What sustainability means to KitX:
“This is about brands defining what their sustainability ethics are and being transparent about it, and then the customer can make their own judgment. For KitX, it’s about sourcing materials consciously, so not buying into materials that harm the planet. Where there are choices—do we buy organic cotton or do we buy regular cotton? We buy organic cotton. Do we buy a zip with plastic tape or do we buy a zip with upcycled PET bottle tape? We buy PET bottle tape. I think we have a really long way to go, but there is that choice.”
The challenge and opportunity in plastic:
“The thing that I find really frustrating is that anything nylon or polyester is plastic. There are sixty billion tons of plastic bags that end up in the oceans every year, so why can’t we keep the plastic out of the ocean and turn it into our future fabrics? There’s a company in Slovenia that’s removing marine litter and through this polymerization technique, turning it into a thread, which gets knitted into a lycra and can be woven into a nylon fabric. It can be done. Why create more nylon? There’s so much plastic out there already.”
Her mission with KitX:
“I really want people to embrace the idea of sustainable fashion that looks good. I want the message to get picked up and for it to inspire other people. I think that’s starting to happen, but there’s more of that to come.
“You’ve got to pick what you’re going to do, and then do it really well. At this phase in KitX, I’m not about educating, or I’d be going on tours and talking the whole time. What I’m doing is creating beautiful, wearable, desirable fashion. I’m creating what I hope will be a very strong, desirable brand with materials that are sourced consciously—that’s what I focus on. When I do interviews, I will talk about it rather than preaching on the street—my calling is to create. It’s the law of nature: create the attraction. I’m not saying, buy it because it’s sustainable; I’m saying, buy things you love. It’s the law of attraction. The customer just wants desirable things—it’s my job as a creator to make sure they’re sourced consciously, whether or not she cares.”