Our ethical approach: always more, but little by little!
Rome wasn’t built in a day after all.... Let’s cross over to the other side of the Channel to explain our point of view, stopping for a bike ride through the forest.
Is it possible to be environmentally responsible without overcomplicating things and giving up your freedom and creativity? Thankfully, yes. Let’s take a little detour through athletics and the forest, if you don’t mind…
At La Pièce, we draw inspiration from a technique developed by British cycling coach Dave Brailsford, thanks to whom the team made phenomenal progress after he joined in 2003.
Nine years later, the British team won the Tour de France for the first time; the following year, they won again, and the British became unbeatable in many other categories, such as the Downhill World Championships, where they were unbeatable in 2013-2014, including the women’s team. What’s remarkable is that his method did not involve monastic self-denial, but rather a constant accumulation of small improvements. This is the so-called “marginal gains” technique: it feels as though we’re taking tiny steps and that the effort is negligible, but in fact it’s highly effective!
So yes, it takes 9 years. But you don’t become a champion overnight. Especially if you don’t want to push yourself too hard and risk getting discouraged. Just as with dieting, we all know that losing weight requires a gradual change in lifestyle, not sudden deprivation that is more frustrating than anything else.
Image credit: Jamesclear
In fact, a tree would completely agree. That’s right: by getting just a little more light than the others at first, it eventually becomes the tallest tree in the forest. In our fast-paced lives (I’m hungry, I order something, done in a flash), we’re tempted to want everything right away. But some things take time if they aren’t to end up being swept away like a house of cards.
Well, back to our cotton: even if La Pièce isn’t qualified for the Olympics, we fully intend to lead the ethical fashion pack in less than 9 years by progressing gently but surely. It starts right from the starting blocks: La Pièce began by paying particularly close attention to its raw materials, our fabrics.
The textile industry is the second most polluting industry in the world after oil, because of water-intensive crop cultivation, pesticides, dyes, and the global division of labor, which generates a great deal of carbon emissions.
On top of all that, because of overproduction, thousands of rolls of fabric end up in warehouses. For our first collections, we therefore decided to source our fabrics from intermediaries in Paris who supply us with production surplus. This is the upcycling method.
But that’s not all: we started with fabrics partly made from synthetic fibers such as polyester. For the new summer collection, we selected materials that are even more respectful of the environment and the skin, such as cotton and linen.
And why linen, exactly? We’ll explain it to you very soon!
