The Canvas Podcast

Kairi Lentsius of Lentsius Design in conversation with The Canvas Co-CEO Devin Gilmartin. They discuss Kairi's journey and design philosophy, the implications of COVID-19 on the global fashion industry and the role of independent designers in advancing sustainability initiatives. Mentioned links: TELK Collection Lentsius' Sustainability Principles

A roundtable discussion between Lucie Brigham, Chief of Office, United Nations Office for Partnerships, Tricia Carey, Director Global Business Development, Lenzing, and Kerry Bannigan, founder of the Conscious Fashion Campaign on the Sustainable Development Goals and how to apply them to your business The Conscious Fashion Campaign, in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships, engages leading global fashion industry events to accelerate collective action in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. The campaign facilitates high-impact partnerships that advocate sustainable solutions and innovations for the fashion sector to address the world’s most pressing social, economic and environmental issues.

The Canvas community welcomes the Co-Founders of The Island School, Pam Maxey and Chris Maxey, and the current Dean of Students Liz Slingsby. A truly inspiring talk about alternative ways of education, finding passion and solving problems for ourselves, the community and the world. The Island School  offers a transformative educational semester and summer term in Eleuthera, The Bahamas. High school sophomores and juniors from around the world join their community to learn outside the walls of a classroom. With the campus and surrounding ocean as their laboratory and with help from their partners at the Cape Eleuthera Institute, The Island School teach students how to live sustainably in the twenty-first century.

A weekly community driven conversation that focuses on The Canvas' community of companies, brands and partners working towards a more mindful and transparent world. Anna Cañadell is one of two co-founders of BCOME, a platform for supply chain transparency of fashion brands.  Anna founded the company together with her business partner Alba Garcia. BCOME is the sustainability platform that empowers textile and apparel businesses to build responsible supply chains, guarantee transparency and bring it to the final customer Sustainability intelligence and  360º solutions for the eco-design and transparency transformation. Founded in 2019, BCOME is a pioneer in the application of intelligent methodologies for systemic sustainability management and has more than 1 million guaranteed products on the market.

A weekly community driven conversation that focuses on The Canvas' community of companies, brands and partners working towards a more mindful and transparent world. This week The Canvas' Town Hall focuses on community brands that have build their business around upcycling denim, and thus tapping into one of the largest up/recyclable fabric supplies in the fashion industry.  NOORISM Noor Bchara is a New York based Fashion Designer, sustainability consultant and educator, specializing in the scalability of upcycling and repurposing. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and Polimoda in Florence, Italy. Noor got her start in Fashion by interning at Marc Jacobs and has since designed for Zac Posen, TAHARI ASL, Ellen Tracy and Kate Spade. She founded NOORISM in 2015 after being disheartened by the volume of poorly-made, practically disposable clothes produced by the Fashion industry every year. NOORISM is a Brooklyn based women’s wear brand that produces clothing and accessories using repurposed jeans, all made in New York.  She is a former Venture Fellow at the Brooklyn Fashion Design Accelerator, a Pratt initiative. Noor is also an Alumni of the Arts Envoy Program where she travels through the US Embassy and teaches about upcycling in other countries. She most recently founded Upcycle Design School where she offers on-demand video classes as well as group coaching all about upcycled design and is available for speaking engagements. The Untrend Shop The Untrend Shop is an upcycled vintage denim brand that creates one of a kind wearable art from unwanted thrifted denim garments and recycled texile scraps. The goal is to re-imagine what ordinary denim garments can look like, all while avoiding harmful production practices or using any new materials. This brand is currently a one women show, created entirely by Aly Reinert from her Studio in Brooklyn, NY. Aly has a degree in textile and apparel design, and decided to start The Untrend Shop after working in corporate fashion and seeing first hand all the waste that is created by the industry. She also saw how much clothing was being discarded each year by consumers and became passionate about upcycling these unwanted garments into something new and unique. Tove by Design Over the years, Tove worked at the drawing table and the glass studio while representing her glass company Egenart, located outside of Oslo, and AO Glass in Vermont, at markets, stores, and shows. Tove felt that she was missing out on that great garment that would make her feel put together and look “the part” of her trade. A few years ago, Tove with Annika Axelson and Amanda Nordin’s help, developed their garment she had always wanted—a wrap-skirt that folds in the back with front pockets. It became The Maker Skirt, for folks at work and play.

A weekly community driven conversation that focuses on The Canvas' community of companies, brands and partners working towards a more mindful and transparent world. The Canvas team is presenting  its newest location in Bowery, Manhattan, to the community of brands and partners. The Bowery space used to be a museum for photography and is now being turned into a tech infused retail experience where brand story telling is central for the customer. Combining new technologies in the space, will allow brands to tell their own unique stories in a more elaborate way and connect customers to the piece of clothing they are buying on a whole other level.  Next to the retail space, The Canvas Bowery will serve as a community hotspot for emerging sustainable fashion brands, offering co-working space and ateliers. The Canvas Bowery is set to open somewhere from mid to end of September.

A weekly community driven conversation that focuses on The Canvas' community of companies, brands and partners working towards a more mindful and transparent world. Ali Nourbakhsh Ali is a serial digital product developer, designing and producing software and apps for the past 20 years in London for a variety of industries, from public transportation to financial services. Rootip was born in 2019 to address transparency of the supply chain. Ali was immensely frustrated by not knowing where the products he buys come from. For Ali and his team, the unknown supply chains are black boxes which create opportunities for the exploitation of people and the environment. So they set out to change the world for the better by creating a platform that enables product storytelling for businesses and also enables customers to share their appreciation by sending messages and tips to the people who helped make the product we consume.‘

The Canvas by Querencia acquires PAUSE Fashion Hub The Canvas by Querencia, the Brooklyn-based ethical fashion retail platform, has acquired Amsterdam-based conscious art and fashion production company PAUSE Fashion Hub, which will be ending and transferring its operations after five years of successful global pop-ups and collaborations, propelling ethical fashion opportunities for sustainable fashion brands and designers around the world. The Canvas will be utilizing the acquired digital assets for the purpose of increased transparency and story telling in collaboration with their growing community, now at over one hundred and sixty brands and partners from six continents. About Leticia, Romina and PAUSE Leticia Bordoni graduated in international business and has a diverse background, as well as years of experience in developing and implementing communication strategies for engaging, promoting, creating and maintaining long-lasting relationships. At the beginning of her career, Leticia worked in export and import for big multinationals companies based in Argentina. Later, she focused more on marketing and commercial aspects, being the Commercial Manager of an Argentinian franchise of luxury cosmetics such as, amongst others, Christian Dior, Chanel, Lancôme, Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent. During her time in the Netherlands, she worked for an international eco-friendly Leather company based in Paris, as head of branding and communication. At PAUSE Fashion Hub, Leticia is in charge of the implementation of brand strategies, brand activation, marketing, and communications. Romina Pirani studied accountancy and business management, complementing her studies with a long journey in different art disciplines since her early years, which gives her an interesting perspective on the organization. Graduated in Performing Arts, she studied Art Direction for Fashion at Central Saint Martins-University of Arts London. Having increased her skills with different couches, like Ana Garmendia in Paris and Federica Dall’Orso in New York. From 2012 she has been working as a freelancer in art direction, styling, costume and set design for different projects, like TED, Fashion Revolution, Unicef,  and for upcoming brands in Paris, Milan and New York. These experiences have encouraged her to combine creativity and business and to develop better skills in communication, aesthetics, and leadership. As a trademark in her projects, as in her outfits, she utilizes with reused, recycled, and or her family member’s garments, a philosophy from her teenage years. At PAUSE Fashion Hub, Romina is in charge of the creative direction and the designers, Performances and events’ curation for each experience, the coordination with designers, set up of spaces, visual merchandising and logistics. "PAUSE FASHION HUB is a global leading retail, activation, and consulting platform that specializes in showcasing, selling and promoting curated conscious fashion designers and brands collectively in the top cities of the world. The focus is on hosting multi-sensorial experiences to approach the audience and invite them to discover unique premium designed and ethically made pieces from every corner of the world.  Each edition is held in specially selected outstanding venues, together with fashion shows, art exhibitions and performances, and live music. PAUSE FASHION HUB experiences have been traveling the world, hosting editions in the most attractive and fashionable cities, from Amsterdam to New York, Paris, London, Barcelona, and Brussels. Throughout ten editions, we have worked with more than 300 brands with whom we nurture trusting and long-lasting relationships to this day.”

A weekly community driven conversation that focuses on The Canvas' community of companies, brands and partners working towards a more mindful and transparent world. Patrick Duffy, Founder, Global Fashion Exchange Patrick Duffy founded the Global Fashion Exchange (GFX) in 2013 with the mission to challenge the fashion industry to create a more sustainable world through inspiring forums, educational content and cultural events, including fashion swaps and consulting. As an expert in developing networks and activating ideas, Patrick guides creative teams for GFX in 30+ countries where GFX has taken place at institutions like V&A inLondon, Federation Square Melbourne, Madison Square Garden in NYC and more. Patrick experience producing events and creating marketing campaigns for some of the world’s most recognized brands across the art and fashion space include HM, Moët Hennessy, Microsoft and spans 15 years, hundreds of events in 5 continents. In addition to his work with GFX, Patrick also manages global partnerships for Common Objective (CO), an intelligent business network for the fashion industry, has launched “Mr Duffy” a 100% circular and sustainably focused clothing collection with partner Fashion 4 Freedom in Vietnam and is a partner at Design Pavilion, NYC’s Largest public interfacing event with over 7 million visitors in partnership with Times Square and NYEDC during NYCx Design week each May. ShihYun (Eliana) Kuo, COO and Co-Founder of Lablaco Born in Taipei and living between Paris and Milan, ShihYun, Kuo is a Data and Digital Innovation Entrepreneur and Speaker with more than 8 years of experience in Luxury Retail Buying and Merchandising Management, Data Systems and Digital Media. After obtaining a luxury fashion MBA at SDA Bocconi School of Management, she entered the luxury industry as a Retail Business Analyst in Etro, following APAC Merchandising and then buying supervisor in Giorgio Armani HQ, in Milan. Building a global platform to accelerate digitization of fashion industry has always been her personal goal since 2010. In 2016, ShihYun has finally founded Lablaco, the first Circular Fashion Platform with the mission to accelerate the digitalization and transition towards the Circular Economy of the Fashion Industry. By leveraging Blockchain within an open source platform, Lablaco aims to redesign a new ecosystem for fashion industry by introducing new sustainable business models and re-defining the relationships among retailers, brands, designers, influencers, content creators and consumers in a single system. Lorenzo Albrighi, CEO & Co-Founder of Lablaco Lorenzo was born in London on November 1987 by an Italian/American father and an English mother, growing up between Florence and Milan, grew a deep passion for the Italian fashion scene, which brought him to start sewing as an apprentice tailor at 20 years old in the historical sartoria A. Caraceni in Milan, serving clients from Karl Lagerfeld, Gianfranco Ferrè, Calvin Klein and many other high profile individuals. Having worked for almost ten years in the fashion industry and launching his ready to wear line, he met ShihYun Kuo, working at Giorgio Armani as. Buying and Merchandising Manager for Asia Pacific and realized the current fashion system is broken as it is now one of the largest polluting industries in the world. So they Founded Lablaco in 2016, the first Circular Fashion platform with mission to tackle fashion’s biggest challenge of redesigning a new digital and circular fashion system for a transparent and sustainable future for brands and consumers worldwide.

A weekly community driven conversation that focuses on The Canvas' community of companies, brands and partners working towards a more mindful and transparent world. Lorenzo Corazza, Founder of Change2 Change2 is a group of web and mobile app developers, marketers, communication specialists, and project managers. They build on each other’s expertise, working together in teams to generate great outcomes. Change2 believes in a “customer first” approach which is coupled with low risk and high quality returns. Change2 is aims to create software for companies in different mechanical, medical, engineering, and other professionals sectors, using the most advanced technologies available. Various applications are currently being developed with the aim of digitizing and innovating todays ways of graphical representation of company products with augmented, Virtual Reality and 3D configurators. Change 2’s Founder, Lorenzo, has always been a “nomad”. He started his working career working as Marketing Manager for Panini that allowed him to travel and understand the Chinese market and the different culture. After, almost a year he decided to go back to school and start an International master in London that pushed him to start his first business of rideshare advertisement, a still new and unknown concept. They entered a partnership with Apple, Vodafone and Uber and in just 2 weeks on the market had 800 drivers. Lorenzo says: “However, discounting trips for the passengers on Uber cars wasn’t really appreciated by the government which shut us down by making a law on our business model. Sad and hit, I came back to Italy and started working for many companies as employee... But I felt I wasn’t made for that, so after 2 years I decided to co-found Change2 with my business partner. In almost two year time we are leading the market of 3D’s and innovations as the quality of what we do has not been reached “yet”.”