Our week in Amsterdam has started with an exciting meeting with Greg, Brittany and Kathleen from Fashion for Good. They welcomed both the team FTS and 3BL in the amazing venue of Fashion For Good museum, “The Experience”.
The meeting starts with a recap of Fashion For Good mission and business model. They aim to be a point of connection for the entire fashion ecosystem through their Innovation Platform, keeping a large array of players “united in their genuine ambition to make all fashion good”.
The Innovation Platform is the core of Fashion for Good, where they connect “innovators” (small companies / start ups working on sustainable innovation) with brands, retailers and funders to bring new ideas and technologies from niche to norm.
There are currently two main programs in place:
- The Fashion for Good-Plug and Play Accelerator that provides funding and expertize to promising startup innovators in the field of sustainable fashion
- The Scaling Programme, through which a dedicated team supports innovations that have passed the proof-of-concept phase.
Besides funding and supporting promising new ventures, Fashion for Good acts as a platform in which partners such as large brands and retailers may look for the innovation they need. C&A, Adidas, Kering and PVH are among their corporate partners.
Fashion for good is supporting a large number projects across the entire apparel value chain, seeking innovations in the areas of: Raw Materials, Dyeing & Finishing, Manufacturing, Retail, End-of-Use, Transparency & Traceability.
“These innovations challenge us to rethink every step of how a product is made. Materials made from fruit waste. Business models designed for renting and reselling. Technologies that “close the loop” so that old clothes can be turned into new ones. Because doing good is not simply doing less bad; it is about creating technologies and systems that actively benefit us all.”
In pursuing sustainability they follow The Five Goods aspirational framework, introduced by their co-founder William McDonough. Innovations will comply with the following dimensions:
- Good Materials: safe, healthy and designed for reuse and recycling
- Good Economy: growing, circular, shared and benefiting everyone
- Good Energy: renewable and clean
- Good Water: clean and available to all
- Good Lives: living and working conditions that are just, safe and dignified
After our hosts conclude with warm encouragement and advice for us, as future entrepreneurs and sustainable leaders, we immerse ourselves in the Fashion for Good Experience.
We are in the lower floor which represent the “PAST” and walk around the second and third floor to discover the “PRESENT” and the “FUTURE” for good fashion.
We find throughout the building concrete ways to have a positive impact, commit to taking action and shop sustainable products, and the most “nerdy” of us can spend time on learning curious details about new raw materials such as mango materials, biodegradable foam, staple fibre, innovative technologies such as nano textile, and ideas of circular business models.
Full of admiration and belief that this company can really make an impact, we continue our tour.
Continue follow us!
The FTS team
INSEAD SUMMER STARTUP TOUR 
Leave a Reply