At APPARIS we recognize fashion is an inherently wasteful industry, but strongly believe that style and sustainability can coexist. We are a brand owned by women, led by women, and majority run by women - women who strive to craft high-quality, fashionable wardrobe staples with reverence for people and the planet. 

Our principled approach to design, materials, and manufacturing is constantly evolving as we learn to become better stewards of the earth, and we feel a responsibility to be transparent with our community on our sustainability efforts and goals. We love our animals just as much as we love you, and want to shape a future where we are all valued and respected.

While we are not perfect, we are committed to continuous improvement in reducing our impact at every stage of our value chain. 

Thank you for letting us share our journey with you. Stay tuned as we progress.

OUR ETHOS

DESIGN & LONGEVITY

Each of our pieces is designed for longevity and is intended to thrive beyond seasonal trends. From silhouette to construction and material choice, we always design with durability and timelessness in mind. We are not here to help you get dressed for a moment - we are here to help you look your best for years to come. That’s why we’re dedicated to using the highest quality materials to create seasonless staples— which helps us keep our products out of landfills and in your closet.

When developing collections, we look for key fabrics that can be utilized across different products for multiple seasons. This helps us define a strong aesthetic identity and avoid overproduction waste. While we strive to eliminate overproduction waste, sometimes we still miss the mark. We maintain partnerships with local schools and organizations so we can donate textile scraps and leftover yardage for upcycling when we do end up with leftover fabrics in our design studio or manufacturing partners' facilities.

MATERIALS

When it comes to raw materials, we strive to be circular and cruelty-free. Since our launch, we’ve focused on finding animal-free fabrics that have generally been made using nylons, polyesters, and other synthetic materials as an alternative to animal-protein fibers like leather, and wool. We will never use animal leather or skins, animal fur, animal feathers or down, and will always remain angora free.

While we continue to stay true to our cruelty-free roots, we also understand synthetic materials are imperfect due to their heavy reliance on fossil fuels in material production and their generation of microplastics through product use and end-of-life. To help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, we prioritize sourcing recycled synthetics whenever possible. The majority of our collection uses recycled raw materials as their primary fabric component.

While using recycled synthetics is a step up from virgin synthetics when it comes to carbon emissions, this still doesn’t solve the issue of microplastic pollution. We have explored the use of bio-based synthetics which are commonly derived from agricultural products like sugar, soy, and corn, but these materials can still have significant environmental trade-offs and can still lead to microplastic shed.

Finding sustainable solutions that lessen our use of plastics and reduce our carbon emissions while remaining cruelty-free proves challenging. Understanding the many environmental tradeoffs of fossil-fuel and bio-based synthetic fibers, we are expanding our view of cruelty-free materials to include certified post-consumer-recycled and cruelty-free regenerative animal fibers, and are exploring integrating them into our material base. 

There is a lot of textile waste in the world, and using post-consumer recycled animal fibers allows us to become more circular while remaining cruelty-free. If we do decide to integrate virgin animal fibers into our material base, we are committed to only sourcing from regenerative farms that are certified cruelty-free.

CIRCULARITY

As part of our commitment to sustainability and our product, we're offering clients the opportunity to give their Apparis pieces a new life. If your Apparis piece no longer feels like “you”, reAPPARIS allows you to recycle it responsibly.

Learn more about reAPPARIS here.