2019 Recap: our best interviews
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Fashion
FashionUnited had the pleasure of interviewing a number of fashion CEOs, C-suite executives, activists, academics and designers in 2019. As the year draws to a close, we’re looking back at the most insightful interviews we have published this year. Enjoy!
“We run algorithms through the entire company. We basically use machines for everything that can be calculated” - Eric Colson, Chief Algorithms Officer at Stitch Fix
“One of the greatest challenges of our times is to make the fashion industry circular. We should stop using ‘virgin materials’ the way we do now” - Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of H&M Group
“Women are embracing colour more than they ever did before, which is fantastic” - Sabrina Shairzay, Chief Forecaster at C&A Europe
“Focus on having a good product that the consumer wants. It’s all about working with momentum” - Lyndon Cormack, co-founder of Herschel Supply Co.
“We like to refer to our design ethos as ‘the right amount of nothing’” - Sandeep Verma, Managing Director Europe at Allbirds
“Our goal was to find an alternative, but without using plastic, like the majority of ‘vegan’ leathers on the market are already doing” - Sébastien Kopp and François-Ghislain Morillion, founders of sneaker brand Veja
“Taking clothes back into the store for brands to then, in secret, dump or burn them overseas is not circular. Remaking surplus garments into new clothes that then get dumped next season is not circular either” - Otto von Busch, Associate Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design
“We’re in 2019 and people are wearing undergarments from the 60s” - Fiona Fairhurst, Vice President of Innovation of Heist Studios
“Water demand and scarcity are variable and we were operating according to a ‘one size fits all’ approach that did not address the reality of water stress” - Michael Kobori, Vice President of Sustainability at Levi Strauss & Co.
“You can create shapes that you really couldn’t create with other technologies” - Valérie Vriamont, Business Developer and Innovation Consultant at 3D-printing company Materialise
“This new generation has grown up with Uber and Airbnb, so I think the resale market is a natural extension of this idea” - Max Bittner, CEO of Vestiaire Collective
“It is incredible to think that 85 percent of the professions that will exist in 2030 still do not exist today” - Deborah Lee, Chief People Officer at Yoox Net-a-porter Group
“Fashion is just one of the consequences of my fascination with math” - Diarra Bousso, founder of fashion brand Diarrablu
Photos: courtesy of Stitch Fix, Allbirds, H&M, Herschel Supply, Diarrablu, Heist Studios, Materialise, Vestiaire Collective, Veja, C&A, Otto von Busch, YNAP and Levi Strauss & Co.
Homepage image: Allbirds, Veja and Levi's Facebook pages. Courtesy of Stitch Fix