Ep 161: What’s in your Soho bag? Unpacking the role of collaboration in circular product design

Pippa Shawley 00:00

Hello and welcome to the circular economy show from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. I'm Pippa, and in this episode, we're exploring the role of collaboration in scaling a circular economy. We'll hear how two brands with a long history of repair and reuse have worked together to create a sellout product coach's Soho bag, and we'll find out what they learned along the way. I'm delighted to welcome Megan Dawson-Elli, product sustainability manager at Tapestry, and Steven Bethell, co-founder of Bank and Vogue. Welcome both. Megan, if we can start with you, can you tell us a little bit about what tapestry is and how Coach's background and circular economy evolved?

Megan Dawson-Elli 00:42

Absolutely, so Tapestry is the parent company of Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman, three iconic houses, and coach has been offering in house repair and leather care for over 30 years. So like you said, it's been a long history, and in the past few years, we've been offering more services as well, our coach runway collections have been repurposing and reimagining already existing materials for several seasons now and then. In 2021 we launched Coach Reloved, a resale platform with four categories, restored, vintage, remade and up crafted. And in 2023 we launched Coachtopia, a sub-brand fully focused on the journey of circularity.

Pippa Shawley 01:24

Great, and Steven tell us a bit about what Bank and Vogue does.

Steven Bethell 01:29

Yeah. So Bank and Vogue is a family of companies. We focus on the second hand clothing trade. So our parent company, Bank and Vogue, buys and sells containers of used clothes. We do that at scale. We sell about 4 million garments a week that we buy from charity leftovers, from charity shops and private collectors the United States and Canada. We also have a chain of retail stores in the UK, Sweden and Finland, which trade under Beyond Retro. And we have an upcycling division where we where, if we can't resell something and we can't repair it, the idea was, could we cut it up and make it an input to new manufacturing? And the fourth silo of our business is that, if we can't resell something and we can't repair it, if we can't remanufacture it, can we sort it for the input to fiber to fiber recycling? So our the happy place that we operate in is within the second hand clothing trade.

Pippa Shawley 02:35

And I believe this collaboration started with a meeting that you had. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Steven Bethell 02:42

Yeah, it was actually, you know, as you as we're doing this podcast with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, I think it just reminds us that getting out and going and doing these sorts of podcasts, we were at the Innovation Forum, and we're talking about our collaboration with Converse. And amazingly, one of the team from Tapestry, who was at that time stationed in Hong Kong, said: "Hey, this might be something for Tapestry". And and then got us a meeting with Stuart Vevers, who's the creative director. And it was just an amazing moment, because we walked in and showed some of the upcycled work that we've done, and, you know, introduced ourselves as having stores and Beyond Retro. Stuart said: "Stop, I know who beyond retro is. I shop at the store all the time". Which, you know, which was a moment of my heart, obviously, but this idea that we had just sort of come along in a moment in history, and had been upcycling for 10 years at that point in time, it was, it was a perfect moment at the perfect time.

Pippa Shawley 03:57

And Megan, tell us a bit about the products that you landed on with Bank and Vogue this, this handbag.

Megan Dawson-Elli 04:04

Absolutely, so we launched the Soho handbag this past spring, and it is taking post consumer denim from BVH, cutting that into panels, and then using those panels for the bag shell or outer side of the bag. We call this repurposing. And I think to echo Steven when we got together and met with BBH, it felt like the perfect next step that we had been doing this on our own, in our runway collections and in coach we loved for several years. So it was exciting to partner with someone externally to be able to bring this product to fruition.

Pippa Shawley 04:41

And can you talk a little bit about the process of bringing it to fruition? And maybe Steven, you can jump in with, I know you've talked when we discussed this before recording about the how the material available influenced the design, but maybe Megan, if we start with you.

Megan Dawson-Elli 04:57

Yeah, absolutely. So, like I said, this is our first time. Purposing with a supply chain partner at scale, which is so different than sourcing recycled materials or other environmentally preferred materials, because there's still standardization with those right. You go to a mill, you say, this is the material that I want, and they make it specifically for you with this new process, working with BBH, the tapestry, ESG team and compliance teams really had to work together to create a new checklist for using post consumer materials and making sure that we have all teams involved. In order to greenlight this project, we had to definitely bucket in a lot of time to go through different things like labeling, testing, material composition, marketing claims, and make sure we were all comfortable and on the same page.

Pippa Shawley 05:45

And Stephen, when a brand like coach comes to you and talks about developing a product like this, what do you what do you present to them? What does that actually look like with this material supply?

Steven Bethell 05:57

I think, I think what's really exciting about having 25 years history of of of being in the stream of product coming by, we have a knowledge about what's available and what's really fun about, you know, being able to sit with the coach design team. Our superpower is being able to pull the sheets back on what's actually available. So when we look at the, you know, for example, the Soho bag, it was about us coming to the design team and saying, You want to make a bag out of denim. Here are all the shades of denim that are available. And by actually showing those shades, and being able to kind of share the our insights about what is available the design team, then can use that knowledge to be able to design at scale. And I think that's your, you know, to the point of the of the conversation about collaboration and scale, it's, it's really exciting to be able to actually articulate what is in that post consumer supply, so that the designers can design into it, and that that that was a that's a real unlock moment. Because if you're, you know, sitting in a in a design office in New York, you're, it's hard for you to imagine, what does 5 million pairs of genes a month look like, which is what bank evokes sorts a month. And what are the shades, what are the thicknesses? But really unlocking that knowledge between us, collaborating about what's available is really the is really a key moment to being able to to not just design one product, but be able to design a product that can be made at scale.

Pippa Shawley 07:46

And Megan, what does that look like within Tapestry? Did you have to have huge teams on board? How? How was the process there?

Megan Dawson-Elli 07:53

Yeah, it definitely took time to break the mold of the linear system. I think we the way that we were able to make this successful is by bringing in key players early and explaining what the journey of these post consumer denim panels were, and getting everyone on board and giving folks time to understand that this is a new way of operating internally for us, it's been a really great case study since we've been able to make it work, we've been sharing that out internally with teams and kind of showing the successes of it. And now we have a template for how we can work with post consumer materials.

Pippa Shawley 08:32

And I know that you work in various different ways with different recycled materials and things like that, but bringing Bank and Vogue in, how did that help you get this project off the ground, and how did that collaboration come in?

Megan Dawson-Elli 08:45

I think the collaboration here really is highlighting that we've been doing repurposing and reimagining at scale for a coach on our own end, but this is the first time we've been able to do it with an external partner, and that has enabled even a larger scale, because, you know, we have a New Jersey workshop where we do all of our coach. We loved up crafting and restoring, but obviously, as as Steven was saying, he's looking at 5 million genes a month. Was that? What it was? Steven like that is a massive scale, and being able to work with a partner that has such a history in doing this has been an unlock for us.

Pippa Shawley 09:27

And great that you have that this is a case study, I think you you've sold out of the bag several times over, which, to me, sounds like a success, but what would you say the results were of this collaboration?

Megan Dawson-Elli 09:38

Yeah, great results. I sold very well. I think we also took it one step further, and we partnered with Steven and his team to do a life cycle assessment on the actual denim. So cradle to gate, what is the impact of the denim? And it had fantastic results. The BVH repurposed denim. Carbon footprint was up to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and its water footprint shows that it's consuming 95% less water when comparing to conventional first use denim. So not only did we get to work together to make a beautiful product, something that is sold well, but also we were able to work together to get more data on that product.

Pippa Shawley 10:26

And it's really lovely product, and I think we've not mentioned that Jennifer Lopez was the face of the product as well.

Megan Dawson-Elli 10:33

Absolutely, great photo with JLo holding the bag that I know that was one of Steven's favorites.

Pippa Shawley 10:41

Steven, what would you say your biggest learnings from this collaboration have been?

Steven Bethell 10:47

I think that you know, real learnings is that we operate in a space, in the second hand clothing space, which is really quite siloed, and it's been really fantastic to, you know, go to 10 Hudson Yard to sit with, you know, the like Sister reverence, and be inspired that, that there is, there is real common view that this is, this is possible at scale, and that We did it, you know, that's that's really one of the views the real learnings for us, and that true collaboration is really possible. It's a word that's thrown out a lot, but having really strong vision from, from Stuart, and from, frankly, from the coach team, who wanted to just figure it out. I think was really a learnings for us. I think it was, you know, I use this analogy a lot that, you know, it's, it's, it's one thing to go and play tennis in your local tennis court, in your community court, but you get to work with somebody like a tapestry. You're all of a sudden stepping onto the field of Wimbledon, and you up your game. And it's it. It really is for us, a proof that we we have a belief that a low carbon manufacturing future, part of that landscape is used. And we've, for 25 years, have been championing reuse and repair. Now this remanufacturing has been proven at scale, and I think one of the highlights of 2024 for Bank of Vogue, but me, personally, was getting that text message from Stuart saying the bag's sold out. You know, it's not just that we made a product that has really great lower emissions in carbon and really lower in water, but being part of a product that was insanely commercially successful, that's, that's really the victory here.

Pippa Shawley 12:57

So it sounds like you've both had a really great experience from this is this. It is there more to come. Megan, what can you tell us,

Steven Bethell 13:07

the partnership continues. Stay tuned. And

Pippa Shawley 13:11

And what about Bank and Vogue? I know you've got lots of other clients, sort of working on other sort of slightly similar projects, Steven. What can you tell us?

Steven Bethell 13:21

Yeah, similar, but very different. And I, you know, obviously, for 25 years, we've championed that use can be the landscape, part of the landscape of of fashion and, and we're just really, really proud that this is one more element of that landscape of fashion and, and I'm, I feel as if this should really inspire other designers, other brands, to really break the mold about how they're doing, what they're doing. I think this really, this solo bag, should be held up as an element that's this is possible at scale.

Pippa Shawley 13:57

Yeah, I think scaling is, is a really great takeaway from this is to show you've collaborated as two long existing brands who've both worked in the space for a long time, but they're the things that you can achieve when you work together. Is really inspiring. So thank you very much for joining us today, Stephen and Megan. Thanks so much for your time, and thank you for listening.

Steven Bethell 14:18

Thank you!

Pippa Shawley 14:19

Thanks to Steven and Megan for joining us today, and thank you to you for listening. For listening. If you enjoyed it, then please leave a review or a comment. We'll share it with your friends and colleagues. We'll see you again next time bye.