Raeburn Wins Draper’s Sustainable Award

Raeburn scooped the award for the brand of the year at Draper’s Sustainable Fashion 2021 Awards.

“Raeburn has constantly been innovating, collaborating and trying to find new ways to use less, as well as provoking the industry to do Better” Drapers Award Judges

Since Christopher Raeburn launched his first collection at London Fashion Week back in 2009, his brand Raeburn brand has become synonymous with responsible and intelligent fashion design. The RÆMADE sustainable ethos in particular has pioneered the reworking of surplus fabrics and garments to create distinctive and functional pieces. The first London Fashion week collection saw Christopher create eight garments out of a single parachute.

On Earth Day 22nd April 2020, Raeburn announced project RÆSTART. A bold manifesto pledge that committed the brand to change and opportunity, focusing on three key pillars; DISRUPTION, INNOVATION and INSPIRATION with tangible actions to create a better future.

This sounds great but what does it actually mean for the brand? We have looked into how the brand’s manifesto is progressing one year on.

Sustainable Materials

Raeburn has been working hard to seek out responsible materials from around the globe.

All of their cotton’s are certified 100% Organic. Certificates include GOTS CERTIFIED (Global Organic Textile Standard Approved), STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX®  and OCS 100 – Organic Content Standard.

Polyesters are all recycled with yarn spun from recycled PET plastic bottles (Polyethylene Terephthalate), produced by textile mills close to manufacturers to help reduce their carbon footprint.

Raeburn also continues to recycle and repurpose unexpected and rare materials. From the iconic Air Brake parachute to seasonal one-offs such as American Fire Proximity Suits or Life Rafts, all artifacts are decommissioned surplus and previously unused. To find these Christopher is said to scour vintage markets and explore military warehouses.

Last year Raeburn offered DIY bucket hat kits via Depop to help use up cut-off fabrics.

Repair

Raeburn has committed to offering free lifetime repairs for all Raeburn garments. Upcycling and rejuvenating clothes instead of discarding them is a significant way for anybody to reduce their impact and be more responsible. Customers are able to return clothes to the in-house repair team, to fix wear and accidents. They are also hosting sustainable repair events in their studio and online, empowering people to learn and create, and directly prolong the life of their own belongings. Unfortunately, there are a number of wavers to the policy. You cannot return any collaboration products. Customers must clean all products before returning and all postage costs to and from the repair centre are the responsibility of the customer.

Responsible Packaging

All product packaging claims to be recycled, recyclable and biodegradable. Online orders are wrapped in a corn-starch derived transit bag from the B-Corp accredited, The Better Packaging Co. These will completely compost in time once added to compost at home, or at a commercial facility. We put this in a 100% recyclable outer sleeve for protection, made from sustainably derived sugarcane, ready for dispatch. In-store purchases or collections come in FSC certified and recycled paper carrier bags. The logo is printed using vegetable inks, whilst the handles are either an organic cotton rope or off-cuts from original military Air Brake parachutes.

1% For The Planet

Raeburn has committed itself to the 1% For the Planet initiative and is donating 1% of its annual turnover to approved environmental nonprofit organisations.

Reduce

The brand has also committed itself to produce more products on-demand by extending the made-to-order business to cut down on waste. The womenswear collection from LFW 2021 is only available on a made-to-order basis.

Drapers Brand of The Year 2021

The finalists for the Draper’s Sustainable Fashion Award 2021 included

• Aspiga
• BAM Clothing
• Celtic & Co
• Dedicated Sweden
• Frugi
• Knowledge Cotton Apparel
• Paper London
• Raeburn
• TALA
• Turtledove London
• WoolOvers

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