Following a career working for the likes of Barbour and Monsoon, Carrie Davies felt trapped and unable to make real, positive progress towards ethical fashion. Whilst studying at the leading and prestigious, London College of Fashion, one of Carrie’s tutors was Professor Dilys Williams, the founder and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, who obviously had a profound effect on here ethos and thinking.
ONE Essentials was later born, focusing on creating beautiful, high quality pieces – and starting with the most disposable item in our wardrobe; underwear. It also provides a full, transparent update on product impact throughout each stage of the customer journey.
“I wanted to start with the most hardworking items in our wardrobes, the ones that get the most wear and use, but we often think the least about. So I focused on the one piece we all throw away, – underwear, an item that’s truly disposable. ONE Essentials is here to change all of that”
Making positive choices… There is no reason why the items we wear everyday should be the most disposable. Everything at ONE Essentials is designed with the end in mind and manufactured for maximum utility, minimal waste and the least possible harm. The brand has developed a circular business model, directly addressing the environmental cost of the fashion industry. Biodegradable, natural and non-toxic fabrics and materials (even the stretchy bits) are used throughout the collection.
Every piece is designed to last, but the brand will collect and recycle your garments if you decide you are done with them. For those that feel uncomfortable returning underwear (we get it!), there is another eco-solution for the most ‘disposable’ item in our wardrobe. ONE Essentials underwear has replaced convention elastane, which goes nowhere, with an innovative biodegradable alternative.
Tracking positive impact… Each item has its LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) data beside it in the Shop section. This follows through the customer journey into the cart and shows information such as liters of water saved, grams of fertiliser avoided, CO2e emissions avoided and kWh of energy saved – all provided in actuals and more tangible equivalents. For example, just one of the ONE Essentials t-shirts saves 0.3kg of CO2e, or 1.3km of driving emissions. There is even a calculator available which shows the total ecological impact of the brand, continually updated with each sale taken on the website.
Each of the pieces have a supply chain transparency score; you can read all about where each piece comes from, including a list of working hours, average employee salary per month, last audit dates and percentages of female managers, on the ONE Essentials website.
All LCA data is all verified via a third party called Green Story.
Once you’ve seen the positive impact figures, why would you ever go back? Just a snapshots of this shows that ONE Essentials t-shirts save 890L of water, compared to t-shirts made using 100% conventional cotton. The men’s boxers save 427L and women’s briefs 243L.
In addition to this, ONE Essentials has a 1% Pledge, which comes direct from sales (not profit) and goes towards textile cleanup initiatives. The current partner being the OR Foundation, a USA and Ghana based not-for-profit, working to minimise waste in the fashion industry and to protect the vulnerable people working within it.
The collection includes unisex t-shirts (£45), unisex everyday sweatshirts (£70), ladies midrise briefs (starting at £19 for one pair and also available in multipacks, up to size 20) and men’s boxer briefs (starting at £24 for one pair and also available in multipacks) saving up to 25% when buying in multiples.
