About Nanette  She started her professional career in the financial sector, working in communications and sustainability. While working for ING’s sustainability team in Belgium, she started thinking about combining two of her passions: fashion and sustainability. She launched OW. Magazine in 2017 and started writing about sustainability and innovation in the fashion industry. Currently, she’s working on transforming the magazine into a a platform.

You may call it storytelling, content creation or give it another cool name. In practice, it comes down to struggling behind a laptop. Typing, video editing, publishing, etc. Telling real and in-depth stories takes time. Yet, I am in the privileged position to tell these stories about sustainability and innovation in fashion. Fascinating! From FashTech to clothing swaps and orange peels transformed into beautiful fabrics. Things in the sustainable fashion space are moving! Following trends, developments and sharing my learnings and insights is what I loved most about making OW. Magazine the last two years. So I made it the foundation of OW. Magazine’s new editorial format.

New developments sometimes need clarification. How does it work? Is it really that great? Who are the front runners? And how does this affect me as a consumer, professional or as a person – now and in the future? In 2019 we’ll publish four fashion series, each addressing a different theme relevant for making the fashion industry (more) sustainable. Each serie will have a minimum of three and a maximum of six stories, including an overview article with trends and developments. For the other articles we’ll interview experts and front runners. To connect online with offline, we conclude each series with an event where we’ll share, brainstorm and act together.

The Future of Fashion Education was OW. Magazine’s first serie with interviews on a relevant topic in the fashion industry. Learnings from this serie are used as input and inspiration for the magazine’s new editorial format. Photo of Daniëlle Bruggeman, fashion professor at ArtEZ. Photo by Rosa van Ederen.

Fashion series #1: Transparency in fashion

The first serie will be about transparency in fashion, coinciding with Fashion Revolution Week 22-26 April. This is the campaign week of Fashion Revolution, a global movement that with one simple question #WhoMadeMyClothes addresses the importance of transparency in making the fashion industry more sustainable. The movement was established after the Rana Plaza clothing factory in Bangladesh collapsed, which killed more than 1100 workers.

The first article in this series will be published Thursday. Next week, during Fashion Revolution Week, we’ll publish an interview with &Wider, a company that collects anonymous data directly from workers in clothing factories, and an interview with Sarah Ditty. She’s the policy director at Fashion Revolution and project manager of the Fashion Transparency Index report. As part of the new editorial format, on 26 May we’ll conclude the series with an event. Together with live drawer Nina, we’ll create a visual Consumer Fashion Transparency Manifest. You can already buy your tickets for this event (fee is our 14,50).

A little sneak peek: our second fashion series will be about the rise of fashion rental services.

The #NextFashionTalents

If fashion needs to become more innovative and sustainable, we need people who have the skills and commitment to drive this transformation. Therefore, I started to become more and more curious about the community of young fashion designers, professionals and entrepreneurs who are about the embark on their career. What I notice, which I think is incredibly interesting, is the gap between the sustainability values and ambitions of these young people and the unsustainable and traditional way of operating at most fashion companies. Even though the industry is moving, I start to feel there’s a mismatch between the limited number of (financially strong) companies and jobs available that align with the determination of many young fashion designers and professionals wanting to change fashion for the better.

In the recently launched series #NextFashionTalents, I interview these young and ambitious fashion designers, professionals and entrepreneurs. If you would like to recommend someone for a #NextFashionTalent interview, don’t hesitate to contact us.

The fashion series will be published in English and #NextFashionTalents in either Dutch or English. We’ll continue sharing articles on fashion and sustainability research and write articles for Our World’s journal (Dutch/English), but we’ll do this on a more irregular basis.

The editorial team

Koen Stroeve 

Koen studies Global Sustainability at the University of Utrecht. He’s doing a full-time internship at fashion platform Our World.

Camilla Morandi

Camilla studies Global Sustainability at the University of Utrecht and is editor for OW. Magazine. She was participant in the first edition of the Circular Fashion Games.

Nanette Hogervorst

Nanette is owner and founder of fashion platform Our World.

Hannah Ospina

Hannah studies Arts and Culture – Creative Industries at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She’s doing a research internship for OW. Magazine.

OW. Magazine connects online and offline

As part of the new editorial format of OW. Magazine, we conclude on 26 May the editorial series on Fashion and Transparency with an event. Together with live drawer Nina, we’ll create a visual Consumer Fashion Transparency Manifest. You can buy your tickets for this event (fee is our 14,50).