Ali Azimi | Source | Co-Founder at Cheyyn

What is your definition of sustainable fashion?

Sustainable fashion is the art of creating something enduring, farsighted and sincere. If you stick to those key elements it is inevitable to make something sustainable. It all starts in our minds. It’s a process of consciousness. It took me 31 years!

What motivated you to start a sustainable clothing line?

I did not intend to build a brand. I watched the movie “The True Cost” and I was shocked about the implications of the cotton industry, the pesticides and the water problems in those countries.

So I decided to try to do something about it. First I started a campaign on charity: water. I called it #choosewater #nocotton. In total I collected enough donations to provide 11 people with water but it was quite tough to find donors. Nobody knew about the fact that almost 2.000 liters of water are necessary to produce only one cotton shirt and my generation is used to a different kind of donation. They want to interact or get something in return. That was the moment when I started researching intensively about the linkages between water and textiles hence the moment when the journey began. Starting a label was actually more about finding a solution to the problem and using fashion as a tool or a channel for it.