The clothing brand Reformation first began as a small vintage clothing store in 2009. Eventually, the brand expanded itself and its products, placing a focus on sustainability. In 2013, Reformation progressed forward by launching its website and opening American’s first sustainable clothing factory in Downtown Los Angeles. The brand relies on being fully transparent with their customers through their website, in which they have thorough explanations of the brands’ efforts to be sustainable. For example, on the website, there is a tab titled sustainability. Here, reformation discusses the impact of fashion, its sustainability framework, its practices, and its commitments. The tab also uncovers what they do to recycle, why carbon is canceled, how to be climate positive, and includes a sustainability report.
The sustainability report tracks Reformations progress and focuses on four main points of sustainability such as people, planet, product, and progress. In regards to people, the brand ensures safe, healthy, and equitable working conditions for their workers while they continue to stay committed to having a diverse team. Additionally, Reformation encourages their team to engage in volunteer work in which one statistic states that they so far have had “150 volunteers, 175 volunteer hours, 249 hygiene kits, 270 sack lunches, and 500 pounds of trash removed”. When it comes to Reformations products, the brand chooses to “focus on traceability, fiber standards, and clean chemistry to ensure the sustainability of their products. One example of this is the brand’s vegan leather shoes which are composed of natural materials like cereals, grains, and minimal plastic. Reformations ultimate goal is to cut away all use of plastic because they support any plastic-free alternatives in the fashion industry.
Similarly, Reformation also aims to focus on being carbon neutral and provide their customers with programs to easily help them reduce their carbon footprint. For one, the brand encourages their customers to switch to wind energy and in return, they will receive a $100.00 Reformation gift card while they also give customers the opportunity to “purchase “climate credits” which are carbon offsets”. Clearly, Reformation is a fully sustainable brand whose goal is to make the world a better place, environmentally. While still continuing to be known as a highly-fashionable brand, Reformation flourishes by committing to the goodness of the world. Other fashion brands should look at Reformation as an inspiration and potentially build or catalyze a change in their own brands in order to transform the fashion industry environmentally while still being fashion-forward.
I love that you brought up the idea of sustainable fashion. As a real estate development major, sustainability is something that in the future will greatly impact me and the future of my industry. Reforms goal to used recycled products to produce clothing is innovation that is necessary. The push for more ethical and eco friendly products is not niche anymore it will and has become the norm.
This is such an important topic and I think it's important to draw attention to brands like this to show how we can be making more ethical decisions in regards to the clothing we choose to buy. It was also interesting to learn that they encourage their staff to volunteer.