Sustainable Fashion Brand Fanfare

Fanfare is a sustainable British fashion brand that sets out to create powerful, positive change in the fashion industry. Originally launched in 2018 under the name 'Fabric For Freedom' by Esther Knight, the collection combines bold and contemporary looks with repurposed and reused materials, designed to create a wardrobe of sustainable clothing made to last. We caught up with Esther to find out a little more about the brand that’s boldy making its mark on an industry that requires revolutionary change.

I first had the idea for Fanfare while I was working as a high street buyer. Buyers are responsible for the whole production line: your job is taking everything from sketch to store. You’re the one that's selecting fabrics and the one picking the suppliers and you’re the one that is contributing to the sustainability - or the lack of sustainability - of the product. If there’s an unethical part of the supply chain, you tend to know about it, and if you don’t know about it, you’re certainly contributing to it. I was on the phone to the suppliers when they were still at work at 3 in the morning putting pressure on them to fulfil their orders and reduce their prices. I was doing this knowing that it isn't going to be me as the brand that suffers, and it probably isn't even going to be them as the supplier that suffers, it's going to be the workers that suffer the most from this pressure.

I saw this huge industry-wide problem very early on in my days working as a buyer and I just couldn't ignore it, so I decided to make a change. I moved to Vivienne Westwood to learn more about ethical fashion, and there I spent quite a few years researching to decide whether starting my own business was the right step for me - I wanted to be around people with similar values so that I could help make a difference, and Vivienne Westwood was a great place to start.

At the time I found that there wasn't a single business (we’re talking about 7 years ago now) that was doing all of the things that I wanted to do - being fair to people and the environment but at a more affordable price range than the likes of Stella McCartney or Westwood. I wanted to create that middle ground offering affordable and cutting-edge contemporary fashion without compromising on ethics. That’s when Fanfare was born, and the brand today feels like a culmination of everything I’ve been working towards for the last 10 years.

At Fanfare I want to bring revolutionary change to fashion supply chains, end modern slavery in fashion and raise awareness around sustainability, all through the development of designled contemporary clothing. We work with anti-trafficking charities such as IJM and A21 Campaign, both of which fight to free people from within the fashion industry across the world, helping local law enforcement to end slavery in the long term.

We see ourselves as a pioneer of a new type of fashion – brands that care about innovative design and creativity on the same level as the wellbeing of the people who work with us and the resources that we use to make our garments.

It’s an exciting time for us; we recently underwent a rebrand, bringing a new collection and a whole new visual aspect to our website, and we were recently nominated for a Drapers Sustainable Fashion Award in the 2020 round. It’s a tough time for a lot of people, but we’ve been fortunate that coronavirus hasn’t hindered our plans too much; as a small brand our operations can be done remotely which helps us to stay agile and adapt to these kinds of sudden changes.

Over the next few years, I would love to see Fanfare grow and make a big difference to the world of sustainability. Our business model holds people and the planet at its core – everything is made locally in London. The materials we use are all high quality and are certified from organisations such as GOTS and OEKO-TEX, so we’re really ensuring that everything we do has as little impact on the environment as possible. In the future, it would be amazing to have a physical retail space for our brand which we could use to help educate people as to why it’s so important to be aware of how your clothes are made and where they’re coming from, and help people make better choices in future when they’re buying new clothing.

Fanfare @fanfarelabel www.fanfarelabel.com

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