Spanish fashion search engine launches in US with sustainable products

Initially the platform launched with over a hundred European brands that matched sustainability criteria such as the use of organic certified or recycled materials, transparent supply chains, and non-toxic dyes. The search engine itself allows quick discovery of products based on a number of common e-commerce filters (such as gender, price, and product type) as well as the type of material being used (such as organic cotton, bamboo, and recycled synthetics like Tencel). But this is just the beginning, the team is now working on a sustainability rating system and many more advanced filters to make finding the right ethical product a seamless experience, the company said in a press release.

Having quickly validated the model in Europe with thousands of consumers successfully using the service every month to find sustainable fashion that fits their style and budget, the team has now launched a North American section, featuring hundreds of brands from the US and Canada. The number of ethical and sustainable fashion brands in the US and Canada is significant, and the team hopes that the launch will make a difference, by helping smaller brands gain further recognition and making sustainable product discovery easier for shoppers.

Apart from the main offering, Ethical Clothing has developed additional tools to help with other difficulties faced by consumers and brands in the ethical clothing space. On the customer side the company wanted to tackle the perception that ethical and sustainable clothing was unaffordable. So, it launched a price drop alert service that keeps users fully up to date on all the offers available across the full catalogue of brands.

In addition, it has just launched comprehensive fashion footprint calculator to help consumers really understand how the fashion habits affect the planet across a range of metrics. Collecting twelve data points from fashion consumption, to washing habits, and sustainability awareness, the tool aims to inform users on the personal impact, as well as providing realistic action points to help everyone reduce the impact going forward, according to Ethical Clothing.

“Our dream is for us to be able to ingest all the data the brands offer around their materials, processes and supply chains and provide our visitors with a scoring system that gives them the control as to how strict it want to be in their criteria for sustainable clothing,” Heinkel said.

“We are always looking to partner with new ethical brands, regardless of their size. We hope to give more exposure to brands that go the extra mile in terms of sustainability,” Hesketh said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)