If you have been following our brand for a while you might know - our position is that we do not identify as a ‘sustainable’ brand.
What we aim to be is conscious and responsible.
Most importantly – what we are not - is a ‘fast fashion’ brand.
Here are some of the things we have purposefully built into our business model from the start in the pursuit of being a responsible, community minded brand;
From the beginning, we have designed our products with the idea of long term ‘every (other) day’* use in mind.
We aim to make shoes that are highly wearable, useful items – in silhouettes that we believe can guarantee a minimum of 30 wears.
This figure is not about durability (of course you can expect at least 10 times the amount of wear from our shoes), but prioritising function over fads. This figure is given even greater context in contrast with the built in obsolesces of fast fashion – where products “are actually designed to be worn less than 7 times.” (The Age, Monday 18th April)
The 30 wears philosophy is central to our process and was inspired by a figure that 'True Cost' Film Producer Livia Firth demonstrated to be a tipping point in reducing the environmental impact of manufacturing in terms of water consumption, material waste and resource management. This is one of the many reasons we choose to only make flat shoes because of their every-other-day* usefulness and wearability.
*Rotating your shoes is another important factor we advocate in increasing the lifespan of your products - which you can read more about here.
We continually invest in research and development to improve the quality of our shoes.
To date, the largest focus of this investment has been in opening our own proprietary designed outsole molds that we subject to the highest international abrasion testing standards (Intertek Certification).
Opening our own outsole molds also means we have greater transparency on the raw materials used to pour the soles.
We never ‘spec down’ our products and we never ‘barter’ prices with our makers.
We maintain long standing relationships with our factory partners and do not move our production to find ‘the cheapest deal’ available. This is counter to my previous experience developing product for high street brands seeking the lowest price for the highest volume at the expense of the quality outcome.
We manufacturer in small quantities and in quantities we feel confident we will sell everything we make.
In contrast to a fast fashion 6 week sales cycle, we work off a 26 week seasonal cycle to try to keep discounting, end of line products and excess stock to a minimum. This approach creates less material wastage and reduces shipping, freight and transport emissions. These ideas form part of our ‘Hasten Slowly’ philosophy.
We passionately advocate for care and repair of all products.
In contrast to a fast fashion 6 week sales cycle, we work off a 26 week seasonal cycle to try to keep discounting, end of line products and excess stock to a minimum. This approach creates less material wastage and reduces shipping, freight and transport emissions. These ideas form part of our ‘Hasten Slowly’ philosophy.
We offer ways for our customers to keep their worn products out of landfill.
One of the ways we assist our customers with this process is through our ‘Toe Tapper’ trade initiative passing pre-loved shoes on to our Not-For-Profit partner Ready Set to either sell at their famous fundraising sales or to help dress long-term unemployed women looking to re-enter the workforce.
