SUSTAINABILITY MEANS BEHAVIOR CHANGE

PEOPLE PAY MORE MONEY FOR STORYTELLING THAN FOR WHAT THE PRODUCT ACTUALLY COSTS.

Interview with Magdalena Schaffrin *

I work with sustainability and fashion. As a rule, the concept of sustainability is shaped by what Richard von Weizsäcker defined as three pillars: the economic pillar, the ecological pillar, and the social pillar. And we have even added a fourth: the cultural pillar. To implement sustainability, we must change our behavior. And we can only change our behavior when we advance a cultural shift.

Fashion is an industry, and the industrial factor is much more present in fashion than in jewelry. This is why there are not many overlaps or much exchange between them.
Fashion does not sell primarily through the materials it uses or the product itself, but through positioning and through the marketing surrounding it.

As a sustainability designer I can still find my position in this market when I build my branding accordingly so that people pay more money for my storytelling. That is, they pay more money for the stories I tell than for what my product actually costs. This is also why communication is so essential.
I cannot talk about good quality if I haven’t used any sustainable materials. I cannot talk about fine quality or luxury or phantastic jewelry when there are blood diamonds on the rings.

Today we are given bad quality from the same brands that once had a reputation for good quality. Why is this happening? My answer: capitalism. Brands are forced to make higher profits because they are owned by shareholders and because companies are interested in distributing as much profit to their shareholders as possible, they have to increase the profit margins of their products.


Marcel Ostertag, Runway, Summer Season ‘25. Photo: © Andrew Thomas / BFW.
You can reduce the production costs by cutting down on quality and moving production to a cheap labor country. For poor countries, the fashion industry is the first opportunity that they have to boost their economic development. In principle, this is a humanistic idea that enables people to develop and reach a higher standard of living through the fashion industry. But how it is practiced in reality, with people working under slavery-like conditions, is not right at all.

It makes sense to bring production closer to the customer if we produce smaller quantities. There is huge overproduction. When we consume the way we do right now, that is, often online, we tend to order a lot of products. However, consumers will return a large part of their orders. But if one has more production on demand and manufactures a product only when the customer really wants to own it, then it would make sense to bring production closer to home. And then we would, indeed, have smaller production. In the end, this would have a great sustainability effect.


Dawid Tomasewski, Summer Season '25. Photo: © Suzana Holtgrave.
It is not true that, in principle, people do not wish to go shopping and buy things from a store. Rather, the main problem is that the rents paid by retailers for stores have skyrocketed.

Berlin has a relatively young Fashion Week. There is a group of young designers who produce their label in Berlin and are rather avant-garde-oriented. For most of them, it is self evident that they apply principles of sustainability in their work and their concepts.
Berlin is shaped by other things as well – for example, the clubbing culture. There is a Berlin style that has been crystallized by the labels that show their work at Fashion Week. Inclusion and diversity is a topic that is very prominent and highly celebrated at Berlin Fashion Week.


* Magdalena Schaffrin, Professor at BSP Business School Berlin, Co-founder and Creative director of 202030 - The Berlin Fashion Summit and the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin, and founder and Creative director of the Greenshowroom.

LINKS:

fashionweek.berlin
BFW interview M. Schaffrin
sveason.com  |  @house_of_sveason

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