Tag Archives: Yves Behar
Yves Béhar’s 7 Principles of Holistic Product Design
Posted on 21. Nov, 2011 by Kara Scharwath.
At the 2011 Opportunity Green Conference, Yves Béhar, founder of fuseproject, presented his own ideals for how to take a holistic approach to sustainable design challenges.
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Opportunity Green 2011 Preview
Posted on 09. Nov, 2011 by Sara Glaser.
We’ll be sharing the conference experience with you LIVE so stay tuned for updates on our Opportunity Green Facebook page and be sure to follow us on Twitter at @oppgreen for official OG updates, live tweets, and online sustainable business conversation.
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Live Blogging OG09: When Sustainable Design and Business Converge
Posted on 07. Nov, 2009 by Susanna Schick.
These are styles from Lauren Pierce. One of the most inspirational stories I heard today was about Lauren Pierce, one of the lines carried at Barney’s. Lauren Pierce designs gorgeous, high-fashion clothing that would impress the most jaded fashionista. What sets it apart is that the textiles are hand-printed by a women’s cooperative in the Congo, thus creating income through traditional arts. In the ecofabulous lounge I discovered three other amazing eco designers not yet known to the world at large, currently represented by Vie Bungalow PR.
Zem Joaquin, founder of ecofabulous.com, reminds us that the most sustainable thing is to re-use. She’s partnering with E-Bay to promote awareness of the gems that can be found in vintage clothing. She then passes the mic to Julie Gilhart, Fashion Director for Barney’s, because what good is press without sales? Sustainable fashion isn’t exactly sustainable if it’s not being sold somewhere. Julie Gilhart has been dragging the world of high fashion into sustainability through her commitment as the buyer for the leading US retailer in designer fashion.
Julie’s sea change moment began when she discovered it costs $1million to produce a 20-minute fashion show. She thought about how many people could be fed for $1million. Then two more things happened- Al Gore’s film became a call to action, and Julie heard the Dali Lama speak. He said you should forgive, have compassion, create beauty, and preserve culture. She thought “I could do that in my job.” She went on to talk her CEO into doing a “green holiday” theme that year and has since continued to expand Barney’s commitment to what she calls simply “consciousness”- an awareness of what you’re buying, where it cam from, the history of it. Julie has worked with some of Barney’s top-selling designers to inspire them to develop sustainable pieces. Barney’s customers expect a high level of design, and within that constraint, Barney’s uses 3-tier pricing: In the casual price point she mentioned Loomstate (who also have a line at Target), for mid-level- Phillip Lim , and at the high-end- Stella McCartney. But these aren’t the only designers doing sustainability at Barney’s. Julie also found she needed to create energy around it. So she initiated denim and t-shirt recycling programs, among many other collaborations with the designers they carry.
“Our most important goal, widest reach, is to change perception, the way people think.” –Julie Gilhart, SVP & Fashion Director, Barney’s NY
Next, Yves Behar, founder offuseproject, shows a video of Mission One breaking the electric motorcycle land speed record- and describes the sound of it reaching top speed as the new sound of sexy. I wholeheartedly agree with that, although I do love the sound of my ICE Japanese Supersport. However, this may very well be the only panel ever to feature two of my greatest passions- fast motorcycles and high fashion. The Mission One is also featured in the Neiman Marcus catalog, so it’s not that much of a stretch.
Yves then shifts to an awesome video for PACT underwear, where a cute eco-conscious boy and girl in a drab office find their clothing fall away as they do small things to save the planet. Then they run off into a forest in their gorgeous Forest Ethics undies. It’s adorable. The WearPACT commercial was laugh out loud funny. Like an expert author, it guides the viewer, and is not heavy-handed, it’s entertaining. Showing people taking sustainable action – watering plants, cutting plastic – then running off together into the wilderness in their underwear. Visual language is perfect because everyone gets it. The ad suggests a venue for people to get back to our natures through nature.
Yves’ studio fuseproject works with a number of other innovative startups, including One Laptop Per Child, Y Water, and others committed to redefining their industries. In expressing the popularity of OLPC, Yves explained that the only program the incumbent and incoming presidents of Uruguay agree on is OLPC. Yves said he is going to work in the “golden years” of his career for the next 10-15 years to prove people wrong who say that green has to be expensive and ugly.
My question to Julie- How do you convince customers it’s worth paying a little more for eco fashion, since it does cost more to produce?
Julie: I tried, but found that consumers perceived it to be inferior, they expect it to cost less, even though it does cost more to produce. Consumers assumed they were going to have to sacrifice something for sustainability, as has been the problem with sustainability messaging in the past decade. Our customers didn’t understand that the quality of eco clothing is at least as good as anything else we offer. So I stopped talking about it. What we sell has to be a great design, and for us it’s actually better if we don’t push the sustainability message.
She went on to discuss how she’s working with the head of PPR to develop consciousness in his companies. PPR owns many of the greatest fashion brands- Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Gucci, and Puma, to name a few. Even though it’s been under the radar, PPR has done some very conscious things, including producing the film Home. He cares about the environment. PPR owns a lot of businesses that have found the ability to save money through sustainability.
Next question: Did you come across designers that weren’t open to it?
Julie: We came across many, but found we cannot push them.
thanks to Gaia Dempsey for help in this article.
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Interview with WearPACT–Change starts with your underwear
Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by OppGreen Insights.
This morning I met with Jason and Jeff, co-founders of WearPACT, the sustainable underwear company. They met and started WearPACT while MBA students at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Jason is showing off their awesome compostable shipping bag that I was so impressed with. Even the glue on it is compostable! Pure genius and proof that where there’s a will there’s a way.
They sent me off with a free pair of boy shorts, event though I wanted to buy them, which I’ve found to be a very comfy indeed. They’re a thinner, silkier cotton than the boy shorts I’ve bought elsewhere, and come with a cute print bag that’s handy for storing jewelry and such.
OG: Tell me about the name WearPACT.
Jason: Well, first we called it ActionPACT when we were just going to do men’s underwear. When we added women’s, we needed a name that would work for women too–we thought ActionPACT was too macho. We had Yves Behar do the branding–essentially you’re wearing a pact between yourself, your underwear and the cause you’re supporting with your purchase. 10% of sales of each pair go to a charity-Oceana, Forest Ethics, and 826 National.
OG: This is remarkable, as most companies who donate a portion of sales don’t give more than 1% of profits, so 10% of sales is massive.
Jason: To build something sustainable, it has to be beautiful and work on all other aspects too. Then we also worked within the constraint of it being environmentally and socially responsible.
OG: Like Method, with tho they led with gorgeous cleaning products that work great, and the eco benefits are core to the product, but not trumpeted to the consumers?
Jason: Method was a huge brand inspiration for us, we really like them.
OG: So why underwear?
Jason: Jeff was hunting for sustainable and quality underwear, and I just wanted to start a green business of any kind. We looked at the category and couldn’t find an existing eco market leader, and saw that luxury underwear is a growing segment, with room for growth. Men’s and women’s underwear sales grew in 2008, in general it is a healthy category.
OG: Like the underwear index indicated?
Jason: Exactly! Also we wanted to focus on what people actually need, and well, we all need underwear. Plus there’s clearly room for innovation in the category.
OG: How hard was it to find Planet Access Company? I’m impressed they even exist!
Jason: We were introduced to PAC by Horny Toad–Gordon helped start Planet Access. It may have been solely Horny Toad’s fulfillment center at first, have since become a valuable fulfillment for many small and conscious companies.
OG: What were the biggest obstacles you faced as a startup?
Jason: I’m pretty familiar with startups, I’ve worked on about 6 so far, so we have a company attitude that we will be derailed weekly, and just need to work through these challenges. Potentially company-destroying problems come up all the time, but we just have to plow through them.
For example, we were starting up last summer, and when the financial crisis hit in Fall 2008, some of our investors backed out. So we started on a much smaller budget than we’d originally planned. We knew our floor–essentially we had to be able to pay for the first run of production and get the website up and running. So, we made sure we at least had that much.
OG: Do you see WearPACT expanding the product line in the future? Do you see yourselves eventually becoming the eco Victoria’s Secret, but for men and women?
Jason: We’re not trying to be anyone but PACT–we’re brand new, so volume is tiny right now. First we’d like to dramatically increase sales. We don’t want to deal with fashion whims but do like to come up with one or two new pairs per quarter. We’re still learning about what our scale will be, and trying to expand beyond the eco-consumers without compromising our values. We and our customers to buy beautiful underwear that fits great, looks great, but also has this eco dimension. We want to design a product that people are excited about, that’s sexy and fun but not trashy.
OG: What are you looking forward to at Opportunity Green?
Jason: I’m really looking forward to meeting like-minded people in sustainable businesses that we might partner with someday.
OG: You’ll check out Yves’ panel, of course?
Jason: Of course!
OG: Anything else you want to tell readers?
Jason: Buy lots! We’re offering a 25% discount to Opportunity Green attendees. Just enter the discount code “OG25″ when you place your order.
