One way VF Corp. is boosting its sustainability commitments? Supporting emerging talent.
Since 2019, The North Face and Timberland owner has been an active sponsor of the Redress Design Award, a Hong Kong-based sustainable fashion design competition centered around zero-waste, upcycling and reconstruction principles. Following a glitzy showdown earlier this month, this year’s winner, Germany’s Nils Hauser, will get the opportunity to work out of VF Corp.’s Tokyo Design Collective, a design hub located in the heart of Japan’s Harajuku district, as well as collaborate with the Timberland design team on the brand’s spring 2025 clothing line.
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It’s a win-win, said Jeannie Renne-Malone, vice president of global sustainability at VF Corp.
“Together with Redress, we’re nurturing a sustainable fashion talent pipeline that will begin the participants’ careers considering ways to reduce waste and incorporate circular design into fashion,” she told Sourcing Journal. “And in return, our brands get to work with an emerging designer who brings in new thinking.”
Renne-Malone said that the company aims to build sustainable supply chains that benefit not only its brands but the entire fashion industry “and beyond.” Doing so requires taking a holistic approach to circularity: designing for recyclability, disassembly and durability; incentivizing takeback programs and launching recommence platforms.
Giving young designers a boost is key to this strategy.
“By supporting young designers and connecting them with industry leaders such as Timberland, we’re helping to foster a talent pipeline that is also aligned with creating a sustainable fashion industry,” she said. “If designers begin to incorporate sustainability and circular thinking into their design process from before they enter the industry, they’ll be able to take these skills and thought processes with them throughout their career and continue inspiring further generations. It’s more than just helping VF’s sustainability commitments; it’s about embedding circularity throughout the industry.”
Dr. Christina Dean, the founder of Redress, agreed that collaboration is critical to driving change.
“While we are very different operating organizations—Redress is an Asia-focused environmental NGO accelerating the change to a circular fashion industry through educating designers and consumers and VF Corp. is one of the world’s largest apparel, footwear and accessories companies—we have a shared vision of empowering change through educating designers,” she said.
The Supreme parent’s reach and influence offer a tremendous signal boost for a scrappy nonprofit, Dean said.
“We tirelessly champion the importance of sustainable fashion education and how designers and collaboration can bring about change, and this huge springboard with VF Corp. to the large-scale fashion industry means our ripples turn into waves,” she said. “Without industry collaboration, we could run the risk of just preaching inside local classrooms and not to world consumers.”
Previous collaborations have been “incredibly successful,” Renne-Malone said. Italy’s Beatrice Bocconi, the 2019 winner, for example, transformed VF Corp. deadstock into a collection of sustainable bags with Kipling. The 2020 and 2021 champions, Argentina’s Juliana Garcia Bello and Taiwan’s Jessica Chang, worked with Timberland to craft its 2021 and 2022 Chinese New Year collections. And last year’s winner, Federico Badini Confalonieri of Italy, partnered with Timberland on its upcoming 2024 Earth Day collection.
“And it doesn’t stop there,” she said. “We’re committed to ongoing engagement with winners. We provide mentorship, resources and opportunities to bring their sustainable concepts to life.”
The work with Redress feeds into the Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) Fashion Initiative, a “universal and transparent” framework to measure circularity that VF Corp., Deloitte Switzerland and the World Business Council unveiled at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen in June. The idea is that by providing a comprehensive set of harmonized metrics, businesses of all industries, sizes and geographies can draw from a shared vocabulary for both internal decision-making and external communication.
“We firmly believe that sustainable fashion starts at the design stage, where we can make choices that significantly impact the entire lifecycle of a product,” Renne-Malone said. “CTI empowers designers to integrate circularity principles into their daily decision-making processes. From choosing materials that can be reused or recycled, to designing products that have a longer lifespan, CTI helps optimize resource use, reduce environmental pollution and enhance product quality.”
CTI complements VF Corp.’s efforts to boost young designers by allowing them to create garments that “not only look good but also contribute to a more sustainable future,” she added.
Redress aside, VF Corp. has also linked arms with Pensole Footwear Design Academy, a footwear design school based in Portland, Oregon, to provide BIPOC students an opportunity to gain professional footwear design experience through an immersive curriculum, which they’ve dubbed DiverCity x Design. Graduates of the program then take part in a yearlong, paid rotational apprenticeship program with VF Corp’s slate of brands.
As with Redress, the goal is to identify emerging talent that shares the company’s sustainability vision, Renne-Malone said.
“This is not just a VF Corporate priority but also something our brands actively participate in,” she added. “Together, we’re empowering the next generation to integrate sustainability into their creative processes and contribute to a more sustainable fashion industry.”
