the beginning of "Natascha von Hirschhausen"
Natascha is telling her story about founding a zero-waste fashion brand
I decided to found the label Natascha von Hirschhausen after I visited Bangladesh, while studying for my Master’s degree at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee in Berlin. Even before that, I dealt intensively with the topic of sustainability. But I always kept wondering whether it could ever be sustainable to bring another collection to an already overflowing market.
Then in Bangladesh, I witnessed how the western world deals with a very interesting and diverse country. In addition to the immense impact to people’s lives, the amount of garbage, that is caused in fashion production really affected me. I already knew, that the process of cutting clothing alone causes about 20% of clippings and that overproduction is a huge problem. But seeing how – sorry to say it like this, but how – a country is being used as a trash can for our western civilization, has repelled me.
Even though I do believe that concepts such as recycling and upcycling of residual materials are good ways of relieving the current system, my question was whether we can avoid waste completely right from the beginning. So, I developed my own cutting system, which reduces clippings to less than 1%.
It was equally important to me to exclusively use natural materials, that are being controlled along the entire value chain for ecological and social sustainability – and this applying for every component of each garment.
By now I am sure that it was the right decision to introduce a sustainable, fair, zero-waste collection to the market. I am very grateful for my job and for all the support we have received so far. We met incredibly amazing people all along the way, that helped our business grow, but especially helped me grow as a person and female entrepreneur. Thank you all so much! We are looking forward to grow with you.
