For years, she admits she didn't question the process. But six years ago, the young entrepreneur started to dig deeper, understanding the impact of all this manufacturing. “I realized how polluting it was,” she says in an interview from her London office.
That compelled her to launch Everybody & Everyone, a new sustainable fashion brand, which aims to bring in all aspects of a sustainability under one room: from pieces that can be worn a variety of ways to carbon-offsets to using primarily certified fabrics. Plus, they're available in sizes from to 00 to 24 to reach as many consumers as possible. While the prices are not exactly high-street cheap, they're not luxury either, fitting into the category of what could be defined as “affordable premium.” The goal is to keep these pieces for a long time.
As a mother of two kids, Chou says that parenthood helped her gravitate to more eco-friendly options in the market. Couple that with her knowledge of the fashion industry, she started looking at how to build a more sustainable brand several years back. Though it took longer than she anticipated, she's learned more during that process, honing in on small details and bringing all the tentacles of sustainability under one roof.
Tencel appears a lot in the collection. But she's also keen on new materials. As an investor in Modern Meadow, a biofabrication company that's making leather in labs, Chou wants to not only fund the latest in textile innovation but eventually put it into practice. Having her own brand will make that easier.
