№.4 "But the Q.R. Code... Where Does It Lead?..."
Verifiable sustainability is the future of the fashion industry.
Eagle-eyed readers of Tuesday’s duffle design deep-dive were perhaps left wondering, ‘Where on earth does the QR code on the side pocket of the bag lead?’
I’m glad you asked—Narnia! No, actually, somewhere way cooler than Narnia! Seriously! Scan it with your phone above and see for yourself, I’ll wait right here…
Verifiable Sustainability
The Q.R. on Duncan’s duffle is called a ONE.Code. ONE.Code is a unique identifier that measures and verifies everything that went into making your individual garment:
It keeps record of resources consumed during its manufacture, such as electricity, water, dyes, and other chemical usage; it also tracks additional information like how much of that electricity was from renewable sources and which dyes and chemicals are certified by bluesign©;
It contains information about the materials your garment is made of, including what mills they were sourced from and whether they’re certified as sustainable;
It calculates the total carbon footprint of your garment, inclusive of both production and transportation;
Finally, it logs the individuals who had a hand in the making your garment, verifying that they are treated humanely and receive a living wage as compensation for their work.
It’s no secret the fashion industry, and fast-fashion in particular, imposes numerous negative externalities upon both its employees and the environment. As an industry, it’s one of the largest consumers of fossil fuels and one of the largest polluters; it exploits and abuses its workforce; it burns unsold inventory by the ton; and on and on.
And one of the most insidious dodges many players in the industry frequently resort to, plausible deniability—How were we supposed to know our supplier of ludicrously cheap leggings was chaining kids to sewing machines?—is enabled by a complete lack of transparency and traceability throughout the supply chain.
ONE.Code exists to foster accountability within the industry by enforcing verifiable transparency at each and every point along a garment’s journey to your doorstep. It’s something many have long-since clamored for, but so far, none have attempted concrete implementations of. Brand after brand jumps on the sustainability bandwagon, touting their eco-efforts in their marketing, only for it all to be later revealed as greenwashing.
Resonance, the full-stack fashion platform where I spend half my time doing various design and tech things1 when not working towards AFFLAÉ’s launch, first introduced ONE.Code in late 2021, with Rebecca Minkoff as the inagural brand. I was the designer, then developer, behind the application you visit when you scan the code above.
The application renders all the information ONE.Code tracks in an experience that garment owners can browse on their phones after scanning their garments. In addition to the information I listed above, the app displays a comparison of your garment’s resource usage to that of a garment made the traditional way, to further quantify just how vastly more Resonance’s sustainable production model is, and when available, an actual video of your exact garment being made!
Many brands place the code on their in-garment labels, but just like those goofy handles Steve Vai cuts into all of his guitars, I wanted a lil’ zing of that practicality-meets-conversation-starter aesthetic. So I stuck it on the duffle bag’s pocket, under AFFALÉ’s logo, and improv-designed this kind of weird Po-Mo art thing around it, scooting basic shapes here and there until they sparked some joy. Somehow, the result harmonized with Old-World-World’s-Fair, and I wasn’t going to question it.
ONE.Code is really exciting as both a technology, and as an industry-wide standard for enabling verifiable sustainability. I can’t wait to publish a deep-dive on its innards sometime soon, especially as we’re now readying a sparkling new version! In the meantime, you can read about it in the press here, here, here, and here.
I didn’t mention ONE.Code in Tuesday’s post because it felt too advert-y in the context, and detracted from the flow of a story about a very unique garment I made for a very unique individual. But it’s worth bringing up separately as part of AFFALÉ’s story, too.
Because not only did I build the first version of ONE.Code, which focused on verifiable sustainability as its sole application—I’m using AFFALÉ as a vehicle to explore the exciting new realms (more exciting than, yes, even Narnia!) where it might next take the fashion industry.
So watch this space.
plus chic, tu meurs,
—jane
I realize I owe you a full explainer on Resonance, as well as my unique position there. Soon!