Reykjavík Grapevine - dec. 2020, Side 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