Sustainable brand Kindom thinks through every step of production
Claire Powers, like many of us, has been awed by what fashion can do.
“The fashion industry, crazy and creative as it is, can turn on a dime,” she said.
Even though she was talking about the resiliency of the industry in making personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 crisis, she might’ve been hinting at fashion’s greener future. As the founder of Kindom, a Los Angeles-based brand that meets 15 of the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, Powers is often thinking about how to make fashion better.
Kindom is the product of not one but two existential crises, when Powers realized, first upon the birth of her niece in 2006 and then again with her own child, that the years she spent working as a designer for fast-fashion brands were not making the world the place she wanted it to be for the next generation.
“After you’ve seen factories and you’ve smelled urine in the hallways — the way people are treated and all the pollution — it’s really sad,” she explained.
Bad luck was Powers’ first problem, though; her nascent brand wasn’t able to withstand the 2008 financial crisis. While the coronavirus outbreak has caused trouble, Kindom is in a healthier position to weather the storm than her first attempt at ethical fashion.
“Back in 2007, we didn’t have the kind of digital platforms we have now to spread the message quickly,” she said. “The same strategies that I had for my first company I incorporated into my second company and actually wanted to fulfill [them] this time around.”
One of those strategies is the use of natural materials, like organic cotton, hemp and bamboo. Kindom also uses reclaimed fabrics and recycled fabrics, which are becoming more available, Powers noted.
The packaging is also extremely important to Powers; Kindom uses recycled paper, bio-degradable twine, cotton labels and water-based ink to make sure that none of the branding or packaging is damaging to the planet. She has even thought the production line down to the metal safety pin that she uses to attach the tags.
Some of that thoughtfulness comes from Powers’ particular frustration with the individual packaging requirements for apparel — specifically, the fact that everything needs to be in its own plastic bag.
“When it gets to the store, the salespeople just take it out of the plastic bags — when it gets to a distribution center or a warehouse — and that’s it! It gets thrown away!” she said.
According to The Future of Fashion Sustainability Panel, in 2018, the industry was producing about 150 billion new items per year (about 20 per person). To Powers, that means about 150 billion plastic bags going directly into landfills and oceans.
“I’ve found a biodegradable plastic bag manufacturer that actually makes compostable dog poop bags,” she said with a laugh. These bags are made of compostable plastic made from corn, and they cost about 20 times more than a regular plastic bag, according to Powers.
“But you know what? I’m not putting millions or billions — or even thousands or hundreds — of bags into the planet used one time,” she said.
Kindom also limits production in unconventional ways, using size-inclusivity, gender-neutral styles and convertible garments to meet consumer needs with as few items as possible.
“When I was designing in my younger days, it was more about form over function, but now it’s kind of getting to a point where it should be more function over form,” she said.
She explained that each design requires careful planning so that it will be wearable for several body types and across genders.
“There’s no global standard sizing that exists for all the brands in the world to follow — it’s just the truth. Everyone’s built differently,” she said. “But that’s the beauty of it!”
Convertible garments — pants that become shorts, or long sleeves that become short sleeves — help limit production and anticipate the extreme weather conditions that result from climate change, Powers added.
The Kindom founder also takes a special interest in working with indigenous tribes in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America.
“Their cultures are dying out because designers — big designers — are using their art and their concepts in their work and [the tribes] are not getting compensated for it,” she said. “They’re on the front lines with climate change and all these disasters, and they’re the ones that I want to protect.”
Even with so much care to be as environmentally- and ethically-conscious as possible, Powers still feels that there is more she can do. Achieving the last two U.N. sustainability standards would require Kindom to scale up, but Powers is hesitant to expand much beyond her five to seven-person team.
“How can you scale sustainability when the whole point of sustainability is less is more, quality over quantity and using and recycling resources?” she asked. Still, she hopes that her approach to fashion can be one that others will emulate.
“I tried to check all the boxes,” she said.
