H&M Tries To Change The Image Of Consumers In Environmental Protection.

In September, Hsu Chi suddenly married her.

Brand exposure - that's from

A design of Conscious Exclusive Collection.

Now, you know, H&M actually sells the wedding dress, and it uses environmental protection.

Make.

But you may not know that H&M has launched a series of environmental protection series every year since 2010: in addition to the series of environmental awareness actions for the main tuxedo and wedding dress, and from 2015 to the new Conscious Collection series and the autumn 2014 launch, the Close the Loop Collection, which is only sold online in brand online stores this year.

Some or all of these products are made of environmentally-friendly materials, such as organic cotton, regenerated polyester fiber, regenerated polyamide and Tencel fiber.

H&M first Conscious Collection

H&M launched the Close the Loop Collection for the first time in the fall of 2014. The series is based on Tannin products, of which 20% of the fabrics are recycled fabrics and the different fabrics are made into tannins.

But these three young environmental protection series are not cheap at prices, and some even exceed the H&M Studio series of high-end lines and the designer series of H&M.

Although the purchasing price of organic cotton has decreased significantly in recent years, the environmental protection fabrics used in the production of environmental protection limited series such as H&M have taken some time to popularize and really put into production. So the wholesale price of these fabrics is not cheap at present, which leads to a higher retail price.

In the clothing industry, it will be questioned about environmental protection, fast fashion and luxury brands, but the former is often questioned more fiercely than the latter. The emergence of fast fashion brands speeds up the frequency of changing clothes.

In China, since H&M opened its first store in Shanghai in 2007, the number of stores in Greater China has reached 450 in 10 years, of which more than 350 are located in the mainland of China.

Relatively low prices, 1 to 2 weeks of product renewal cycle allows consumers to easily start a new dress without too much consideration, which seems to encourage unnecessary purchases and waste.

H&M has been trying to reverse this public perception and is eager to pass on to the image of the outside world: in fact, we are concerned about environmental protection and have done many things.

In addition to the use of environmentally-friendly fabrics in clothing, H&M will invite the media to participate in the Global Change Awards event hosted by H&M Foundation, a non-profit foundation project, and lead journalists to visit different brand design offices in the Swedish headquarters.

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H&M studio of different design departments

H&M wants to change media impressions, and the education market has become an urgent task for H&M.

In addition to a small exhibition for environmental conscious action limited series in Paris, H&M also hopes to promote the environmental protection series with the help of star effect.

New York fashion event MET GALA is also a display opportunity that H&M does not want to miss. Last year, H&M let Sarah Jessica Paker wear a dress made of H&M sustainable fabric and went to the red carpet.

In May of this year, H&M designed an environmentally friendly dress for Amber Valletta, who was also the model of "environmental conscious action limited series", and Hollywood young actress Hailee Steinfeld.

H&M's trend coordinator, Catarina Midby, revealed in the past interviews that brands have specific requirements for selecting stars, and that some female stars or supermodels themselves have been working with environmental protection organizations for a long time, and they are also willing to show their sense of morality in this respect.

At the same time, when a star chooses the clothing of environmental protection fabric to attend the event, the star will become more vigilant in behavior, because her every action is seen by the public.

For consumers, H&M has launched the "old clothes recycling project" in more than 4500 stores worldwide since 2013. Consumers can get 15% off coupons if they bring any brand of unused clothing and textiles to the store.

However, it is not without question that there is a view that the old clothes recycling project is encouraging consumers to further purchase in disguise.

H&M is not the first clothing company in the world to try "recycling".

In March 2012, UNIQLO took the lead in bringing the old clothes recycling activities in Japan to the Shanghai store and donated the old clothes to the charity material management center.

In November of that year, Puma also carried out the old clothing recycling activities in Beijing and Shanghai stores. However, the activity was more like a short-term marketing plan.

For the brand side, the massive environmental action is one of the best ways to set up a brand image, but whether it can persist is a test.

Regardless of brand, type, old and new level, all clothing and textiles can be sent to H&M's recycling bin. But where have all these clothes gone? Most consumers do not have a concept.

H&M led the media to visit its factory with I:CO, a multinational recycling company located in Wolfein, Germany.

The German based enterprise was founded in 2009. Behind it is the Swiss group called SOEX, which has the world's largest advanced textile recycling processing plant and process control system, and more than 65 countries and regions in the world will cooperate with them in varying degrees.

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Recycled materials will not only be used for clothing companies such as H&M, Levi 's, C&A, Timberland, but also to some suppliers of raw materials and some technology enterprises and automobile industry.

The facility, which is more than 100 kilometers away from Berlin, has an area of about 13 football fields. A total of 700 workers classify different categories of recycled clothing by three classes a day.

After the completion of the inspection, the factory's large-scale equipment will complete the next cycle processing.

On a two kilometer chain, there are about 900 large yellow bags, each containing about 75 kilograms of clothing.

However, I:CO will allocate product categories according to the core industries in the factory area, and save pportation costs as much as possible. The German wolf factory is mainly used for manufacturing industrial materials, such as insulation materials, automotive interior decoration materials or some home textile products.

Factories in India mainly produce clothing materials.

I:CO will use two main processes to deal with recycled clothing, detailed inspection and circular reproduction.

The workers will classify all the clothes according to the different specifications of the clothing's new and old materials, colors and so on.

Clothing that can not be returned to the secondary market will be processed through the factory's large equipment to become recycled materials, for industrial production or to be made into clothing fabrics.

However, this is still a difficult public opinion war.

If you open one of the most popular publishing websites in the fashion industry, with Bangladesh, child labor and fire as search keywords, you will see thousands of news, most of which are associated with fast fashion and popular fashion brands.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups regularly and closely follow the moves of fast fashion brands.

On the other hand, the challenge comes from H&M customers themselves.

If it weren't for radical environmentalists, most customers didn't really care about environmental protection.

That is to say, if the design fails, even more environmental protection concepts will not win customers' approval. In the final analysis, this is still a business to sell.

Therefore, H&M will also spend more time in designing, hoping to change the poor impression of environmental design in the public's mind.

"Fashion is the first consideration. After the draft is finished, it will be handed to the sample department.

Before we hit the page, we will discuss whether we need to use sustainable fabrics, which kind of sustainable fabrics we use, and the proportion of the fabric in clothing.

At the same time, we will also request the tailoring of environmental protection to save fabric as much as possible without affecting the beauty and effectiveness of the dress.

H&M's creative director, Ann-Sofie Johansson, explained the production process of environmentally-friendly clothing to the interface news at the Swedish headquarters office.

But in recent years, with the innovation of environmental fabric in textile technology, designers have become smaller and smaller in terms of fabric use.

"In the industry, the probability of sustainable cotton usage is getting higher and higher, which means that the cost price is much lower than before."

Johansson added.

However, even if the apparel industry is willing to take action for environmental protection, the reality is that the actual effect of the overall energy consumption of clothing manufacturing is rather limited.