By August Bard Bringéus, Asket

Back in 2015 “sustainability” was not the household brand it is today. The Paris agreement didn’t come in place until a year after. And it wasn’t until 2018 that middle schooler Greta Thunberg started her daily climate protests outside the Swedish parliament. In the fashion industry environmental concerns had mostly taken a back seat, with labour conditions in offshore textile industries making headlines from time to time instead. The labour issue culminated in 2013 with the catastrophic Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, killing over 1000 workers sewing low cost clothing for western brands. 

When we started working on Asket, we were aware of the externalities of the industry we were becoming a part of. But our purpose wasn’t to become leaders in ethics and responsibility, it was to create a better product. At the same time, it was – and is still today – our profound belief, that a genuine product, cannot come from poor labour conditions or a disregard for planet and animal life. A good product is the result of delicate handcraft, engineering ingenuity and precious natural resources - all of which require consideration. As a result, transparency was a means for us to understand as much as possible about the clothing we set out to create, in order to make the very best version of it. 

Our 2015 pre-order campaign of The T-Shirt featured footage and documentary style film from the sewing and milling processes of our T-Shirt in the Porto region of Northern Portugal. We disclosed the costs of making our t-shirt too. This was radical at the time, and unfortunately, still is today. Ever since, our notion of transparency, knowledge and responsibility has expanded. With a permanent approach to our products and a limited assortment, we’ve been able to push the boundaries of manufacturing transparency, introducing our Full Traceability label in 2018, impact data per garment in 2020 and the impact receipt, an environmental resource receipt to complement the standard, monetary receipt, in 2023.

We try to tell things exactly as they are: matter-of-fact and without sugarcoating. No comparative water saving figures or potential impact reductions are communicated. Our objective isn't to relieve our customers of the environmental concerns of society’s consumption, but to inform us of the truth: Every product, no matter how well made it is, has a cost, consumes resources and leaves a footprint. The message: Consider your purchases well, question a price tag that’s too good to be true, consider paying a little more for something that will likely outlast it’s incremental cost.

Our approach was well-timed. As environmental concerns started to become the subject of societal conscience after the 2016 Paris agreement, the willingness to pay for the true cost of a garment increased. Soon enough, brands started touting environmental and social credentials left and right. With no regulation in place, greenwashing evolved. Eventually a regulatory crackdown started to take shape on the horizon. This time, timing wasn’t in the favour of responsible brands: In 2022 cost of living skyrocketed. Western economies started to slow down. Geopolitical and economic concerns created a wet blanket on consumer sentiment: The energy and willingness to make informed and often more expensive choices started to falter. The momentum of responsible fashion came to a halt, before regulations in its favour came in place. While the hygiene level of transparency and responsibility in the fashion industry is higher today than ten years ago, there is now a “sustainability fatigue”. Why should I as an individual bend over backwards to make the world a better place, when global leaders are turning their backs on the existential crisis we’re facing? 

Today, at Asket, we feel differently about transparency as a means to drive change. We still operate a permanent assortment with vigorous supply chain traceability, distancing ourselves from planned obsolescence and the smoke and mirrors dominating the larger part of the industry. But we’ve come to the conclusion that showing a transparency percentage or manufacturing emissions won’t change our consumption patterns. What still might, however, is putting a face to the people, communities, land and animals involved in creating our garments.

When Jakob and I travelled to Portugal for the first time in March 2015 to visit our t-shirt factory, that’s what flipped the switch for us. Seeing, with our own eyes, the work and resources that go into creating the garments we wear on our skin. The people our products touch, the communities our business supports and the efforts made by our factories to limit their environmental footprint.

Today our first line of communication is no longer tout transparency. We no longer point fingers at all that’s troublesome with the fashion industry. Not because we’ve abandoned our commitment to demonstrating a more equitable apparel business model, but because we believe that our most powerful tool is something else: Our product, not our words and figures. Charging every piece we make with meaning, not numbers. 

If you’ve seen the face of the person sewing your t-shirt, chances are you’ll appreciate, wear and care for that garment far longer. Adding emotional durability to physical and aesthetical durability, is the best formula we know to maximize customer satisfaction – and the extent to which we go to keep our garments in use, instead of replacing them.