Chloé is Making Luxury Fashion Sustainable
Luxury fashion is an almost 80 billion dollar industry, which means that it has a large impact on society and on the planet. Yet many luxury fashion houses fail to acknowledge their own environmental and social impact. The number of socially and environmentally conscious consumers is increasing, and brands of all kinds are responding by increasing their brand transparency and trying to find more sustainable ways to conduct their business and create their products. Sustainability is not always the shiniest, newest thing, which is why luxury fashion has been hesitant to fully embrace the idea of valuing the people and planet rather than just profit.
COURTESY OF CHLOÉ
Chloé, one of the top fashion houses in the world, was started in the fifties by designer Gaby Aghion. Today, the fashion house is run by Gabriela Hearst who became the creative director in 2020. Since her start, Hearst has been driving sustainability into the brand. From training workers on lower impact materials to banning single use plastic from offices, Chloé has been leaping forward towards a more sustainable future. In October 2021, the iconic fashion house became the first luxury fashion label to gain a B Corporation certification. As a B Corp, Chloé had to go through rigorous evaluations about sustainability, ethics, labor practices, and their future goals. To pass the evaluation, brands must score at least 80 points out of 200, which only about 4% of applicants have been able to do.
COURTESY OF CHLOÉ
Chloé has been pushing for gender equality and making sure all their employees receive equitable pay and treatment. 70% of global leadership for the brand is women, which is a very impressive figure. They also have partnered with UNICEF to launch the Girls Forward initiative which supports educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for women and girls around the world. The fashion house also has a vision to increase use of lower impact materials and increase fair trade sourcing of materials. The use of organic, recycled, and deadstock materials will help Chloé achieve its goal and it will also help decrease the amount of carbon emissions produced per product. Overall, Chloé is a visionary when it comes to implementing sustainable practices in luxury fashion.
COURTESY OF CHLOÉ
Chloé continues to grow and look for more ways to make a positive impact with their business. The brand has been developing a new tool to measure the social impact of fashion brands. The tool aims to evaluate issues such as living wages, gender equality, inclusivity, and diversity. These metrics are more difficult to determine than environmental metrics, which is why Chloé wanted to create a way to measure the social impact of companies. The Social Performance and Leverage tool has been in development for around 18 months, and Chloé tested it out in January on Spring 2022 ready to wear collection. Rather than just complying with regulations, Chloé wants to go above and beyond to improve their business. The hope for the social impact tool is that many other fashion brands will use it, and it will motivate other luxury fashion brands to improve their social impact. The great strides that Chloé has made in sustainability shows that it is possible for other brands and fashion houses to follow suit. Luxury fashion can become a more sustainable industry.