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FASHION ENTREPRENEUR BERT van Son would love to see Leonardo DiCaprio wearing a pair of his jeans.
“I liked his speech to the UN and I liked his speech when he finally got his Oscar,” van Son tells Fora. “He’s a good ambassador. He’s telling the story we’re trying to tell.”
A high-profile environmentalist, DiCaprio would likely approve of the thinking behind van Son’s sustainable clothing brand, Mud Jeans.
Founded in the Netherlands in 2012, the fashion startup wants to reduce the industry’s enormous manufacturing-generated carbon footprint by giving customers the option to lease – rather than buy – pairs of jeans.
“We try to make it look like a subscription system,” van Son says. “We ask for an entry fee of €20. We take €7.50 from your account each month through PayPal and then after 12 months that stops.”
Customers then have two options: they can keep their jeans or restart their subscription and swap them for a different pair.
“The funny thing is that people really like the idea of being able to switch their jeans after a year.”
Van Son – who will speak at the Community Reuse Network biennial conference in Dublin on Wednesday – says it’s easier to explain the concept using a washing machine – which, evidently, you can lease in the Netherlands.
“For people who don’t have big budgets, they can now afford a fantastic washing machine that is very low on energy and low on water usage,” he says.
“If you look at the total sum that you have to pay monthly, it might be less than when you buy a washing machine that you have to throw away after three, four, five years.”
The principle behind leasing jeans is the same, van Son says. “Do you want to be the owner of something or is the performance good enough?”
Vegan trend
As well as offering the subscription service, Mud Jeans also retails its products – which tick all the eco-warrior boxes, with vegan, organic and chemical-free production. Customers can even get a €10 discount on the €100-odd pricetag if they send back their old pair to be recycled in a factory in Valencia.
A typical Mud Jeans customer is your run-of-the-mill hipster: they are usually aged 25 to 35, well-educated and prefer organic food.
“It’s not 99% of the population, I know, but we are in a growing market.”
Available both online and through retailers in 18 countries, there are no Irish shops stocking the brand yet, but the company is in talks with three major retailers in the UK, which van Son expects will become the startup’s biggest market.
The profit margin for retailers is slimmer because the manufacturing process is more costly, but van Son argues that the more environmentally friendly stone washing method means “we don’t hurt the fabric so our jeans last longer”.
He claims you will never find a pair of his jeans on a sales rack because “we never have overstock”, a major contributor to waste in the often fickle fashion industry.
Sustainable
There was no eureka moment for van Son. Instead, the concept for Mud Jeans evolved over three decades when he first started out in the fashion business.
He launched his career in a textile factory in China, where he was contracted to cut costs and buy as cheaply as possible.
“You make a lot of money,” he says, “but it’s not really fair.”
In 2004, he went on to set up his own company in France, where he was licensed to make apparel for Disney.
“The good thing about working with Disney is that you have a really straightforward code of conduct, which makes you work with good factories,” he says.
“If you have a big brand, you can be a little bit more demanding and work with factories that don’t collapse and where people are given a living wage. That was an eye opener to me. We can do things in a more sustainable way.”
Circular economy
There is a paradigm in the fashion business these days, he says, where consumers still buy on price but are becoming increasingly conscious about where their clothes come from.
“You have the Primarks and the cheap prices and everybody loves it because it so cheap. But then, everybody knows that for a €2 t-shirt, there must be something wrong in the supply (chain) – somebody has been hurt.”
Young parents in particular “don’t want to leave the world behind the way my generation has created it,” van Son says.
“I’m 55 and we’ve been working in a linear economy, which is not a very good idea. We are leaving behind a lot of rubbish. There’s an end to that. In the circular (recycling) economy, if you reuse all the raw materials, you can keep it going for many years.”
Van Son’s ultimate goal is to change the fashion industry, which is the second largest polluter in the world, according to Greenpeace.
That said, the most important thing for van Son is to create “a fabulous pair of jeans”. The company expects to double its turnover this year and is close to breaking even after four years in operation.
“It’s all about (sales) volume, that’s the challenge at the moment,” he says. “I can invent any kind of system, but if I don’t have the right product then it’s wasted.”
The company has been gaining ground abroad and there is a celebrity endorsement in the works.
Will we see Leonardo DiCaprio sporting a pair of Mud Jeans any time soon? Probably not, but “we’re on the brink of something spectacular,” van Son promises.
Written by Conor McMahon and posted on Fora.ie
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Only €8million!! Seriously!!! I can understand they will do what they can to create loopholes to avoid tax, but still they could have at least come up with a figure that doesn’t quite do violently stick two fingers up at us.
Those “loopholes” are coming to an end in most countries too.
That’s why they’re in Ireland. Don’t believe all this trendy puke about the smart economy.
It’s not just Google here, it’s pretty much any American company. Microsoft are another under investigation in the US where they pay peanuts on the 16 billion or so funnelled thru Ireland. Both investigations could hugely affect us detrimentally but you won’t see the government doing anything about it till its too late as usual.
Taxes on the top 10% are at a 25 year low in Ireland. A bankrupt country cannot afford tax breaks.
If Companies like Google and Starbucks paid their taxes there would be less austerity and Health cuts. Job creation isn’t a strong argument as Google Ireland employs more non-Irish staff. Its immoral, hope they get what they deserve.
Without the tax breaks they wouldn’t be here hiring thousands of staff
Don’t care how many people Starbucks employ in Ireland, 35,000 in taxes paid since 2005 is a disgrace. They can f**k off out of the country, people will still drink coffee but in a Irish company that pays taxes.
#Sean- yes. It would be great if Google, Facebook, Intel, and all those pesky pharmaceuticals left this country, wouldn’t it? We could all thatch our houses, knit Aran Jumpers and sing rebels songs around the hearth. FDI has the country on life support at the moment. Ever hear of not biting the hand that feeds you? Thousand and thousands of jobs= thousands and thousands of people paying tax= thousands and thousands of people buying goods & services in our economy, which creates thousands and thousands of jobs which equals…..
the apologists of this state of affairs are frankly laughable. Sure the construction industry employed thousands, and look at what that got you in the long run in return. I say sort your house out now before you are left with even less.
[Google tax evasion]
Did you mean Google Tax Avoidance?
Supporting Tax avoidance for foreign corporations is a disgrace, and an affront to the people’s of US, UK, EU whose public services suffer, while we get a paltry take on the monies saved. We’re supporting a criminal conspiracy and have a moral and ethical obligation to stop it. If we don’t we can hardly cry foul when they let us drown in debt.
The UK have no claim on this tax. All countries declare their profits in some designated HQ it is the subsequent tunnelling of these profits to Bermuda, not Ireland, which is the only avoidance. if the affairs are regulated it will be Ireland, not the UK which benefits. HMRC is wasting its time, it’s unlikely Google are doing even avoidance there. We should try remove the Bermuda loophole though.
#Niall- the UK and US lobby exhaustively on behalf of indigenous industries to sell armaments to a wide variety of vicious, despot regimes across the world, benefitting from the abject misery of millions around the Globe. They are in no position to lecture ordinary companies on Social Responsibility, nor have they any right to cast aspersions on nations who configure their tax systems to avail of the opportunities that arise. We owe them nothing.
Couldn’t agree more with Sean.!
lets all change our search engines to bing,that will show them
Sinking ship then, innit?
Is that your best rebuttal Vincent? Sounds like you got your economics education from the same place as Brian Cowan considering you think is a leader in attracting foreign investment.
Vincent, massive contribution? That’s a gross over exaggeration. Ireland has the highest rate of corporate fraud and tax indebtedness in the EU. FDI’s cannot fulfil their recruitment drives in Ireland so they attract foreign talent because there is a distinct lack in Ireland. Can you speak more than two languages and proficient in calculus and linear algebra?
Thanks to a shambolic political leadership every man, woman, child and small business has to pick up the tab because the Irish Government are too limp wristed to collect tax from the big boys.
#Sean- off you go and do a course in economics like a good chap.
@Vincent, an economy that is built or sustained on purchasing the benefits of employment is a very poor economic model. It’s only a half-wit that agrees to eat the left over scraps off the floor which is what is has been to Ireland. Corporate megaliths need to pay their tax obligations in full.
Is it fair that Google, Intel and all those pesky pharma’s can use the Irish infrastructure, protection from the police and army and avail of staff who’ve been educated by a system that’s been propped up by state money, but not pay anything back? They are taking your money every year they refuse to pay up in full.
#Sean…by “avail of staff” you mean “employ Irish people”? I’ve no objections to that. I imagine the 15% unemployed in this country would be happy enough to be “availed of”. I wonder why it is that so many other countries are competing so hard with us to secure the FDI we have been so successful in attracting? Perhaps they are “half wits” too? Or maybe the half wits are those who don’t recognise the massive contribution they make and it’s importance at a time of national emergency.
I have long being saying I think it’s obnoxious that these company’s are allowed abuse the tax system and Ireland facilitates it. Pay your fair share where the profits are made. Sooner this is dealt with the better.
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