The platform that plans to be the home of conscious living
When we consider the difficulties that 2020 has brought with it, setting up a new business, let alone a fashion business, would be high on many people’s lists. But Stefan Schröder (28) and Marius Stackhouse (27) have done exactly that via phone calls, Zoom calls and Instagram DMs. Both in their 20s and with backgrounds in advertising working in London and New York - although Marius goes out of his way to tell me about that knee injury that cut short his football career - the guys teamed up to create Public Fibre, a platform which focuses on sustainability.
Face-to-face conversations sit on the back burner this year with Marius setup in Soho House and Stefan up North in Harrogate while we do this. In a year which brought us a pandemic that forces us all to slow down and focus on our health, solutions are already being thought up across all sectors and Public Fibre in one way could be coming at just the right time. Nine months in from that first phone call, I wanted to hear from them about what sets Public Fibre apart and their opinions on the fashion landscape where the grass just might be greener to where we currently find ourselves.downicon
How did Public Fibre come to exist?
Stefan Schröder: It was Marius’ idea to build somewhere where you could discover sustainable brands that are uncompromising in their approach to aesthetic, social and environmental practice. It started as a passion project, but it began to build and then when I moved back [from New York] and the pandemic came it gave us the opportunity to focus and really go for it.
As a new online platform, what is Public Fibre looking to achieve?
Marius Stackhouse: We want to truly tap into fashion culture through a sustainable lens, while working towards becoming the home of conscious living, including homewares, art and eventually experiences – you can come to PF to be better for yourself, your community and your planet – not a bad place to be.
SS: We have pretty strong ambitions and a goal for where we want to be, but I feel like you need to be flexible with things; have a plan, but be agile and see where we end up. For now, we want to build out and add more conscious brands. We really want it to be the place where you think to go when you want to shop from sustainable brands, be it fashion or wellbeing. Through this, we want to change perceptions of what it means to be sustainable, highlighting the desirability of brands that are pushing fashion, style, culture and consciousness forward.
2020 is an interesting year to start a business, why was this the right time for you?
SS: I moved back from NY and was going to have a month off to start another job in advertising whilst building this in the background, but with the uncertainty that came with the pandemic, Marius and I decided to throw everything at it. I was pretty burnt out after a hectic few years, with my mental health pretty shot, so, concentrating my time and effort into something I truly love, something that gave me purpose and meaning is exactly what I needed.
MS: I don’t think there is ever a ‘right’ time. I was driven through a lack of purpose in what I was doing and an ambition since I was a kid to ‘do my own thing’ – as cliched as that sounds.
Has COVID-19 impacted you and the brands you’re working with?
MS: From a brand perspective it’s been pretty detrimental to their production. We’ve had many of our brands share their stories of factories closing, shipping issues… the list goes on! For us personally, I think we’re quite lucky that we’re a small setup right now where we can adapt and change our model pretty quickly.
SS: Yes, for sure, as Marius has said, we are lucky and can be responsive and move quickly. But on the other side, we have noticed it’s pushed production for brands whilst changing purchasing habits, for better or for worse.
Can you talk to me a little about the process that goes into selecting the brands on your site and what aligns them?
SS: The curatorial aspect of our site is important, there are a lot of sustainable brands out there, but we want to ensure that we have pulled together the very best of that list. Our purpose is to show that you don’t need to compromise aesthetic for social and environmental practice. We have a sustainability standards audit that we go through with brands to discover their practices and we use this to gauge how they work across the entire process, from raw material harvesting to their own corporate social responsibility. It’s important they’re built on this foundation, but the sustainability conversation varies so how brands approach this also varies.
Do you feel there is something missing from the sustainability conversation?
MS: Desirability.
SS: I think it’s a little messy at the moment, you have brands whose core identity centres around their meticulous approach to sustainability then you have brands who have a line of sustainable clothing despite their pretty poor standards across the rest of their business, and people thinking they’re the same. I think clarity is missing.
Since starting Public Fibre, what have you learnt that does not get spoken about enough within the fashion industry?
MS: People are kind. I don’t know if it’s a ‘sustainable’ thing, but the brands we work with are run by amazing people. It’s a pleasure to work with them all.
SS: Yes, that.
What can we all be doing to get involved in the sustainability movement?
SS: When you’re buying anything, take a step back when purchasing an item and think about: the materials, the use and what went into producing it. If a t-shirt only costs £5 then there’s probably a reason it costs so little. Sustainable clothing isn’t and doesn’t have to be super expensive, it should be accessible for everyone, and there’s amazing brands that are, but realistically, if a t-shirt costs £5, then someone, somewhere, has missed out.
MS: Like Stefan said, consider why your t-shirt is so cheap and know that someone is paying for the difference. There’s often a narrative around sustainable fashion being expensive, but expensive in comparison to what? If fast fashion is the benchmark, then of course it is. We need to change the perspective on what’s ‘expensive’ and stop comparing to the high street – the high street isn’t sustainable.
It is exciting to see a platform exclusively hero brands that are aiming to do better, what are your hopes for Public Fibre and where do you see it going?
SS: Marius has alluded to it already, “the home of conscious living” is our goal for now, it’s important to have something to aim for, but let’s see how we evolve and where that takes us.
MS: I want to collab with Virgil Abloh, just kidding.jbicon
Could 2023 be the ultimate year of sustainability for fashion? Probably not, but there are some positive things happening if you look for them.