Eretikos Iki, based in Milan and Tokyo, is a fashion brand that believes it can reduce the fashion industry’s raw material waste by 70 percent by creating digital fashion pieces and integrating digital resources into the creation of its physical clothes. On the one hand, by offering digital clothes, their fashion business model allows people to still follow the fashion world’s ever-changing trends without actually buying (and wasting) physical clothes. On the other hand, by integrating digital software into the tailoring and designing of their physical clothes, Eretikos Iki shows other designers and brands that they can minimize their waste by digitally creating patterns and prototypes. This allows people in the industry to save on materials such as fabric, thread, dyes and beads required to make initial prototypes that would otherwise have been wasted to reach their desired final design. This is exactly why the work done by Eretikos Iki aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Responsible Consumption and Production.
Eretikos Iki was founded by Barbara Fontana Ozawa, whose grandmothers were seamstresses on both her mother's and her father’s sides. This allowed her to have a childhood surrounded by fabric, scissors, and needles, fostering her love for high-quality garments and craftsmanship. It can be inferred that this love also pushed her to create digital fashion pieces and digitally assisted pieces.
This is because digital fashion goes hand-in-hand with slow fashion, which focuses on creating less high-quality items. A digital fashion business model calls for people to own only a few essential pieces for everyday wear. They can buy digital pieces instead when they desire to buy new trendy pieces whose novelty will eventually wear off and end up in landfills. These digital fashion items will cost less to manufacture, distribute and purchase. It will also create much less physical waste than today’s fast fashion.
For consumers, digital fashion also includes photographs, which can be worn as AR (Augmented Reality), the same way people put on filters. This allows people to take and share photographs of themselves wearing trendy digital fashion forward pieces, the same way they could when purchasing fast fashion pieces but with much less cost and waste.
Eretikos Iki’s innovative approach to fashion design is paving the way for a more sustainable industry. Founder Barbara Fontana Ozawa's deep-rooted appreciation for craftsmanship, combined with a forward-thinking mindset, has led her to develop a digital fashion business that allows her customers to follow trends while, at the same time, ensuring that they are making consumerist choices that are friendly for the environment and cost-effective too. This makes Eretikos Iki a leader in sustainability, showing other brands and fashion designers that they, too, can adopt similar best practices for a better future.
Find out more about Eretikos Iki’s clothes and their other initiatives by checking their Instagram on @eretikosiki.