Sustainable men's fashion brand is open about price structure
The young Dutch men's fashion brand SKOT is completely exposed. On October 10, the day of sustainability, the brand will start with the full price structure of the shirts that are sold.
According to SKOT, more transparency about the origin of clothing is the first step towards more sustainability in the polluted fashion industry. With the openness about production, SKOT will draw attention to the quality of the fabrics and the fair manufacturing process of the shirts. This entails extra costs, but the shirts remain competitively priced. SKOT only sells online, and therefore the intermediary trade.
Expose
On the website, insight is given by each showing how much is paid for things like labor, materials and transportation. For example, a shirt that costs 79 euros costs almost 19 euros for the materials and more than 9 euros goes to the people who make it. SKOT is also honest about its own margins, which fluctuate between 30 and 45 percent per shirt. The openness also has a bright side: SKOT shows that a comparable shirt of the same quality in a regular store would cost twice as much. SKOT sells directly online to the consumer and therefore no extra costs for intermediate trade such as Retail. This is how SKOT manages to offer a high-quality product for an affordable price. According to founder Ruben van Veen, there is nothing to hide. “I'm proud of the shirt we sell. The materials are of high quality and we opt for responsible production in Europe. All information about this can be found on our website. And if you have nothing to hide, it's no problem to expose yourself.”It is a known fact that the fashion industry is extremely polluting. Yet sustainability is only gradually gaining ground here. This is a thorn in the side of entrepreneur Van Veen. “There is a lot wrong in the fashion industry. One of the biggest problems is that few people know how their clothes are made. And because they don't know, they don't want to pay for it. Fashion is about translation, an attractive product and price plays an important role.” SKOT responds to hierarchy by making a high-quality product, produced fairly and for an affordable price.
Price advantage
It shows the price structure of the economy's sales and also another goal besides the sustainability moving. The company will also tell you that the products are attractively priced as they are only sold online. “It is quite normal that the clothes you buy in the store are more than 5 times more expensive than the cost price. Stores have high costs and are often left with unsold stock. But as a consumer, that is of no use to you. You just don't want to pay too much for your clothes.” says Van Veen (38).On the website, the price of a SKOT comparison is compared with the Retail price, and this topic. A White Fun shirt costs 79 euros at Skot. You would have to pay 159 euros for this in the store. This is simply because a retailer also needs to earn from it. SKOT will entail the price difference that ten causes of the purchase price are largely in the materials and production. In other words: at SKOT you get more shirts for your money.
The day of sustainability
SKOT decides to go public with the message on 10 October. Van Veen says: “Today is the day of sustainability, and sustainable mode and transparency get the attention it deserves.” His idea is that when companies start to share more about the origin of products, there will also be more attention from consumers. “I hope that for more than 10 years it will be quite normal to provide insight into the price structure of clothing. In this way you show that there is no messing around with low wages of cheap materials. It will greatly improve the negative impact of clothing.”
SKOT has been around for a year now and can conclude that the concept is well received and that the collection of shirts is well received. The vision is to contribute to a 100% sustainable fashion industry. A lot still needs to be done, says founder Van Veen. Nevertheless, he will not be discouraged, and with SKOT he will continue to lead the way in offering sustainable quality. “Sustainability is a long journey, but every step is one. We will take many more actions in terms of materials and production. But that is future music. It starts with transparency and we want to bury that today.”
