Try to focus on just doing one part of sustainability really well,’ like focus on environmentally-friendly fabric or ethical labour practices or animal-cruelty free. But for me, that didn’t really ring true,” she says. “I felt like if I’m creating something new from scratch, I may as well try to do it as well as I can from a sustainability standpoint.” Because the fashion industry, she explains, is a large culprit in global pollution—and one that is often ig- nored by the general population. “The fashion industry is the second most water-polluting industry in the world and responsible for 10% of all carbon emissions—worse than airlines and ships combined,” she says, a note of in- credulity in her voice. You can tell the statistics bother her, no matter how many times she’s shared them. One of the largest contributors to fashion’s enormous environmental impact is that overproduction has be- come accepted as a necessary and in- tegral part of profitability. “[For your average brand], every season there is a 30-40% overproduction of clothing. That’s because of the system we’ve created around how you sell fashion. Manufacturing is typically happening months in advance of a season, often far away and without acknowledge- ment of what the end consumer is going to buy. So brands kind of take a bet—they don’t want to have too little so they end up always having too much of certain things,” Áslaug says. “A lot of it gets thrown out. There’s unfortu- nately a lot of inventory that is burned every season. Things do get put on sale and there are outlet stores, but there’s still a significant amount that gets left over and that’s a lost opportunity as well: If you have to put a big percent- age of your fashion on sale, clearly you were overproducing.” The focus on seasons and trends, she continues, also contributes to this. “We—[the industry]—have said that a fashion item loses its relevance after five to six months and then it’s discounted and no longer relevant and has to be taken out of the store.” She pauses. “That’s a message that needs to change. And more and more people are rethinking that.” An ethos of transparency No doubt, Áslaug is one of them. From Katla’s inception, Áslaug has ensured that every step—from designs to con- sumer life—has a foundation in sus- tainability. For design, Áslaug decided to forgo temporary trends and instead focus on pieces that would stand the test of time. Sustainability did not have to become a liability; in fact, it was easily compatible with this ethos. “I wanted to create something that was beautiful, that I wanted to wear, that’s fashion, but at the same time has this timeless element and has quality. It lasts, and you can wear it again and again,” she explains. “We’re not mak- ing gowns that you’re going to wear just once. It’s things you’ll keep in your wardrobe for a long time.” In production, Katla is careful to use environmentally-friendly fabrics or completely animal cruelty-free tex- tilesas a rule, rather than the excep- tion. As for manufacturing, the brand has opted out of the aforementioned overproduction model, instead fa- vouring a mixture of on-demand and small-batch manufacturing. “We try to move as much as pos- sible to on-demand, which means that we are not building inventory, we are making the garments as [or- ders] come in,” Áslaug reiterates. “I realise that for that to be a feasible business model, you have to be able to do it really fast, so we partnered with factories in the US that can do that in a two to three day turnaround… and we have tracking numbers on all the items. ” She promptly points to a patch on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. It has a QR code, and above that, an embroi- dered number that says KF001. “You can go and type that on the site and see the history of the garment. Like where did the garment come from? Who manufactured it? What are the environmental certifications tied to the fabric?” She says, smiling. It’s clear that now we’ve come to a fac- et of Katla that Áslaug is particularly proud of—a personal flair that distin- guishes Katla from the pack. But perhaps what most distinguish- es Katla from the rest of the sustain- ability-driven brands is their resale- recycling program. “We tell customers ‘please don’t throw the garment away if you de- cide not to use it, send it back to us, we will pay for your shipping, and we will give you a 20% credit for the origi- nal purchase price towards your next purchase’ So that’s an incentive to send it back. And then, if it’s in good enough condition, we resell it,” she explains. “Then, you can see in your tracking number the digital passport of this garment. We don’t use people’s names, [but it shows] the first buyer was in Reykjavík then it went to New York.” “It provides another level of trans- parency,” she continues. “We’re not just saying it’s sustainable. We really want to show you why.” Áfram me! smjöri!! Áslaug’s growing interest in sustain- ability over the years has also mirrored an internal interest to reconnect with her country, which she’s also sought to showcase in Katla’s designs. “I had been working in New York and London, in big cities, and barely ever going out into nature, ” Áslaug says. “Then I started a few years ago coming back [to Iceland] for longer periods and reconnecting with na- ture … and I realised—wow, this was an important part of my life as a child and I lost touch with it. I found that it grounds me. It makes me stronger to be in nature. So I kind of rediscovered Iceland in a way.” She brought his newfound enthu- siasm to her work in Katla. “Iceland is one of the countries at the forefront of sustainability in terms of our energy consumption. People are very aware and have this love for nature here. So I thought it’s a good time [for Katla] and there’s nowhere in the world you can get more beautiful photographs!” She bursts out laughing. “This is where I’m from! It’s time to embrace it. When I was young I was trying to get out of Iceland and now I’ve finally learned to love it in another way and bring that to the world.” And perhaps, there’s nothing that better represents this journey—both external and internal—than the butter sweatshirt. It’s an iconically Icelandic reference and one that has strong as- sociations for Áslaug. “This was in my home. We had this in our fridge everyday,” she says. “The sentence ‘Áfram me! smjöri!’—I thought, oh my god, yes, that’s hysteri- cal! It’s so Icelandic and it’s so relevant for what we’re doing.” She smiles. “Take action! Move!” Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photo: Art Bicnick Áslaug Magnúsdóttir and two of her most patient models “We’re not just say- ing it’s sustainable. We really want to show you why.” Info Check out Katla at katla.com and on Instagram at @katlaforce

x

Reykjavík Grapevine

Beinir tenglar

Ef þú vilt tengja á þennan titil, vinsamlegast notaðu þessa tengla:

Tengja á þennan titil: Reykjavík Grapevine
https://timarit.is/publication/943

Tengja á þetta tölublað:

Tengja á þessa síðu:

Tengja á þessa grein:

Vinsamlegast ekki tengja beint á myndir eða PDF skjöl á Tímarit.is þar sem slíkar slóðir geta breyst án fyrirvara. Notið slóðirnar hér fyrir ofan til að tengja á vefinn.