Innovation

• Supporting only companies with sustainability as a main vision.
• Mentorship programs.
• Communal co-working space.

Inspiration

• The Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation and the need for something more.
• "I actually came from the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation and it's founders saw that there was a need for something to go further and thus the BFDA was born"
• "The students at Pratt have remarkable talent and passion and this serves as a helping hand in bringing small businesses to market."
• "In the face of climate change, we are here to support small organizations with a core mission to reduce our carbon footprint from the fashion industry."

Overall impact

The Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator focuses on creating a larger presence of an environmentally conscious mission in the fashion industry. The BF+DA works to mentor young start-ups to grow and flourish into strong businesses, from providing guidance on supply chain ethics, marketing, and many other realms of running a business. The BF+DA is also home to a small scale factory where said start-ups can make initial product batches. The BF+DA also provides studio and retail space, as well.

The potential for impact is to change the face of the fashion industry and how consumers buy clothes. The push is to provide an experience with a quality long-lasting product and push away from fast fashion, that is too often sourced unethically, produced with unsafe labor, and then sent to landfills after a short wear life. Some examples that the BF+DA is supporting include MAKE IT BLACK, whose purpose is to give a new life to favorite pieces by dyeing them a timeless black or Wool&Prince, that creates button up wool shirts that retain less scent and sweat through everyday wear and thus require significantly less washing. In one way or another, these two example organizations are reducing the overall footprint by the average consumer. Initiatives like these are scalable across the nation, ideally to become the norm in fashion.

Business benefit

The BF+DA works with these young start-ups in creating a sustainable business model. From sourcing, every step in the supply chain, maintenance of the product, as well as how it is disposable.

Social and environmental benefit

Each organization supported by the BF+DA has a mission to create products or services that reduce our impact on the environment, whether it is repurposing a garment or materials or creating timeless products that last significantly longer. Across the board, the environment will be impacted less because products will be sourced through sustainable means or recycled.

Interview

Carolyn Shafer, Director of the Sustainability Lab