IT ALL
BEGAN
WITH
E VA ...
SUSTAINABLE
FASHION IS MORE
THAN A BUZZWORD,
IT’S A GROWING
MOVEMENT. AND A
LOT OF THAT IS
DOWN TO ONE
WOMAN. MEET
EVA KRUSEWHETHER YOU’VE ALWAYS been a conscious fashion
consumer or you’ve only just become aware of sustainability,
Eva Kruse, the CEO of Global Fashion Agenda, has had
a hand in that. The former magazine editor co-created and
leads the global forum on fashion sustainability and was a
driving force behind the launch of the Copenhagen Fashion
Summit in 2009, which has attracted sustainably-minded
companies ever since.
Let’s go back 10 years to when the fashion cycle was:
buy, wear, throw away. The global economy was in a slump,
but the fashion industry was booming. It’s in the nature of
fashion to continually renew itself, with new shapes, colours,
pieces and looks every season – so why did Kruse want to
change an industry that seemed to be working?
“What was an eye-opener for me was Al Gore’s film An
Inconvenient Truth, which described how all industries — not
just fashion — affect the climate and the environment. Then
Vanity Fair released a green issue, so again, the climate and
environment were in the cultural conversation. So I began to
look into it,” she says. “No one was measuring the global
impact of clothing production on the planet’s resources, so we
created a sustainability think tank. I remember the feedback
we received from fashion companies was, ‘We shouldn’t talk
too loudly about this.’ It was so complex, and many companies
were worried about the idea that there would be a focus on
their production conditions and resource consumption. But it
was also an eye-opener for many of them.”