Edition 003 – Playing our part

We don’t claim to be able to change things alone. We want to do what we can. We want to play our role. We’re not perfect, but want to improve little by little. In all humility, we want to be part of the transformation. With and for our children. With and for our customers.

This is why, for this Edition #003, we’ve decided to bring some kids who are passionate about the subject along for the ride. Their names are Quentin, Ambre, Morgane and Hyacinthe. They too are already doing what they can and want to take things further.

We spent 3 days with them, telling them everything about the textile industry, explaining the urgent need for action and presenting future challenges. We listened to what they think, observed their reactions; they spoke up innocently and with common sense.

We explained our initial steps and what we’ll be doing in future. No false promises were made, because for us the most important thing is doing what we can.

Playing our part!

We’ll never rethink an entire system as such that it becomes as responsible and sustainable as possible overnight, or on our own. No one person holds all the cards required to change the world, but we all hold some of them.

We all have a talent or a superpower we can use in order to get active and take small steps as best we can that, on our own unique level, will create a lasting chain reaction. Today, we want to humbly share all of these small steps that are taking us in the right direction. Those we’re already doing. Ours and yours.
And we want to do this openly, optimistically and above all working with our customers and listening to our children.

CHAPTER 1: BE ECO-FRIENDLY

Water is currently needed to produce clothing: 2,500 litres are required to make one T-shirt; 10,000 litres for a pair of jeans.

The textile industry has to find ways to reduce our impact on water and use it in the eco-friendliest way possible.

This is why, on the first day of the experience, we took the kids to meet Thomas from the Demain la Terre association. He and Benoît Mouvielle, TAO’s Quality Manager, explained everything to the children.

We trekked around Celles: a village that was abandoned 50 years ago as it was under threat from the rising waters of the Lac du Salagou. A collaborative and sustainable project with a human dimension is now giving the village a new lease of life. In the coming years,
new residents will be able to move in. They will jointly decide how they want to live together in an eco-friendly manner.

CHAPTER 2: MAKE IT LAST

Currently, under a quarter of textiles are truly recycled. The most polluting clothes are those we don’t wear (any more) as they have been made for no reason.

We talked to the children about making clothes last for as long as possible, repairing them before throwing them away, using them for new purposes, recycling properly and so on… To this end, Caroline from the Atelier des Makers showed Quentin, Ambre, Morgane and Hyacinthe how looking after their clothes and repairing them when they had a hole or stain could be fun and responsible.

CHAPTER 3: COME TOGETHER

On the third day of the experience, we invited Annick Jehanne (Founder of Hubmode & Nordcréa) and Édouard Blanchon (Managing Director at TAO) to spend time in discussion with Quentin, Ambre, Morgane, Hyacinthe and their parents.

It seemed to us an obvious choice to let the children really have their say in these discussions.

We should listen to them more as they’re the most agile, adaptable and creative of us all, with a fantastic ability to think outside the box. They are yet to develop bad habits and tend not to have unreasonable reflex reactions.