2023-11-26 12:11:54
It is said that the founder of Patagonia, a famous ethical and eco-friendly fashion brand, wore t-shirts with holes in them. “It’s a bit the same for us: we’re the head of a textile site but we’re always the worst dressed! », jokes Marie Nguyen. This thirty-something with a soft voice but a frank, sometimes biting verb, insists: she and her partner, who has also been her companion for years and the father of her three-month-old child, are “outsiders” in ready-to-wear. . This is precisely what gives them room to maneuver ” necessary “ to make things happen.
In 2017, the duo created WeDressFair, a platform that brings together around sixty brands placing respect for the environment and workers at the heart of their concerns. To avoid the “greenwashing”, each manufacturer must comply with a strict charter, supporting documents, and each consumer has access to all the information. “The objective is to create a series of reflexes before purchasing clothing: where does this product come from, how was it made, and above all, do I really need it? “, she explains. The site now reaches 40,000 customers. “It’s tiny, but it’s already a rediscovered sense! »
A story of a sewing machine
Marie has always been chasing meaning. As a child, she has difficulty accepting things as they are and questions the world with ” but why ? ». Her natural attraction to the world of research led her to work on AIDS and cancer, as a study engineer in a Parisian institute. “The scientific mission was fascinating, but on the human aspect, I was disillusioned.”
To compensate, the young woman seeks to flourish in community life, as a volunteer in a recycling center and for a branch of La Cloche, which fights the exclusion of the most precarious. There, she remains on the lookout for the slightest inconsistency. “On the one hand, we collected tons of jeans and t-shirts that we didn’t know what to do with; on the other, we knew the precise needs of precarious people in terms of clothing, such as underwear! “, she says. At 25, Marie decided to get a sewing machine and spent her weekends transforming t-shirts into panties and bras for women on the street.
Attack the problem at the source
She had barely set foot in the world of textiles when she discovered its turpitudes: the overconsumption and waste, the opacity of manufacturers which contribute to making this industry the second most polluting in the world. A form of” emergency ” pushes her to convert her small activity into a real business project: she will offer coupons of recycled fabric, cut from clothing unused by associations, to young designers looking for material in small quantities and cheap.
To act as a springboard, it integrates Ticket For Changeschool of “taking action”, where she crosses paths with her future partner, Antoine Coulaud. “He had the same ambition, but rather than being interested in the consequences, he proposed attacking the problem at the source: namely, we buy too much and wrongly! “. The two entrepreneurs joined forces and created a unique site, based in Lyon. Its name literally means “we dress fairly”.
Remember the value of clothing
A gray cotton T-shirt for €40, straight blue jeans for €100… Here, no extravagance, we prefer solid colors and classic cuts so as not to fall into the ” trap ” ephemeral fashions, and prices are aligned with those of the brands. “This means not being accessible to everyone,” regrets Marie, even if the company has set up a solidarity ticket for the less well-off. Eco-responsible brands exist, but they are not always visible “because marketing and advertising money is put into manufacturing.”
From the beginningWedressFair therefore chose to invest as much in commerce as in education to “give back a little power” to customers: the company offers a guide to better understand the textile industry, brand analyzes and campaign debunks (we speak of “debunking”) such as that of Black Friday, a new edition of which takes place on November 23 . “The idea is to buy less but better, summarizes Marie. Clothing has value, and we cannot save money on the environment or on human beings. »
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His compass: “The power of collective intelligence”
“When I was working in medical research and I was bored, I participated in company heists We Make Sense : These workshops allow a social entrepreneur to consult an assembly of citizens to help him, for example, because he is stuck on the name of his project or struggles to understand the expectations of his target. It is a tool, without compensation, which simply calls on the complementarity of each other, on benevolence and emulation. A natural stimulant that restores confidence in humanity and the future, when you want to change the world but feel a little alone! »
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