Global e-retailer boohoo announces collaboration and partnership with Kourtney Kardashian Barker, entertainment personality and the CEO & founder of Poosh. Kardashian Barker is the brand’s newest ambassador with a focus on sustainability, delivering two capsule collections that have been created in tandem with a journey of investigation into opportunities for creating a more sustainable fashion future.
Launching in September 2022, the year-long project started with design meetings, where Kardashian Barker posed questions about the possibility of using the partnership to discuss the challenges of sustainability in fashion and help people make more informed choices. As the design team worked with Kardashian Barker to develop the first 45-piece capsule collection, discussions with global industry experts began, and Kardashian Barker worked to gain a better understanding of the challenges the fashion industry faces in this space.
The entire journey has been captured as part of a social content series and gives a first-hand account of the experts they met on and off camera, the conversations they had, what they discovered and how this continues to inform the project and the boohoo brand into the future.
In the series, Kardashian Barker works to dig under the surface of the industry, speaking with experts who help her and the audience, form a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities. The audience will hear from specialists in worker welfare, human rights, textile waste, upcycling, resale and vintage fashion. Kardashian Barker also called upon the expertise of her long-time friend sustainability influencer Stephanie Shepard, co-founder of Future Earth to identify the difficult questions we need to ask and get the conversation started about whether style and sustainability can really go together.
“When boohoo first approached me with this idea that was all about sustainability and style, I was concerned about the effects of the fast fashion industry on our planet. Boohoo responded with excitement and a desire to incorporate more sustainable practices into our line. It’s been an enlightening experience speaking directly with industry experts.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to use my platform to drive conversations that lead to ongoing change and use my voice to share actionable tips with consumers on how we can play our own part.
There’s still lots of work to be done and improvements to be made, but I truly believe that any progress we can make when it comes to sustainability is a step in the right direction and will open up the conversation for future advancements.”
– KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN BARKER
The conversation starts with the content series and New York Fashion Week will be the backdrop for the launch of the first collection and help to ignite a more in-depth conversation. The fashion industry has challenges ahead, and boohoo are committed to playing their part in delivering more sustainable style choices. This is just the start and as the discovery continues, the second collection, launching in spring will encompass more of what Kourtney and the design team have learned and it will mark the end of the partnership by announcing a series of commitments based on what all of the independent experts have recommended.
The first limited edition 45-piece capsule has been carefully curated, the customers told boohoo that they think more sustainable options are out of their reach, so they’ve made the prices of this collections extremely attractive to make sure its accessible to all. We want to get these products into the hands of those who want a more conscious choice, because we know they’ll love the quality, design and feel, so we are investing into certain price points and categories so that our customers don’t have to pay more.
The collection includes boohoo’s first foray into vintage, with two key styles custom sourced exclusively for this range. John Hickling from Glass Onion said, “These biker jackets are your statement vintage piece. It has taken us months to individually source, hand select and curate this huge collection. We have made sure that each piece is authentic, standout and aged to perfection.”
Other garments feature materials made from recycled fibers, statement pieces to forever cherish, staple wardrobe silhouettes made with traceable cotton and cleverly designed multiway pieces that give customers a variety of styling options. The brand has also explored ways to extend the life cycle of the collection and have embarked on a partnership with Hirestreet.
‘We are delighted to be working with Kourtney. We all know there’s an environmental and social cost to producing clothes, but there are ways the fashion industry can be smarter. boohoo has taken the bold decision to listen to our customers when they tell us they want to make more sustainable choices, but that the jargon makes it hard to really understand what their options are.
When we first met with Kourtney, she said exactly the same thing, and we realized we had an opportunity to use this collaboration to try and help inform our customers and empower them to make more informed choices.
When we spoke to the experts from across the industry, everyone said education was the key, and we could all see this was quite a unique opportunity to speak directly to millions of people across the globe and deliver something we don’t believe has been done before.’
– Carol Kane ‘ Co-Founder and Executive Director boohoo Group’
Boohoo customers love faux leather and sparkle in their wardrobes, and so we have created selected outerwear pieces using recycled polyester backing for the faux leather and three showpieces using recycled sequins. UK customers will be able to hire a selection of garments through the partnership with Hirestreet exclusively.
Although these improved fabric options are not the perfect solution, customers are given clear information about how their garments are made, offered options in terms of how they might access these pieces, and also provided with a free Kares document to help them extend the life of their purchases. Boohoo believes customers should be able to buy clothes at an affordable price and that includes more sustainable ranges and so all items in the collection have been priced in line with boohoo’s mainline collection.
