Jean Zeid 6:54 a.m., January 30, 2024
Every morning, Jean Zeid delivers the best in terms of innovation. This Tuesday, he is interested in the startup Volago which has designed a sales platform for sustainable fashion made mainly in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
This Tuesday morning, the union brings eco-responsibility into fashion.
The union is called Volago, a company launched in the fall and which brings together around twenty selected brands. The start-up has designed a sales platform for sustainable fashion made mainly in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, but also in the rest of the country, in Europe or elsewhere in the world. Today in France, there are 40% more clothes purchased than 15 years ago, except that we keep them for half as long.
What are the selection criteria ?
What Jérémy Chossat and Florian Gabriele, the two thirty-year-old co-founders of Volago, wanted was to sell clothes designed to last. And there is rather interest since the company repairs the clothes offered for sale free of charge. A loose seam, a reasonable tear on a sweater, the repair is free. The choice of fabrics is therefore essential: organic cotton, linen, hemp, tencel or even recycled plastics. The act of purchasing does not stop at the sale to increase the lifespan of the garment.
The other criterion: the refusal of child labor. In 2050, the textile industry will represent a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Above all, it employs 170 million children in sometimes deplorable working conditions.
Have the founders managed to find many manufacturers meeting these two criteria?
Well not that much. Sustainable clothing plus guarantees on the industrial process are not commonplace. In total, around twenty brands have passed the tests for the moment in order to fill the virtual shelves of the Volago platform which therefore has one objective: to simplify the access to truly eco-responsible clothing for men, women and children and giving them as much information as possible: clothes, bags, shoes, materials used, production methods, real environmental impact, distribution of amount paid at the cash register between the different actors in production and distribution.
A spirit very far from that of fast fashion with inexpensive clothes and collections sometimes renewed daily.
And the prices?
Obviously, these are not those of fast fashion. A little over 100 euros for sneakers, from 60 euros for a dress, 50 euros for children's pajamas, more or less affordable prices but far from fast fashion prices for the moment.