Ep 40: How To Build A Thriving Sustainable Fashion Brand With Ellie Chen and Jensen Neff

There’s been a major shift in the fashion industry over the past few years, with a noticeable shift away from Fast Fashion. H&M, once a stock market darling, is now well below 50% of its all-time high. This, in no small part, comes from the concern over the waste emanating from the fast fashion pieces that now fill our landfills.

Jensen Neff and Ellie Chen found out just how much fabric goes to waste in the fashion industry (14 million pounds of fabric daily, to be exact) and created their sustainably sourced clothing brand Oddli as their senior capstone project at Stanford. Fast forward to today, they’ve grown into a multi-million dollar profitable brand. Listen in to hear how they used social media to build a following from the start, and their best advice for other young female founders.

Takeaways: 

• The fashion industry is shifting away from fast fashion and embracing second-hand retail due to concerns over waste.
• Oddli was founded by Jensen Neff and Ellie Chen, who met at Stanford University and shared a passion for creating ethically sourced clothing that promotes community connection.
• Oddli sources excess fabric, known as deadstock, from warehouses in downtown LA to reduce fabric waste in the fashion industry.
• The founders of Oddli believe in staying true to their vision and have chosen a non-traditional approach to fundraising and scaling their business. 
• Balancing ethical production and affordability is a challenge in the fashion industry, but transparency and education can help consumers understand higher price points.
• Social media platforms like TikTok can be powerful tools for brand growth and reaching a wide audience.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Shift Away from Fast Fashion

01:21 Introduction to Oddli 

10:23 Sourcing Raw Materials and Accessing Excess Fabric

15:50 Ignoring Conventional Wisdom in Fundraising

23:38 Navigating the Industry as Female Founders

31:22 Ambitions for the Future

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