On running a business in lockdown, sustainability goals and why kindness is king.
UTS School of Design graduates Bec Cooper and Bridget Yorsten established their eponymous label Bec + Bridge almost two decades ago in 2001, while they were still students.
They’ve since built a global brand and dressed some of the most recognisable women in the world – including Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid – and fundamentally shifted everything from how they market their brand to how they choose their fabrics.
How has Bec + Bridge fared during the pandemic?
Bec: It’s definitely been an interesting period – but we were really fortunate in that when COVID happened, we were coming off a strong foundation for our business. We certainly had the right people employed to help us deal with the situation. The biggest impact has been the retail stores. We’ve got three stores in Melbourne and one only opened in May 2020, so we were trying to do the fit-out during the first lockdown. So that’s been really challenging.
You’ve been in business together for a long time – what changes have you noticed in the fashion landscape in that time?
Bridget: Ethical fashion has definitely been at the forefront for the last two or three years.
Bec: And I think also the need to promote what you’re doing about it. We’ve always made and manufactured our clothing in Australia, but we had never felt the need to publicise that necessarily. But now consumers are demanding it.
Bridget: People definitely want this information, they’re hungry for it. They want to know where we produce, and what our fabrics are made of.
Bec: People demanding it is a really good thing for the industry – to make us more accountable and address it.
You’ve publicly committed to a number of sustainability goals, from repairing garments to phasing out non-recyclable elements. Do you have any other sustainability measures you’re working towards?
Bec: We’re just trying to look at all our waste streams and see what we can do for each one. We’ve got a team that works on that and we just try and tackle it bit by bit. I think it can get really overwhelming otherwise, so you’ve got to focus on where we can have impact. We really try and look at the fabric side of things: replace fabrics and test out new fabrications.
Ethical fashion has definitely been at the forefront for the last two or three years.
There are so many exciting things happening in the world of textiles in terms of sustainability, so I feel that’s probably one of the biggest ways we as a business can have impact. Do we have to use this one? Could we try it in this one? Could we work with the mill on this one, so it’s a little big lighter in weight, so it matches that one? Or finding a beautiful, organic, sustainable fabric and brainstorming what we could do with it, even if it’s not something we’d normally have in the range.
And then our fabric off-cuts – trying to be clever with that. For a lot of our natural fabrics, we’ve partnered with a local caterer and they get used as napkins. We just try to think outside the box a bit.
You partnered with charity organisation Thread Together, providing clothing to vulnerable members of our society – from bushfire-affected towns to remote Indigenous communities. How did this partnership come about?
Bec: We’d seen them in the media, and we were working on what to do with end of line collections. In the past we had donated to charities, but I think when we saw what Thread Together do with their initiative, we were just really impressed. It’s incredible what they do, it’s all about empowering people. It’s not about going and shopping in thrift stores. It’s new product, often not even a year old. We weren’t giving them stock that had been sitting in a dusty warehouse for five years – it was in shops six months ago.
Bridget: It feels like there’s no better time to be giving back, if you’re in a position to do that. There’s a lot of hardship at the moment.
Are there any other ways that you find yourselves focusing on trying to give back to the community?
Bridget: As an Australian fashion label with a fairly significant online platform and community, we definitely feel the responsibility to be moving forward in areas of ethical fashion and sustainability. That’s always at the forefront of our minds.
It feels like there’s no better time to be giving back.
Bec: I also think for us as a business, we’ve always prioritised kindness within our company. We do believe that sometimes people underestimate just a small act of kindness. Compassion and understanding within your team can have a real impact on how they interact with people. We have a young team of predominantly women, and people are struggling, and we’ve got to be aware of that. Everyone’s mental health comes first.