Clothing Children
Susan Correa, the Founder CEO of Art & Eden, started as a bright young designer of womenswear in 1988. She climbed from step to step up the fashion ladder in India, and then moved to the US and Canada. Now, with her new brand Art & Eden moving into top gear, Correa is ready to bring a fresh new sustainable fashion dimension to childrenswear. Correa once again shares the details of her incredible journey, 28 years later with Meher Castelino who had first interviewed her in 1989.
What other fabrics do you use?
Recycled polyester: We use recycled polyester where applicable. Old garments, excess industry fabrics, and PET soda bottles are collected and remade into new polyester fibres, then weaved or spun into a new fabric. Recycling and reusing polyester fabrics decrease environmental impact and takes less crude oil from the earth's resources.
What we love: By repurposing used bottles and garments-destined-for-trash, we prevent plastic and waste from piling up in landfills. Polyester also has lower energy impacts during its wash and clean cycles. As reported by Waste2Wear, recycled polyester has a 50 per cent lower carbon footprint than organic cotton, 90 per cent lower footprint than nylon, and a 75 per cent lower footprint than polyester. It also uses very little water.
What we don't love: It's a love-hate thing: because polyester is a synthetic material, it is not ultimately biodegradable. Also, even though recycled polyester saves energy and emissions in contrast to virgin polyester, it is still more energy-intensive than making natural fibre.
How do you manage to compete with the many established childrenswear brands?
I studied detailed industry reports before I entered the market. Five major players in the US account for 64.2 per cent of the market share.
I recognised that I was entering the arena with not one but five Goliaths, every existing major player a veritable giant. The business that existed was all about competing for market share, by engaging in the battle of the tyranny of the lowest price - a world I wanted to move away from. If I wanted to enter the playing field with the giants, I had to reimagine a new way forward. I wanted Art & Eden to be a great brand and known for its beautiful product. I wanted the brands legacy to be that we built something that mattered, not just bought more products to market. We had the flair and the experience to design something worth paying for and the courage of conviction to say, "this isn't the cheapest, but it's worth it." Art & Eden is not a one-directional, single-axis choice; we are focused on building a brand of great value that's making a difference.
Please tell us about how it all started.
I grew up by default in the business of fashion and have since led multi-million dollar operations in the apparel industry across India, European countries, Canada and the United States. Having spent an equal amount of time both in the back and front ends of the apparel business, I had the unique disposition of having witnessed the industry from a 360-degree vantage point. I bore close witness to what emerges when the market's primary demand is to engage every player in the tyranny of the lowest price. It pressures all those involved to bring out the latest trends as fast and as cheap as possible to market.
The consequence of this solo focus is that the industry is making choices that damage the environment, short-changes people in the value chain and piles up landfills with disposable fast fashion. Meanwhile, we act as passive bystanders, unmoved with only a vague sense of apathy and indifference. I was part and party to the systemic industry malaise, and like everybody else, I turned a blind eye, thinking that not seeing the problem made it go away. I remember reading we choose a career, but a vocation chooses us by Robert Johnson.
Two years ago, after a pivotal experience, I began to dream of a better way forward, of a world with shared values. I wanted improved livelihoods for farmers, dyers and tailors. I wanted a world of collaboration and connection where beautiful people worked alongside each other to create a better world for all: a world where profit for some did not have to come at the cost of others. I dared to dream of a new future for business. I painted a masterpiece in the landscape of my imagination. Now, I had to bring it to life.
So Art & Eden was born from a mission to be the best 'in' the world by being the best 'for' the world. It is the intersection where profit and purpose coexist. It is, The Better Way: a children's business that cares for the planet by adopting sustainable practices, that considers all people in our value chain by treating them right, that rises up to meet the needs of under-resourced kids in our local and global communities. We have created a beautiful business that cares for our customers by empowering them with sustainable products that are thoughtfully made, and are affordable.
Who are the people behind this project, besides you?
After graduating with honours in psychology from Mithibai College, I pursued an education in fashion design & merchandising at the SNDT University. My best education came from working hands on 10-12 hours a day as an intern in the factory. I loved the rapid pace of education that came from being on the factory floor.
My internship from SNDT led me to a placement for six months at Creative Garments, Mumbai. The rest is just an amazing journey that unfolded. I have since been with the Creative Group for over two decades and built multi-million dollar businesses with the company, across India, Canada and the United States. Catalyst Management, the holding company of the Creative Group as well as Texport Garments India, back Art & Eden.
Catalyst comprises three incredible individuals: Vijay Agarwal, chairman of Creative Garments; Om Batheja, group director; and, Hrishi Modi, senior group VP. They are my mentors, my advisors, the wind beneath my wings, and founding partners and investors of Art & Eden.
Texport Garments comprises the Goenka family: Naren Goenka, managing director, Texport India Ltd; and, Neeraj Goenka, director, Texport Garments India, who came on board as founding investors. As soon as Naren Goenka reviewed the business deck and heard the vision for Art & Eden, he confirmed he would invest. At that point I did not even have the financials of the business ready, but he was sold on the vision and the team.
I was in India in June 2017, to raise my next round of funding and we are absolutely delighted that Birendra Agarwal of Creative Garments and 109 F has come on board both as an investor and the Art & Eden licensee for apparel in India. It is a deeply personal connection as my journey in fashion commenced as an intern student from SNDT with him at Creative Garments. We are also super-fired up to have on board two more incredibly noteworthy investors: Famy Energy Pvt Ltd and the Welspun Group, who will take on the global licensing rights to launch an Art & Eden home & towels. We are also working to close the on-boarding of two more incredibly noteworthy investors in India, and together with our star team Art & Eden will catapult to a new high.
What is the USP of the brand?
We have embraced the stakeholder theory of business, and built Art & Eden to be a one-win model. Registered as a public benefit corporation, we have committed to triple bottom-line accountability. It is truly A Better Way forward: a children's business that cares for the planet by adopting sustainable practices, that cares for people in our value chain by treating them right, that cares about under-resourced kids in our local and global communities by meeting their needs. We have created a beautiful business that cares for our customers by bringing them sustainable, deeply considered and thoughtfully made products at prices that are affordable.
Where are the garments being made?
Our girls' products are made in India. Our boys' line is produced in China. The reason for this is that the girls' production has a lot of details, pockets, ruffles, trims, etc, and India is better suited to handle the details on the same. Also after close to six months of R&D, we were able to make the girls base quality goods to a hand-feel we really liked in India; so, we wanted to keep the entire line in India. China is really good with less complicated styles and boys' is just a natural fit. We are opening both India and China as international retail spaces and wanted to ensure strong production bases in both countries.
From womenswear to childrenswear, why did you make this change? Why are you limited to childrenswear?
It was on August 18, 2014 that I launched Empower. For every garment sold in the brand that I co-founded, a hot nutritious meal was served to a child in need at the Hope Foundation School in Bangalore. I had just touched the lives of 400 kids, and my joy knew no bounds. That experience changed everything. It marked the day that I found my 'why' and consequently my 'way' forward. I dreamed to scale that impact to 4 million kids.
Immediately thereafter, I embarked on this quest to find an answer to a simple question: how can the business of fashion be better and our choices more responsible? That led to a myriad of more questions on figuring out better processes, better management systems, better packaging. I then spent about two years thereafter studying out the details of impact of the business of fashion in the world at large. It was ironic that during this study I was doing some large successful programmes for children's clothing in my global sourcing business for the very first time. I absolutely loved it and it seemed like the most natural fit after my research on impact and success with children's clothing to build Art & Eden as a business that clothed children with a product that was sustainable, and through a percentage of profits meet the needs of less privileged children around the world.
How are you promoting and advertising the brand? Are there exclusive outlets? Where is the brand retailed?
As of August 1, 2017, we will have engaged one of the top PR companies in the US to promote the brand's message and story. We were very strategic about launching the brand with the right partners. We launched the brand in the US with the topmost departmental store Nordstrom. It was an honour and privilege to also launch Art & Eden in Mexico exclusively with the most beautiful stores of El Palacio de Hierro. We already sell the brand to over 300 stores in the US. We currently retail in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Kuwait and Colombia.
What are the aims of the project?
Our dream is to build Art & Eden into a billion dollar business and simultaneously harness the infinite power of business for greater social good. Art & Eden was born to be the best we could be 'for' the world while we strived to be the best 'in' the world. We will stay true to our mission.
Where are the fabrics sourced from?
The fabric is sourced locally in countries where the product is manufactured.
Who does the sales & marketing, and what are the different modes?
We have a VP of sales, Nichole Moss managing the business in the US. We also have five sales showrooms all across the US, a sales showroom in Canada as well as Mexico. I personally manage all the major meetings and was at every trade show when we launched the brand.
What are the different printing, embellishments and texturing techniques used?
The differentiator for Art & Eden is that we collaborate with artists from all around the world to do our prints. We have artists from Brooklyn to Belgium, Sweden to Switzerland who collaborate and co-create with us. The world had become so collaborative and the artist community is delighted in our greater purpose. We use low impact dyes to marry back to our sustainable fabrics; our embellishments always connect back to our prints.
Are there any accessories besides the garments?
Our vision for Art & Eden is to build it into a lifestyle brand, to provide sustainable solutions for parents to shop for their kids. We do only apparel, but we have plans to build out the brand extensions in the near future.
When will you sell in India?
Thrilled to be back in India with Art & Eden. Super excited to launch the brand for Spring 2018. Creative Garments will license the brand for apparel in India.
Why is it limited to just childrenswear?
The global childrenswear market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 6 per cent by 2020. With laser focus on this segment, we want to be a trusted resource for parents to turn to, to find sustainable options for their children. Nature protects our kids with three layers to their skin. We get to put on the fourth layer. We built Art & Eden so that parents have a beautifully designed, deeply considered, well thought through, sustainable product that's responsibly made for their little ones. Childrenswear is one of the most lucrative segments in the global apparel industry. It is estimated to hit a value of $173.6 billion by end of 2017.
What kinds of fabrics do you use?
Choosing sustainable materials and processes over conventional ones means finding fabrics, dyes, and production methods that have a lower impact on the environment. The materials we have chosen are better for the planet, but we are the first to admit that no matter how hard we try, our choices in fashion will always have some impact on the planet. See below to learn more on the fabrics and what we love about them, and how they've got room for improvement.
Organic cotton: We use The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified cotton. GOTS has strict environmental criteria for the entire manufacturing process. It ensures that an organic certifier evaluates all phases of production, including farming, harvesting, production, processing, manufacturing, packaging, and branding. It also certifies that every garment is made with a minimum of 95 per cent organic material.
What we love: Organic cotton keeps chemicals away from farm to product, and our GOTS certification protects farm animals and human rights too. We also love that all of our dyes and printing are low impact dyes. Because farmers do not have to buy pesticides for organic cotton (which costs up to 60 per cent of their annual income), their wages almost double. They also can work in conditions free from toxic pesticides and chemicals.
What we don't love: Growing cotton does takes up a whole lot of water (400 gallons for one T-shirt-ouch). We are looking for ways to reduce the amount of water we use, much of which also comes from the laundering of clothes post-production. But that's something we 'can' change through cold washes and hang drying.
Who all have helped the brand?
It was July 24, 2015 when I visited Vermont for the first time to enjoy some quiet time. I had spent the year earlier studying the path of sustainability and was looking at better business models. I noticed a lot of Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlours there and looked them up on Google to understand why everywhere I turned I saw Ben & Jerry's. I learnt that they were headquartered in Vermont, but I also chanced upon their entire journey in sustainability in ice cream and the fact they lead in the journey of being a certified B-corp. I just had to find out more. I reached out to the CEO, Jostein Solheim and requested help to understand the business model. He was kind enough to respond and invite me to the Ben & Jerry's headquarters. It was an incredible and amazing experience. Rob Michalak, social missions director, walked me through the Ben and Jerry's story. I entered the headquarters in awe and left in delight. I knew this did not happen by chance. It was awesome. The Better Way did exist in ice cream and I was fired up to build it in fashion. Exactly seven days later I was in Boston to work with Melissa Mc Carthy on her Plus line. I got a chance to meet Michael Voligny, the vice dean of Harvard Public Health Division. It was in the 60-minute meeting with Voligny that Art & Eden was born.
Where do you source the dyes and chemicals from, and how do you ensure their quality?
We partner with factories committed to our sustainable journey and take responsibility to source our fabrics from authorised and certified GOTS approved vendors. The dyeing and printing mills are also aware of the low impact dyestuff that we must use with our sustainable fabrics. The factories are required to provide us with a certification of the processes before shipping the goods to the US. Our next step is to engage a top-of-the-line audit company to validate and vet our entire supply chain.
What is the planned turnover of your company?
We just launched Art & Eden on January 25, 2017. We built a business plan before we started the company that projects a growth to $35 million in five years. We are less than six months in the business, and have already achieved 80 per cent of our first year's target. We will be on-boarding some pretty amazing strategic investor partners. I am super-excited about how our combined strengths will help bring about a rapid scale.
What are the different modes of assistance that the brand undertakes?
Art & Eden launched in the US on January 25, 2017.
The global impact: We paid it forward and commenced our impact programme, the "Clothes for Cure" campaign way back on November 4, 2016. We have committed to 1 million multivitamins and 7,000 doses of albendazole for children in much need in Central America. The programme runs in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. We were a team of 80 people that went to El Salvador to launch the programme and more than half of the people were from the medical field from all around the US who volunteered to join this community brigade. We had doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, laboratory technicians, and dental hygienists all contributing and connecting together to create a better world for all.
The local impact: About 25 minutes from the affluence of New York lies the Camden Street School in Newark, New Jersey. There are 627 children in the school; 90 per cent live below the poverty line, and 40 per cent are special needs kids. The children have to be cared for emotionally, psychologically and physically. As I began to build Art & Eden, I wanted to be responsible to meet needs of children in our local communities, and to allow my team to be enriched by the power of being other centred. The Art & Eden team plays an incredible role in creating a safe, collaborative, exploratory space for them, a place where they can discover and express themselves in artistic ways. We encourage and teach them through our mentorship programme that their attitude determines their altitude and that their destiny is shaped by what they decide it to be.
How will you enlarge the list of associations in the future? What are the plans for the brand?
We have big plans to take the Clothes for Cure programme around the world to countries where the brand will be retailed. We will launch the programme in Mexico later this year. We are also fired up to bring our Clothes for Cure programme to India in 2018. I truly believe that Art & Eden has the potential to become a billion dollar business. We have incredible strengths between our existing founding and investing teams. We are thrilled with the way the brand has been received thus far at retail, and the great sell throughs that we have enjoyed post-launch. We have some really exciting opportunities that are on the verge of opening up. We hope to build Art & Eden into a world-class business of sustainable products for children.
What about your team's portfolio; what does each person handle?
As I build Art & Eden, I challenge myself daily to push boundaries and to break free from the business as usual mould. I reimagined a new way forward to structure the team and our leadership model. We have reversed the power pyramid. Leadership is now at the bottom, and supports and empowers the team to achieve business goals.
What is the distribution network?
We have a multi-faceted distribution network. We do business online and offline. We work with major department stores and specialty store chains. The business is domestic across the US, as well as international.
How many garments are made in a month? Who designs the garments?
We work the numbers on an annual basis. For the first year, we had projected to do 145,000 units which will scale to close to 2 million units by the fifth year.
We have a very talented design duo, both graduates from FIT in the US. I specifically looked for raw, young, fresh talent untainted by the industry. For me, a fresh perspective trumps experience. Art & Eden had to exist because we bought something fresh, new and exciting into the market. Katherine Lee is our awesome girls' designer who pours all her heart into everything we do at Art & Eden. Joey Benshetrit is our spirited boys' designer who truly labours over what's the new cool in the boys' world.
How many collections are made in a year? How many styles are there in a collection? What is the price range?
We do five collections in a year: Spring / Summer / Fall / Winter / Holiday. We have about 70 styles in each major collection over each division. Holiday is smaller at 50 styles. We wanted to ensure that we made Art & Eden affordable for all to enjoy. Our prices are in the $20-35 range.
