What’s next in Europe? Sustainable fashion, upcycling, transparency, and clean beauty.
A post by Candice Colin, who was one of our amazing moderators and guest speakers. Thank you for hosting Isabelle Rabier, Ilan Koskas (great venue and office!), and Mialy for the great help.
On December 20th, the 4th meeting of FAB FAshion and BeautyTech brought together a panel of French founders who contribute to develop new innovative models in the beauty and fashion industry, to build the future in the face of new environmental and social challenges increasingly burdensome. In line with the desire to give power back to consumers.
PANEL: BUILDING THE FUTURE OF FASHION: SUSTAINABILITY, UPCYCLING, AND TRANSPARENCY..
The beauty industry is moving forward in France, Fashion is beginning its own revolution. Responsible and sustainable initiatives more in tune with major environmental issues are beginning to multiply. The panel dedicated to fashion, was moderated by Charlène Goutal Redrado. In the spotlight: new players whose ambition is to contribute to changing consumer purchasing behaviour by offering them innovative models in particular.
Among them 3 platforms: Panoply, specialized in high-end clothing rental, Place2swap, the first customizable resale platform for brands, Dresswing, dedicated to clothing rental between individuals.
For Emmanuelle Brizay, founder of Panoply, “Making consumption more responsible is of course an important driver. We also seek to offer choice to our customers, particularly in the high-end segment, which is less developed than the low- and mid-range segment. With us, thanks to renting, they limit their purchase consumption while allowing themselves things they would not otherwise”.
For Estefania Laranaga, helping brands to commit to a more sustainable development was a key point in the creation of Place2swap. The second-hand market seems to be a given today,” she explains, “but I can assure you that this was not the case three years ago. There’s been an explosion in the last six months. The benefits are broad: it’s good for business and it’s good for the planet.”
But for this type of new models, the question of the cost of acquiring clients arises. At the beginning of Dresswing,” explains Delphina Tomaszewska, “I thought it was enough to have a good product, an efficient platform. Now I know that’s not enough. Women have so many options for clothes, competition is everywhere. And we need to raise awareness… To stand out from the crowd, we allow women who offer their clothing on Dresswing to rent or sell it.»
Transparency is the big change too. With the launch of the CLEAR FASHION app, the first clothing decoding app. “CLEAR FASHION brings a new kind of service to consumers by allowing them to understand what’s behind the label,” explains Rym Trabelsi, the co-founder of the app. As in food and cosmetics, the goal is to enable consumers to make informed choices.
PANEL 2:
CLEAN BEAUTY: TRANSPARENCY, THE NEW COMMUNITIES AND BRANDS SHAPING OUR FUTURE.
In the wake of the food crisis, the beauty and hygiene products industry has been considerably impacted by a crisis of consumer confidence and an expectation of transparency.
The panel dedicated to CLEAN BEAUTY, moderated by Jennifer Weil, showed the extent of their role in this unprecedented mutation. Concerned about their health, they have even made the ingredients the second most important purchasing criterion behind price and before efficacy, thus pushing retailers and brands to start taking into account the composition of products in the management of their offer. The adoption of our Saas BEAUTYLITIC platform, which analyzes the composition of entire shelves, by around 30% of major French retailers in just a few months shows that they now consider that they must better meet their customers’ expectations if they want to build trust.
Three new brands are on stage. COZIE, an organic beauty brand that has put the circular economy and recycling at the heart of its model. JUSTE, a brand with customized shampoos and conditioners, and MY HOLY, revolutionizing the menstrual market.
This leads to the question: what is a CLEAN product when the European cosmetic regulation is the strictest in the world in this area?
“A CLEAN cosmetic is a product that does not contain controversial ingredients that are nevertheless authorised on the basis of the international scientific literature at a given time, regardless of the origin of the ingredient. We sometimes tend to forget this, but nature itself is a source of poisons,” did I explain as the creator of the CLEAN BEAUTY app and founder of BEAUTYLITIC.
For Benjamin Garzillo founder of Juste Paris “the CLEAN aspect of a product does not only concern its composition but goes further with the impact of packaging on the environment”. However, some hygiene products are not subject to any regulation,” explains de Fiona Picot, the founder of My Holy. “Guaranteeing consumers the absence of toxic components is one of our commitments, but above all we must strengthen controls for the whole industry,” she continues speaking about the Femtech category.
In such a context, what are the biggest challenges in the development of CLEAN products? We started by working on a NO LIST,” explains Fiona Picot. The second step will be to provide complete traceability of our products, from tampons to cups to pantiess. “For Arnaud lancelot de Cozie “the challenge is daily because science is constantly evolving, but also on packaging and sourcing. It is above all a state of mind”.
The same approach is taken by Benjamin Garzillo founder of Juste, for whom “CLEAN products must not remain niche products”.
These young players are mobilizing to cover the entire value chain. “It’s in our mission,” explains Arnaud Lancelot, founder of Cozie. We must remain faithful to our mission, to our values, and this also goes through the employees we recruit”.
“This has been achieved by integrating our own industrial tool because we only produce when the product has been ordered, which allows us to control the entire chain” continues Benjamin Garzillo.
FAB COMMUNITY: WHAT’S NEXT?
Please, don’t forget to take your ticket for the next meeting now on EventBrite ( February 22 hosted by The Family).
In our next post Fab Paris, you will discover other founders changing the game, and we will share the take-away listening iconic Ning Li, interviewed by Nidhima Kohli, now one of our chapter leaders in London.
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