Starting a fashion brand that balances style with environmental responsibility is no easy feat, especially with textiles accounting for an estimated 450 million kilograms of waste annually in Canada. Enter retail-industry veterans Kristen King, Katie Green, Rosa Halpern and Drew Green, the co-founders of &Or Collective, who previously worked for companies like Aldo and L’Oréal. They launched their women-led clothing brand last summer with a collection of zero-to-landfill garments that form the basis of a conscious capsule wardrobe.
The company uses organic cotton and sheep’s wool certified for ethical treatment and sustainability. But what really sets &Or apart is its highly technical production. “Our ‘secret sauce’ is our use of flatbed knitting, a solution to the fashion industry’s alarming waste problem,” says Katie Green. Flatbed-knitting machines are digitally programmed so…
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Canadian Business (Digital) - 1 Issue, Spring 2024