This month at Mindless Mag, we're partnering with Liverpool-based brand, Onee to celebrate our Consumerism Campaign. We're joined by ONE Essentials today to talk through the brand, their mission, their products, and more! 👏
Mindless: Hi, thanks so much for taking the time to talk about all things Onee.Earth today! First of all, we'd love to hear all about the business, who you are, what you do?
ONE Essentials: ONE Essentials creates inclusive premium essentials. t-shirts, sweatshirts and underwear designed to radically reinvent the everyday wardrobe. I felt the industry was out of kilter with the climate crisis we were in so wanted to create a purpose led brand that could go beyond creating clothes better, but have a real lasting impact.
I wanted to start with the most hardworking items in our wardrobes, the ones that get the most wear and use, but we often think the least about. So I focused on the one piece we all throw away, – underwear, an item that's truly disposable.
Every piece is designed to last, but designed for the end of its lifecycle to circular design principles.. Crucially we have replaced convention elastane, which goes nowhere, with an innovative biodegradable alternative. We really
We area also part of the cleanup, but donating 1% of everysalet to textile cleanup initiatives., currently partnering with the OR foundation, who work with those most affected by the largest textile landfill site in the world, in Accra Ghana.
Mindless: This all sounds so amazing! What’s your story and what sparked the concept behind the brand?
ONE Essentials: After working in the Fashion industry for 14 years I started ONE Essentials out of a sense of frustration with a broken system and knowing that the way I felt best to fix it was from designing products for their end of life, was the only way to have real impact on our planet's future. I still believe that the only way to be truly sustainable is to be accountable for what you produce to ensure that when it's no longer wanted it can easily be recycled or composted so that we are working in a regenerative way and not just taking from the limited resources we have.
Mindless: It is so wonderful to see such a progressive and neccessary brand come from such a great story! We can't wait to see everything to come! What’s your biggest goal with ONE Essentials?
ONE Essentials: Thankyou so much, that really kind of you. With ONE Essentials I really want it to become the reference for a brand with purpose . My aim is to Restore balance in the way we create and consume and make the ONE circular model an industry standard. I want us to continually be at the forefront of innovation and driving radical change.
Mindless: If all brands had this same value-driven ethic, maybe we'd be in a much stronger environmental and societal place! Have you faced any challenges along the way? How did you overcome them?
ONE Essentials: I like to be honest - running a small business isn’t easy, you face challenges daily. One of the biggest challenges we have as a business is our size, by choosing to embrace innovative fibres and technologies they come with a premium cost that is more suitable for businesses of scale. We have found manufactures who can support on lower order quantities which is amazing, allowing us to try our products and offer, but we pay a premium for it. If we could get scale we would be able to access solutions that are currently unavailable to us as we can’t hit the minimum quantities.
Which makes it even more frustrating when you see large businesses who could absorb the prices of these innovations choosing not to use them as they would increase the cost of their items.
Mindless: We really value and appreciate your honesty! It is so true that going down the conscious and sustainable route does come with a premium price tag from a business perspective - which is most likely why so many others choose the alternative, damaging the industry and our planet in the process. Well done for making a difference with the work you do!
We'd love to know, what advice would you give to anyone wanting to delve into the world of slow fashion?
ONE Essentials: Find a niche or a hook that you can own in a market that’s not saturated. With so much greenwashing and claims on sustainability from big brands it’s can be hard to break through - we’re still finding it difficult despite our efforts to quantify all our items with LCA data or open sourcing. Consumers already have a relationship with bigger businesses and that leads to trust in their claims even if they are not always accurate of the bigger picture. So having a very specific niche will help a new business break through.
My other tip would be not to go it alone. Find a business partner, being a so founder can be the most isolating experience and you need to be able to trouble shoot with someone who’s as invested as you are in the success of the business.
Mindless: What's something that we perhaps wouldn’t know about consumerism?
ONE Essentials: I saw the most wonderful quotes from the new book by @futuredust on instagram the other day and it really does nail it!
“Consumerism is both an environmental disaster and a spiritual void? This is how we get out of it By buying things our future selves in mind , investing in ourselves , building wardrobes to last a lifetime whole at the same time supporting businesses that share our values” - Consumerism is power
As a consumer you hold amazing power to create change by supporting businesses that are doing better. You can change the world by buying better or switching to sustainable options for your everyday items. If everyone made one small change to their everyday lives on mass it can have huge impact.
Mindless: That quote is SO magic. We see why you love it! We just want to say a HUGE thank you for taking the time to join us - we gained so much from this chat and we hope our readers do too!
Where can we go to get involved in all the fantastic work you do?
ONE Essentials: You can support us simply by following us on instagram @oneehq and liking, sharing and engaging with our content. One of the most important things for me is to build a strong and active community.
And we know we’re not the cheapest on the market and we don’t go on sale, but members of our mailing list will be the only ones to receive offers, pre-sale discounts and rewards. We only want to reward those that engage with us and share our values
Fancy working with us? Get in touch at info@mindlessacademy.com ❤️
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