OMNES needs its clothes to be extra than simply lovely on the surface, it was arrange with the … [+]
Notting Hill is legendary for its vibrant homes, vibrant markets and vibrant characters. So it’s applicable that in a single nook of this west London enclave is headquartered a brand new vogue model that’s all about daring print patterns and vivid designs.
However OMNES needs to be extra than simply lovely on the surface— it was arrange with the particular goal to make sustainable and moral vogue accessible to the plenty. The corporate was based with the particular mission to provide “vogue that doesn’t price the earth” and is local weather optimistic and extremely clear.
Regardless of launching in 2020 through the peak of the pandemic, OMNES has constructed a big word-of-mouth following and is anticipated to achieve £6m in gross sales this yr – all via its web site.
Followers embrace Bridgerton star Florence Hunt; Irish comic, actor and author Aisling Bea, who performs alongside Paul Rudd in Residing With Your self; and British TV presenter Holly Willoughby.
Founder Jordan Razavi spoke to me from Nice Western Studios, the artistic hub the place its 22 designers and workplace staff are based mostly, to seek out out extra about this daring new enterprise.
Christopher Marquis: Please share a bit about your background in vogue and the motivations for establishing Omnes?
Jordan Razavi, Founding father of OMNES
Jordan Razavi: OMNES was born out of a frustration on the quantity of quick vogue being offered and the truth that responsibly made sustainable vogue was so costly. I felt that there was a chance to do issues higher, for there to be a model that individuals can be ok with shopping for from.
I’m initially from Cheshire, north west England, studied enterprise and political science at Trinity Faculty, Dublin and since then I’ve labored in a variety of economic companies. I needed to fuse my expertise in enterprise with the creativity that comes with vogue. I had been placing collectively the infrastructure to launch OMNES for a couple of years, and through lockdown seized the chance to launch the enterprise in direction of the tip of 2020. Making an allowance for the difficulties brought on by Covid in recent times, fortuitously now we have discovered the market to be extremely receptive to what we’re doing and our philosophy, attaining exponential development since launch.
Marquis: You say you might have achieved the Holy Trinity of vogue retailing— fascinating, inexpensive and sustainable garments. How did you do that when a lot bigger manufacturers have failed?
Razavi: OMNES is Latin for ‘all’ and we needed from the very begin to present that garments could possibly be fascinating, sustainable and inexpensive all on the identical time, for everybody, and likewise make the world a greater place. So it’s baked into our DNA: we set out from the begin to have a complete 360 strategy to sustainability with none greenwashing.
It signifies that we put the processes in in the beginning and collaborated with suppliers and producers to attain them. Putting in a partnership coverage which ensures all our factories are audited for equal pay, truthful working situations and a variety of different employee rights was important for us. We’re a enterprise so we have to be viable – however folks and the planet are as essential as earnings and if at occasions it’s tough to fulfill all three, then it’s the margins that give.
Sustainability and transparency aren’t issues which have been retrofitted into the enterprise with a couple of product traces and a few advertising. It’s within the model DNA and has been constructed into the corporate from the beginning, on the very coronary heart of the enterprise mannequin.
Marquis: For a brand new firm, discovering and sustaining good and moral provide chains and accountability is extremely tough and takes monumental quantities of sources – particularly if it is throughout borders, how do you do it? Your web site reviews your provide chain is so clear that buyers may even drill right down to see how a lot vacation pay staff get. Are you able to present extra particulars on that?
Razavi: It took practically two years to seek out the companions we needed to work with in making OMNES a totally sustainable model. Proper from the start now we have labored laborious to make sure each course of is researched and punctiliously monitored to make sure that each merchandise is made to the very best environmental requirements.
We begin by increase the highest line insurance policies for our companions and collaborators, after which work with organizations to guarantee that they’re policed and utilized. All suppliers should work to our partnership coverage which is revealed on our web site.
For instance, relating to suppliers we predominantly look to Sedex, the British based mostly non-profit group that audits and scores factories based on the United Nations Guiding Ideas and the conventions of the Worldwide Labour Organisation.
On our carbon footprint, we use a British clean-tech start-up referred to as Earthly, to offset our carbon footprint. The corporate invests in initiatives that defend, restore and re-establish essential eco-systems like forests, peatlands, mangroves and seabeds. We’re on a journey and utilizing these companions means we will publish every thing on our web site to indicate complete transparency right down to the variety of holidays and wages that staff get.
Marquis: You say in your web site that you’re local weather optimistic and offset 10 per cent extra carbon than you produce. How does that truly work? Why 10 per cent extra? What practices does the corporate do to scale back additional its carbon footprint? Many manufacturers declare to be sustainable however are sometimes accused of ‘greenwashing’. How are you completely different? How will you show that? What are the laborious and quick guidelines you reside by, that others might compromise?
Razavi: By way of greenwashing, as a result of there are not any present laws within the trade, we’re making our personal guidelines and laws to make sure we apply the strictest requirements of sustainable vogue. One instance of that is with our use of deadstock materials. We make sure that all of our suppliers signal a contract guaranteeing that any deadstock materials we use are greater than two years outdated.
By way of offsetting our carbon footprint, we’re truly altering this to 25 %, an initiative that can launch with our sustainability report in August. We needed to begin with 10 % as that was an achievable determine for a brand new enterprise, now we’re able to ship extra.
Having an out of doors firm like Earthly auditing us means there’s nowhere to cover. This new eco-system of firms round sustainability has been created by very passionate folks and they aren’t going to compromise. Earthly offsets our carbon via BAM which stands for Bosques Amazonicos, which is an organisation that protects and improves rainforests in Peru. Not solely that but it surely helps the native Brazil nut trade that gives employment and livelihoods.
We’re equally as passionate and our sustainability crew additionally audits what we do and is at all times trying to enhance our processes. For instance, considered one of our largest makes use of of carbon is the necessity to fly samples to and from our suppliers and we hope to scale back this with extra digital based mostly design processes. We’re additionally excited that we are going to quickly begin manufacturing a part of our assortment within the UK, which may also go a way in lowering our carbon footprint.
We’re a vogue model so clearly we need to produce garments that you simply look good in however simply as importantly we would like to be ok with making them and for you to be ok with shopping for them. Final Christmas we decided to not produce any clothes with sequins as a result of we couldn’t supply a sustainable high quality of fabric, so we simply didn’t do it. For a vogue retailer, that’s a major monetary sacrifice to make through the celebration season. We’re additionally within the strategy of changing into B Corp licensed, which can also be a reassuring stamp of authority.
One thing that I’m additionally pleased with is that we’re a Truthful Residing Wage employer. For us, sustainability isn’t nearly vogue, it’s the sustainability of your crew and world community of employers — so being a Truthful Residing Wage employer was a precedence.
Marquis: There’s lots of speak in regards to the round economic system, how do your garments match into that? May you give an instance of how considered one of your merchandise may have many lives? Many recycled merchandise use extra power of their manufacturing than model new materials, how do you assure that’s not the case?
Razavi: Transferring in direction of a round economic system is one thing we’re enthusiastic about as a model. That means from the primary levels of design to the tip of the life-cycle of the garment, we guarantee that we shut the loop as a lot as potential via eliminating waste and conserving merchandise in circulation. We do that in 3 ways; via incorporating deadstock again into our collections, our charity affiliations, and our recycling program.
This yr, we have launched our first ever deadstock assortment, not solely does this assist scale back textile waste but it surely additionally presents our prospects a novel capsule assortment within the sense that the deadstock garment is not going to be in manufacturing once more and it is produced in decrease portions, which means what they get is really one-of-a-kind.
We’ve at all times labored with charities on our finish of life product, and in the meanwhile we’re forming a partnership with two new charities, Gown for Success and Good Works, that empower ladies to attain financial success and thrive within the office via offering them with improvement instruments {and professional} apparel. We at all times guarantee any extra clothes that we maintain keep out of the landfills and sometimes put to good use via our clothes donations to them.
To acquire our supplies, we work with material mills which have signed up as a part of the Sustainable Attire Coalition – a corporation dedicated to measuring and bettering social and environmental sustainability impacts.
Marquis: Your organization web site says that 80% of a garment’s environmental influence is set on the design stage. It’s an interesting and refreshing declare. Are you able to clarify how that works? Do you might have any outdoors trade sources to substantiate this?
Razavi: I consider this originates from an EU eco-design directive report. For us, it’s about rigorously contemplating the material selection and the design particulars of the product from the start. At OMNES, we take into consideration the garment’s life cycle from the outset, guaranteeing all levels of the creation course of and selections surrounding our provide chain are each clear and accountable. We attempt to make use of probably the most sustainable, modern supplies to make sure we aren’t solely creating lovely, high-quality, accessible merchandise, but additionally that we’re lowering our environmental influence as a lot as potential.
Marquis: Your garments are priced barely larger than some so-called quick vogue shops, do you assume customers can pay the additional and why? Many customers profess wanting to buy responsibly however the details don’t at all times bear this out. Firms like Shein and Boohoo go from energy to energy with extraordinarily low-cost throwaway vogue. Do you assume that can change or are your prospects fully completely different to those that purchase quick vogue?
Razavi: Our costs can at occasions be marginally dearer than among the high-street manufacturers, however usually we consider we match them, excelling in high quality over quick turnaround.
Our audience is a world 20 to 35 yr outdated girl who cares in regards to the world they dwell in and needs to purchase higher. We consider that there’s a shift. Prospects have gotten extra savvy, wanting extra funding items that can final a very long time and are accessibly priced, OMNES isn’t a quick vogue model.
I’d be mendacity if I stated all of our prospects are fully completely different and that everyone purchased our garments as a result of they needed to save lots of the planet, many purchase them as a result of they’re nicely made nice designs, however in addition they keep away from that nagging guilt that goes with low-cost throwaway vogue.
Marquis: Sustainable vogue is changing into extra of a crowded market with the likes of even H&M making an attempt to maneuver into the area: aside out of your nice designs, what’s your distinctive promoting level?
Razavi: Our strengths are our complete transparency and that we constructed the corporate from scratch with sustainability and equity on the very coronary heart of the enterprise mannequin. It’s not one thing now we have retrofitted and it’s throughout the entire enterprise, not just some product traces. We’re studying lots on this journey and my ambition is for OMNES to proceed its enlargement, by no means relaxation and be the sustainable excessive road model that individuals can be ok with shopping for from.