Veronica, you’re the chief commercial officer of SOFFA - Social Fashion Factory. What are the social and design aspects of this enterprise?
Veronica Spano: SOFFA is a Greek sustainable fashion-manufacturing studio for brands and sustainable designers. It was co-created with survivor victims of trafficking, refugees, NGOs, fashion designers and professionals. The Social Fashion Factory targets the social inclusion and empowerment of women survivor victims of human trafficking and refugees. This is achieved through vocational training and supporting participants into work in circular fashion manufacturing and zero waste processes with recycled, natural, vegan and plant-based textiles to support environmental regeneration. 

You’re are based in Copenhagen right now. How are you living through the Covid-crisis in Denmark?
In the past three years, I have worked and lived in three very different cities: Bologna, Copenhagen and Athens. Bologna taught me what creative businesses management is about thanks to a large amount of piadinas, wine, books and jazz. I immediately felt at home in Copenhagen. I quickly run out of excuses for not cycling in the pouring rain and cold wind, not going out to eat ramen noodles or listening to opera directly next to the sea. Athens was about wandering in circles, up and down in the Acropolis surrounded by hungry cats and crumbling columns. The white dusty streets, which were full of music and young people, captured my heart. I am currently based in Italy facing this difficult situation at home and waiting for the time to leave again. 

You studied design in Bozen-Bolzano and wrote your thesis on fashion design. So, has fashion always been a passion of yours?
Yes. I have always considered it to be one of the best ways to express oneself as well as a way to be free and rebel. Thanks to my thesis, entitled Fashion Guerrilla, I went further into the field by theorizing as to how garments might be used as personal billboards on our bodies, and therefore as strong political statements in our everyday lives, such as a means to tell stories that others don’t want to read or listen to. I believe fashion has always helped people to regain possession of public spaces as places for dialogues and not just as spaces for people to walk past one another.
I now know that fabrics are also very important for our health. In fact, our skin is the largest human organ, which is a barrier that absorbs and releases substances, can depict our mood and is strongly influenced by what we wear.
I am simply fascinated by how fashion can be so public and at the same time so intimate. Fashion is not just a dress or a pair of jeans; it is about symbols, lost cultures, crafts and a form of freedom that young people need to preserve in contrast to a market that wants to be able to predict our tastes.

How is the fashion industry being affected by the current crisis?
Like any other industry, fashion is not yet putting people and planet over profit. Fast fashion companies are not used to having to take responsibility for their supply chain, and at the moment this is worsening. For example, many brands are now cancelling orders in China, Bangladesh and India by withholding payment for products that have already been produced. This will lead to many problems in factories and within the workforce of which 80% are young women financially supporting their families. They will be forced to find comparatively worse employment to cope during this period. Long-term solutions and a common code of law and conduct are necessary within the global fashion industry to change this situation.

SOFFA targets the social inclusion and empowerment of victims of human trafficking and refugees. Can you tell us more about your aim?
Of the 40 million slaves in the world today, 71% are women and children. 80% of slaves are re-trafficked due to financial vulnerability and only 1% are rescued. The fashion sector is the second highest industry for human trafficking after the electronics industry. Currently, there are more than 1 million slaves in Europe, and knowing that human trafficking and the refugee crisis are intrinsically linked, any movement towards finding a solution would have to start in Greece.
Our business model is designed to provide a long-term solution by paying employees more than the living wage. Some of our tailors have been working in the garment industry since they were 5 and have skills that are no longer in existence in the the western world.
We organize tailoring training at four different levels with a gender inclusive approach, which aims to teach men to appreciate women as employees and for women to become independent and motivated to achieve their goals. Our beneficiaries are given a certificate and work directly on our orders for international clients.

You also use zero waste processes and circular fashion principles. How do you do  this?
The global apparel industry produces more than 400 billion square meters of fabric per year and anything between 10% to 30% of the original material is leftover as waste after the completion of the production process (cutting room waste, leftovers from sewing and from quality control). This is something that happens unless fashion garments are purposefully designed for zero-waste production! This is what we are doing and consulting our clients on, while asking them to modify designs in order to use up no less than 95% of the fabric that we buy. We also produce to order and not in bulk to avoid stock piling and managed to recycle 146 kilos of textiles and clothes from landfill as well as using thousands of meters of donated fabric. We buy recycled fabric when possible and prefer to work with 100% pure materials. We would recommend against using mixed-fiber textiles that are impossible to recycle mechanically, and are therefore not circular.

Do northern countries buy clothing more consciously?
Yes, and the main reason in my opinion is because of living standards. In modern society, individual consciousness, sensitivity to social and environmental issues and a sense of community go hand in hand with higher living standards that respect everyone´s right to a decent and happy life. Danish society is a very feminine one. Their favorite word and philosophy is “hygge” which originally means wellbeing and can be translated as ‘cosiness’. In fact, citizens can enjoy the advantages of having good welfare policies, a clean city, efficient transportation and resource management, green spaces, beautiful buildings, and a great and culturally diverse life. Workers benefit from the flexibility of the employer and from high wages that can adequately support them and their families. They have more time to take care of and educate themselves, and therefore purchase the best products. Basically, they are living in an environment that allows them to really enjoy life.
Now, the possibility to enjoy life is what gives people the drive to respect life itself and devote money, resources and time to further innovate and improve their community. 

What do you like best in your new job?
What I like the most is to be able to prove that the ambitious projects I studied and experimented on as a designer, can be successfully put into practice in the real world with the right team effort, knowledge and hard work. I appreciate how a business like SOFFA forces me to think holistically and to help my clients do the same, making sure they see how beneficial it is both for them and the consumer. It is a challenge, but this is what I believe to be real entrepreneurship. 

Design is fundamental as it is able to shape global value chains and cash flows while impacting on the future of consumption and production. Consumers, together with designers and researchers, should have the courage to ask the industry to make the right choices, which truly benefit global society. Within the fashion industry, this idea is called “fashion futuring”.

(vic)