Deal Dive: It’s time for VCs to break up with fast fashion | TechCrunch

February 5, 2024February 4, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Fast fashion is an industry ensnared in labor issues and copyright problems, and it has an immense environmental impact due to its wastewater and carbon emissions. It also happens to have the potential to make a lot of money, fast.

But despite all these issues, VCs won’t stop loving the sector.

On Wednesday, my colleague Manish Singh wrote a scoop about a potential Accel investment into Newme, a fast-fashion startup based in India. Newme is an app-based retailer that produces 500 new items a week with an average price tag of $10. This news comes just a week after the company closed a seed round.

Accel and Newme did not respond to requests for comment.

How Cuyana Took On Fast Fashion and Became a Cult Favorite With a Two-Word Mission | Inc.com

August 9, 2021August 8, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you want your company to be mission-driven yet scalable, every employee you hire and every action you take must be fully committed to the cause.

It’s this all-or-nothing mentality that Shilpa Shah, co-founder of San Francisco-based sustainable retailer Cuyana, attributes to her brand’s success for the past 10 years, as the entire company has embraced Cuyana’s “fewer, better” ethos. The brand has gained a cult following, particularly for its classic leather tote. First introduced in 2012, it’s still the brand’s bestseller.

Payless is closing all 2,100 stores in yet another sign of the death of fast fashion | Fast Company

February 18, 2019February 17, 2019 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In another sign that fast fashion is dying off, Payless ShoeSource Inc. says it plans to close all of its 2,100 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Two years ago, Payless declared bankruptcy during a wider wave of store closures throughout the country, something we’ve come to describe as the retail apocalypse. At the time, the company shuttered a number of its stores, which allowed it to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, according to the Wall Street Journal. But none of this restructuring was able to save it from further collapse.

There Is A Major Climate Issue Hiding In Your Closet: Fast Fashion | Co.Exist

November 11, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

This month as world leaders meet in Morocco to discuss implementation of the Paris climate agreement, which recently entered into force as most major economies began committing to some kind of carbon emissions reduction, there is little talk about one major contributor to climate change: fast fashion.

Fashion has been largely left out of the Paris climate talks. There’s lots of chatter about the more . . . fashionable low-hanging fruit: energy efficiency, conservationism, or the ramp up of renewables. But there’s little talk about textiles and what we’re wearing.