Sustainability In A (Nearly) Post-Pandemic World

Players in the local fashion industry on how Covid-19 has amplified the green conversation.

- Lynette Koh

It sounds like a nightmare for any entrepreneur: you launch a new business, and soon thereafter, the world is thrown into disarray due to a global pandemic. That is what happened to Brandy Dallas, the Singapore-based Canadian founder of Sans Faff, a minimalist fashion label using bamboo fabric from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified sustainable plantations that do not contribute to deforestation and natural habitat loss.

The former luxury marketer recalls, “We launched in Feb 2020, days before the world, including myself, fully understood what was about to happen.” Rather than set back the fledgling company, the pandemic accelerated its establishment.

Dallas continues, “Although the pandemic wasn’t a factor in the timing of our launch, it accelerated our share of voice in the market. Suddenly, everyone was using social media to shop, connect and pass the time while in lockdown. As a new online label that would have traditionally struggled to build a presence among all the online clutter, we suddenly had a captive audience looking to us for new content and inspiration. It helped us to build our community.”

GREEN IS GOOD BUSINESS

Sans Faffis not the only local green fashion business that has grown steadily despite Covid-19’s challenges. At sustainable fashion digital platform Zerrin (“golden” in Turkish), founder Susannah Jaffer reports that sales last year were up by 97 per cent from 2020 and also higher than pre-pandemic levels.