AeroFarms is on a mission to transform agriculture by building and operating environmentally responsible farms throughout the world to enable local production at scale and nourish our communities with safe, nutritious, and delicious food.
Founded in 2004, AeroFarms is led by CEO David Rosenberg who has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the “Transformational Leaders in Agriculture”.
The New Jersey-based company has been charting a course toward a new standard for totally-controlled agriculture since 2004. They disrupt traditional supply chains by building farms on major distribution routes and near population centers. They defy traditional growing seasons by enabling local farming at commercial scale all-year round. They set a new standard for traceability by managing our greens from seed to package. And they do it all while using 95% less water than field farmed-food and with yields 390 times higher per square foot annually.
Aerofarms passion is great tasting food and sharing our harvest with the world. They recently began growing at our ninth farm — the world’s largest indoor vertical farm and our new global headquarters in Newark, NJ (pictured). There has been tremendous demand for our locally grown, delicious, produce, and they have farms in development in multiple US states and on four continents. There has never been a greater need for safe, dependable, nutritious food, and they are scaling quickly to transform agriculture around the world.
AeroFarms was profiled by Bloomberg TV for their annual program Year Ahead 2015 highlighting companies that are poised to disrupt business. AeroFarms is also the past Winner of Red Herring’s Top 100 Global for Innovative Companies, Winner of World Technology Awards for the EnvironmentFinalist for Silicon Valley’s TiE50 Awards for Energy/CleanTech, and Finalist for CleanEquity Monaco for Technology. AeroFarms is building in Newark, NJ our new corporate headquarters and what will be the world’s largest indoor vertical farm with partners Goldman Sachs and Prudential. We have an extensive pipeline of other farms in development all over the world, and we are actively scaling our team and making key hires.
On was born in the Swiss Alps with one goal: to revolutionize the sensation of running.
It’s not just a love of running that former top athlete Olivier Bernhard and his friends David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti share. They’re all also dedicated to developing a perfect product. And this is what has turned a revolutionary idea into a new running shoe that began by amazing the sporting scene and has since helped numerous top athletes to new personal bests at World Championship events.
After retiring from professional competition, three-times World Duathlon Champion and multiple Ironman Winner Olivier Bernhard devoted himself to finding a running shoe that would give him the perfect running sensation. In doing so he crossed paths with a like-minded Swiss engineer who had an idea for a new kind of running shoe. And it was this ideal symbiosis of running experience and engineering expertise that allowed this original idea to be steadily refined over the following years.
Cupboardfuls of prototypes were developed; but the basic concept – cushioned landing, firm take off – remained paramount throughout. It was this unique running sensation that convinced Caspar Coppetti and David Allemann to come aboard too. Together with Bernhard they formally established the On company in Zurich in January 2010 to develop a product range fully engineered in Switzerland using the latest technology.
After that, things started to move swiftly. In February the prototypes won the ISPO Brandnew Award, one of the most important prizes for innovation in sports. Test runners were enthusiastic and spoke of running on clouds. In July 2010 the first running stores had the On on their shelves.
Eleven years after market launch, On delivers industry-disrupting innovation in premium footwear, apparel, and accessories for high-performance running, outdoor, and all-day activities. Fueled by customer recommendation, On’s award-winning CloudTec innovation, purposeful design, and groundbreaking strides in sportswear’s circular economy have attracted a fast-growing global fan base — inspiring humans to explore, discover and dream on.
“Cyclon” is On’s groundbreaking circularity program. On’s Cloudneo is a fully recyclable running shoe made from castor beans. Lightweight, agile and super responsive, it’s engineered to perform. And you’ll never own it, because it’s only available via subscription.
Today, most products are designed within a linear lifecycle. That means one straight line to the trash. “Make-Use-Dispose.” When apparel and footwear have a predetermined destiny to become waste, that results in harmful effects on our planet. But we think there’s a better way. It’s called circularity.
How do you engineer a shoe from castor beans? It might seem like magic, but really it’s just science. A two-time ISPO award recipient, the Cyclon running shoe will feature a 100% bio-based upper. Made from just a single cut of fabric, so there’s zero waste and zero dyeing. Just pure material and pure performance.
Once you’re part of the Cyclon subscription, On sends your first pair of recyclable running shoes to you. After six months, you might be feeling the need to replace your well-worn and loved shoes. Not a problem. Hop back online and let On know to send a new pair to you. If your shoes haven’t gone the distance yet, you can replace them later.
In addition to its European headquarters in Zurich, On has now opened a second head office in the USA in Portland, Oregon.
Because you are unique, On is breaking the norm.
How many times have you been told to fit in, to adhere to the norm, to continue how things have been done in the past, to buy into the one best way? After half a century of running axioms that have failed to produce a significant drop in running injuries, On suggests to simply run how you are meant to run. Forget about motion control, minimalism and maximalism or the proper way to land or to lift for that matter. Instead, let your individual running personality shine. What feels best to you is best for you. Interestingly, this is also the conclusion of the latest biomechanical research.
On Core Belief 1
From focus on correction to focus on experience and comfort…
Running should be fun and not an exercise in self-control. Instead of correcting your movement, On lets you run how you are meant to run: The result is unmatched comfort and a more fun running experience. How it works? On’s patented CloudTec® cushioning cleverly takes the first heavy blow off the street and then lets you transition naturally to the forefoot, where the Cloud elements become firm for a stable stance and a powerful push-off. In other words: the On provides cushioning only when you need it and helps you delay fatigue, keep up your individual stride and not give in to the street.
On Core Belief 2
From one best way to run to billions of ways to run…
On shoes do not passively control your running motion with a rigid sole. Instead, a whole team of Cloud elements at the sole of the On shoe actively reacts to your individual running motion. They can act in unison or individually cushion your landing – however you need it. In fact, they have no predefined rolling line but empower each runner to run how he is meant to run. This means freedom for your feet, putting you back in control.
On Core Belief 3
From a look at the ankle to a look at the whole body…
Your running shoe should not stop you when landing but transform your motion into forward momentum. We take a holistic look at the running movement of your whole body, not just your feet. This is why On puts the landing sweet spot towards the midfoot stance, naturally centered under your body. Upon landing, your are immediately ready for takeoff – good running form in action.
On Core Belief 4
From a diagnosis for life to an evolution over time…
Running is a sport, not an illness. And as in other sports, you can train away your weakness to become a star performer. Flat feet and other deficiencies are not static but can be improved through training. Infants for example typically have flat feet and develop an arch through natural training in childhood. Neither is your individual running motion a diagnosis for life but can evolve with training. On provides a range of footwear that adapts to your individual stage of running and supports your training to propel you to the next level. Start with the On Cloudster, finish in the On Cloudracer.
Today Ken wakes each morning to a day full of phone calls and Skype meetings with prospective franchisees all over the world. From New York to Paris, Australia to the Middle East. He never imagined he would create a cult brand.
He is supported by the vision and enthusiasm of Nejoud, the Food & Beverage management company and % Arabica franchisee, headed by CEO Abdullah Al Khabbaz. “We had wanted to do coffee for a while” says Abdullah, “But when we saw what Ken was doing in Kyoto. If we like something, and the approach matches our values, we won’t copy it, we’ll get the franchise.”
The intrigue of that logo , a “%” that gestures towards both the focus on quality and the image of coffee cherries on the tree , is core to the brand. Nejoud spent a month researching the location and the company, and encouraged by the brand and all it encompassed – an uncompromising focus on quality, an iconic simplicity of design, and centralised operations.
After achieving incredible success with the first location, an espresso bar in Kuwait City’s downtown (where lines typically extend out the door and even to the carpark), Nejoud had bigger plans still. ‘We were not the first specialty coffee brand in Kuwait, but we’re looking to set the bar for specialty here and beyond,’ Abdullah says. The plan is to open a further three locations in Kuwait City — to serve the increasingly international community specialty coffee in a number of districts — before moving on to other states such as Bahrain, Qatar, and The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I admit, I balked at such a drastically optimistic projection. On what was this seemingly hyperbolic estimation of the coffee-drinking capacity of Kuwait based? Are Nejoud and reality on any sort of speaking terms at present?
The % Arabica Kuwait Roastery, the second location, doubles — or triples — as both a café showroom and education centre. It is nestled among commercial buildings and offices in the Shuwaikh Industrial District that neighbours the state-owned Ministry of Oil and Kuwait University and is home to a burgeoning tech and startup community.
The space is stunning. As pristine as those model prototypes encountered in the foyers of top real estate development firms, except that there is nothing miniature about the space whatever; on approach, one is met by three massive columns rendered in a brushed concrete finish resembling the broad strokes of some Goliath who’s taken to oil painting. They support a formidable façade from which a luminous % sign welcomes visitors to enter the glistening space. But even at first blush, the synthesis of glitz and craft are on display: two custom-made Slayer espresso machines (with a third looming in the training space beyond) flank a brass-housed glass display unit brimming with handcrafted pastry, Viennoiserie, and sandwich offerings, putting at front and centre of the customer experience a display of dedication to quality and care.
Ken is careful to point out that % Arabica is ‘inherently a Japanese brand.’ Its focus on precision methods and every last infinitesimal design detail speaks to themes of longevity. ‘The Japanese approach to business is still informed by a culture of heredity,’ he says. And he credits his choice of Nejoud as enactor for his vision in Kuwait to a mutual understanding of the long-term future of the brand.
Abdullah and his colleagues have put together a team of passionate and highly-skilled staff who work to carry out the brand’s mission of allowing customers to see the world through coffee.
The roastery dedicates about half its space to its 1960 vintage Probat roaster and green-bean storage area where they currently shelve 21 single origin coffees, five of which come to them direct from their collaborative partner Ninety Plus Coffee. ‘Many of the Ethiopians and Panamas we get from Ninety Plus work better through filter,’ says Grant. ‘We prefer a darker roast — chocolatey, nutty — for espresso, but all our coffees are on offer to try, buy, and even roast on demand.’ I asked whether the preference for a darker espresso roast was influenced by the tastes of the region, typically a consumer of strong Arabic-style coffee. ‘It has a lot more to do with Ken’s vision,’ he responds. ‘He has such a wealth of experience and is so widely travelled, and it’s a vision I’m on board with. While we are careful to monitor and adjust to trends, we want our coffee to be enjoyed 100 years, 200 years into the future.’
Something that is on display from the moment you enter the space till the moment you leave is a buzzing sense of movement. Baristas are free to move around and engage with the space in conjunction with customers. The very make-up of the open-plan design invites interaction. I noticed that my Chemex (the only filter method on offer owing, according to Ken, to its being a ‘mid-century masterpiece of design’) was not hand-poured, but instead carefully brewed using a Marco Uber Boiler. Aside from the control and temperature monitoring features it offers, it represented the attention to detail in creating a space that allows staff to work harmoniously with the equipment. The coffee was a Tanzanian and a favourite of Grant’s for its being ‘deep, dark, and dangerous’ while still offering sweet and vibrant fruit notes. Ken joined us while we sipped our coffees and caught me admiring the tables and benches. ‘Japanese cypress,’ he said. ‘We use the same wood in all our stores, and fly it in specially to each location.’
With so much thought going into design (this particular location was more than a year in the planning), how does the minimalism and simplicity of the space, not to mention the floorplan, work to create a customer experience conducive to developing a high demand for specialty? ‘We’re very excited about this particular location because we are not only selling, but educating,’ Abdullah tells me. ‘Customers can still grab a quick cup to go, but we also have the space to take them on a journey.’
We walk towards the Tornado King roaster, exclusive to % Arabica and conspicuously placed in the centre of the room directly behind the island counter. ‘Here,’ he says, gesturing for me to behold the glass-topped display cabinet full of coffees at different levels of progression through the roasting process, ‘is where the journey starts.’ The 1kg roaster provides the ‘roast-on-demand’ feature singular to, at this stage, the roastery location. Customers can choose from an extensive range of green coffee and have it roasted to their preference within minutes, all right in front of them. ‘Having roast-on-demand here is incredibly important in terms of education,’ Grant chimes in. ‘Both for our customers and staff, it really opens the space up to other levels of possibility for exploring coffee.’
The dedication to staff training is palpable. As we spoke, the barista team, who had been working through various training exercises all morning, were now excitedly clustered round the espresso machine engaged in an impromptu latte art throwdown, headed and judged by % Arabica Kyoto’s Head Barista and Tokyo 2014 Latte Art World Championship Open winner Junichi Yamaguchi. Despite his instigating the throwdown, Junichi, who has joined Ken on this trip to provide initial training, is careful to endorse a more holistic approach to espresso drinks: ‘Latte art is only a decoration. What matters is getting the espresso right to start with,’ he says. ‘The cup is the frame. Everything you put in that frame needs to work to make the customer smile.’
Dry and Eikmeier founded Vinomofo with less than $25,000 and, while the business did hit the $1 million revenue mark in the first six months, Eikmeirer says this period wasn’t without its challenges.
“Not only does it make it difficult to plan or invest in anything medium or long-term, as you’re making decisions just to stay afloat week by week, but it puts tremendous financial pressure on you personally as founders,” he says.
“It took us four years before we started making enough revenue to sustain ourselves and our business, and start to grow.”
Another lesson came after a capital raising exercise saw Eikmeier and Dry partner with large online retail group, The Catch Group, which meant giving up a majority stake in the business.
“We ended up finding a way to buy the company back and that was been the best decision we ever made,” he says.
Eikmeier says Vinomofo has recently brought in a “world-class leadership team” to its organisational structure and has plans to scale from 75 to 150 people on the ground in Melbourne in the next year.
For Eikmeier, Vinomofo’s next big move is likely to involve heavy investments in local and global markets.
“We’re investing $10m in marketing in our Australian market, with a 300% growth target,” he says. “We’ve just hired two Asia leads and we’re setting up in Shanghai to launch Vinomofo into China. This marks the beginning of a global expansion.”
Eikmeier says the strategy will also see the online retailer growing its Vino Direct “marketplace” channel.
Discussing tricks for tapping into self-belief at the Melbourne launch of startup documentary The New Hustle, Dry told the crowd about a strategy he learned at a conference.
“If you pretend you’re wearing a superhero cape, you walk differently. You kind of walk shoulders back and tall, and it helps,” he says.
That’s not where the visualisations stopped, either: when it came to the more difficult moments of the business, Dry motivated himself by imagining potential outcomes while looking in the mirror.
He would imagine what his life would look like if the startup didn’t end up working, and asked himself what that would look like over one, three, five and 10 years.
“If you do that in front of a mirror, you start like, leaning forward, and you start kind of getting smaller and feeling shit,” he explained.
“If you kind of reverse it and go, ‘no fuck it, I’m going to change it and I’m going to continue to believe and I’m going to have an even bigger picture that I want to achieve’ — if you start going one, three, five years [for that outcome], you start standing taller. I used to do that a lot.
“I used to stand in front of the mirror and just believe in yourself.”
Dry and co-founder Andre Eikmeier faced several precarious moments in building up Vinomofo, which they discuss in The New Hustle, and Eikmeier is also open about the potential implications of failure on his loved ones.
Saying he spent “four or five years building into pressure points” while getting Vinomofo off the ground, Eikmeier said he appreciates just how important it was for the business to succeed.
“Had Vinomofo not worked it would have been pretty dire for my family financially,” Eikmeier explained.
“We believe that radical innovation in underwear design can ensure that every woman, every day, is living in underwear that allows her to progress in the way that she demands in every other area of her life. That’s why our designs are built on an understanding of how bodies move, not just how they look.
This approach led us to reimagine the most mundane wardrobe staple, a pair of tights, into a product that redefines superiority in comfort and fit for every female body. We’re now using polymer physics, computational engineering models and 3D knitwear to reinvent shapewear. Next, we’ll be taking our design ethos to make a bra that actually fits. (Finally!)”
So how do you feel about your tights? That’s pantyhose to our American friends. But Heist is an intriguing British business, so we’ll go for tights. The category has seen limited innovation. Tights ladder, go baggy, slip down, develop holes in the toes and are pretty uncomfortable, I’m told. Thankfully, Heist is here to change the game.
Heist is on a mission to innovate in underwear. Launched in 2015, tights are its first port of call. The status quo of the industry has been to deliver products that are either practical or sexy. Practical tights meaning your underwear choice and quality of product remains as it did at primary school. Sexy tights (or we could say impractical) are those best saved for fancy dress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Mjx4FQnvU
Heist’s team are not fashion insiders and as such they don’t come to work with the pre-existing wisdom of the industry. Instead this start-up is purely concentrating on injecting science into underwear design.
Heist’s ‘intelligent’ tights took 12 months, 197 samples and 67 women to create. It has stolen with pride from the luxe sportswear category to create a waistband that doesn’t make you look like a stuffed sausage. By using a 3D manufacturing technique, Heist eradicates the need to utter the prudish word ‘gusset’ ever again.
So far, so good. Everybody from Vogue to the Huffington Post has given the resulting product the thumbs up. The numbers are looking good too, Heist has raised $2.6 million from Net-a-Porter’s Natalie Massenet and top fashion venture capitalists.
One challenge Heist faces is that it’s not obvious what brand of tights somebody is wearing. So to get the word out there, the brand needed to achieve fame.
Heist’s first two above the line campaigns have been bold. The first caused controversy that a feminist brand like Heist can only dream of. Transport for London demanded that the woman’s naked back in their London Underground poster be covered up in post-production.
Heist subsequently complained to the press about blatant double standards (surely a male back wouldn’t be deemed too saucy for somebody commuting on the Piccadilly line?) and the story was picked up by multiple news agencies, catapulting Heist into the public eye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PxjEgrtIiA
Embracing the trend for body positivity, Heist’s latest campaign doesn’t feature bodies at all.
“Why do campaigns selling bodywear, lingerie or underwear to women treat them like objects?”, co-founder Edzard van der Wyck told The Drum, “worse than that – objects for men to ogle. We don’t want to sell bodies. We want to sell bodywear.”
Instead this campaign uses different shapes, sizes and the rich texture of fruit to flag that the brand is open to people of all sizes who want to wear tights. This is reflected in Heist’s range which runs inclusively from a UK 4 to 24.
“We may be only two years old, but it’s already been quite a ride. Our first range reinvented the humble pair of tights, delivering 30% month-on-month growth and propelling us into the pages of almost every major European publication. We’re backed by some of the biggest investors in fashion and technology, and on a busy day, we can sell a pair of tights every 15 seconds. Even our tube adverts caused a scandal. Most importantly, we have tens of thousands of customers who genuinely love Heist and the products we develop and ship around the world.”
In early 2017, Donald Trump was shockingly, worryingly, the new leader of the free world. Three members of Barack Obama’s inner team during his time as president, decided to do something about what they perceived as a broken American political landscape.
Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett, speech writers, alongside Tommy Vietor, a former spokesperson for the National Security Council, started a podcast to bring a new voice to a media landscape they believed had failed the public during the 2016 election campaign.
Unlike much of the US news media, Crooked talks about real issues, not just theatrics. The hosts ask the tough questions, rather than creating puff pieces. They encourage listeners to channel their new found rage into activism and involvement. And they swear, a lot. As they put it, “armed with $100 and a pun”, the threesome released the first episode of Pod Save America and founded their new company.
A commonly held belief of the political right is that the left would always suck at broadcast media. On the right, conservatism had traditionally found huge audiences on Fox News and through sensationalist talk shows, like Rush Limbaugh’s, and in 2016 on Breitbart and Infowars.
But with the exception of satirical segments on The Daily Show, the left had never been able to engage audiences with regular political conversation in the same numbers and with the same fervour. That was until Crooked Media burst on to the scene.
Regularly topping 1.5million downloads per episode for the flagship show, Pod Save America is now a twice weekly fixture in the political landscape, with a host of progressive voices queuing up to take part in a raucous one hour dissection of the stories of the week.
Within a few weeks of launching the pod, Jon, Jon and Tommy were conducting Obama’s last interview in office, just hours before leaving the White House for good.
In September, they sat in Hilary Clinton’s basement and asked her about why she thought she’d lost the election. They took the show on the road to rally for Ralph Northam in the tight race in Virginia.
At the heart of Crooked’s challenge to the mainstream media is its ability to bring an ease and star quality to a conversation that is traditionally wonky and stilted. Crooked has introduced people to political discussion for the first time and shown that it can be hilarious, energetic and productive, all at the same time.
Crooked now releases eight shows per week with topics ranging from foreign policy to social activism. The live shows sell out within minutes, and the recent European tour has seen the hosts greeted by full houses in Stockholm, Amsterdam, Paris and London.
Ossian’s ancient vineyards are located in the village of Nieva in the Spanish province of Segovia.
This particular part of Rueda is blessed with a seam of sandy soils that have protected the vines from the dreaded Phylloxera louse. The upshot is a wealth of incredibly old vine material which the team at Ossian farm with the sole intention of producing one of Spain’s great white wines.
Add in an altitude of around 900m, with the huge diurnal temperature swings that this brings, and you have some very interesting grape material coming off Ossian’s old bush vines.
Production methods are fully organic and fully manual – the old bush vines prevent any sort of mechanisation – and ageing takes place in predominantly old French 600 litre barrels.
Both Ossian and Capitel are whole-bunch pressed and fermented entirely with wild yeasts. The only grape variety is Verdejo, not generally a grape afforded the chance to reach greatness by others, but here produced with a singularity of purpose, from such old vine material, that the end result is varietal defying and capable of serious cellaring.
Also in the range is the great value Quintaluna, an amazing 60% of which now comes from pre-Phylloxera old vines, and the aforementioned Capitel, produced from a single plot of exceedingly old pre-phylloxera vines grown on a particular patch of sand over slate. These are undoubtedly some of Spain’s most interesting whites.
Ossian’s vineyards are located in the province of Segovia, northwest of Madrid, most of them in the village of Nieva where the winery stands. All of the vines are within the Rueda appellation but all the wines are sold as VT Castilla y León.
The project was launched in 2005 by local winegrower Ismael Gozalo and Javier Zaccagnini, former director of the Ribera del Duero’s Regulatory Board and partner at Aalto, one of the most successful bodegas within this appellation. The aim at Ossian was to explore the huge potential of extremely old Verdejo vines grown in this area of Segovia. The area’s sandy soils kept phylloxera at bay —it had a very small impact here. In fact this is one of the major spots for pre-phylloxera vines in Spain, with ungrafted plantings being the norm until the mid-20th century. Wines from this area tend to be less aromatic (expect white fruit and herbs in contrast with exotic fruit and herbaceous aromas), but in turn it offers structure and minerality.
Since January 2016 the Ruiz family, owners of Pago de Carraovejas in Ribera del Duero, is the only stakeholder after buying Zaccagnini’s shares and part of Gozalo’s in 2013 and recently those remaining in hands of the Nieva’s winegrower. Ismael nevertheless will remain as purveyor to Ossian. Former Vega Sicilia’s technical director Xavier Ausàs currently consults for both wineries in Segovia and Ribera.
From its very beginning Ossian stood out for its commitment to organic practices sticking to natural compost and plant extracts as its main winegrowing tools. In terms of winemaking, only natural yeasts are employed.
The range starts with Quintaluna (around €7 in Spain), made form 60% pre-phylloxera and/or ungrafted vines and 40% young trellised vineyards. The winery’s flagship wine —and for some time the sole wine produced at the winery— is Ossian. This Verdejo —which we suggest to lay down for two to four years— comes from pre-phylloxera and/or very old ungrafted vines and it is aged for around nine months in different types of oak vessels, from 225-litre barrels to vats. Capitel (around €40) is more exclusive and limited; it is a single-vineyard wine sourced from one of Ossian’s oldest plots with distinctive schist patches that result in a mineral (briny) character.
The “Verdling” range is a result of employing Verdejo and German winemaking practices. The very unusual outcome is a dry (trocken) Verdling made with the assistance of Klaus Peter Keller that retails for around €21 in Spain and a sweet version (€9.5 for 37.5 cl.) made with Nick Weiss as consultant.
Javier Goyeneche was born in Madrid, Javier studied in Spain, London and Paris, while also taking part in top international equestrian competitions. He received his degree in Business Administration from the European Business School and continued with post-graduate work in International Marketing Strategies at Northwestern University in Chicago.
In 1995, he founded Fun & Basics, specializing in contemporary fashion handbags and accessories. Within 10 years, Javier grew the business to 350 points of sale and 70 branded retail stores. His accomplishments were recognized by the industry when he was awarded Best Young Entrepreneur of Madrid in 2005.
Although he achieved tremendous success with Fun & Basics, Javier gradually grew frustrated with the amount of waste he saw being produced by the fashion industry. He embarked on a mission to create an entirely new concept that would combine his design sensibility and understanding of the fashion consumer with the latest in recycled materials. In 2008 he launched EcoAlf..
Under his leadership, the company has grown steadily and now produces a full lifestyle collection of outerwear, swimwear, casual apparel, shoes and accessories. Javier has strategically expanded EcoAlf ’s distribution to include many of the world’s most prestigious department stores and specialty retailers. In 2012, he oversaw the opening of an integrated EcoAlf concept store, showroom and office in Madrid. Most recently Javier spearheaded a partnership with Apple, supplying the company with cases for its MacBook Pro products. Moving forward he will continue to forge strategic alliances that will position EcoAlf as a leader in fashion and accessories crafted from recycled material.
The concept of the brand came after the birth of Goyeneche’s son, Alfredo (the company is named after him) when I was reflecting upon the world we would leave to the next generation, and my frustration with the excessive use of the World’s natural resources.
EcoAlf was born in 2009. Goyeneche’s idea was to create a fashion brand that is truly sustainable.
All studies showed that we are presently using five times more natural resources than the planet is able to auto-generate. We cannot live in this world as if we have another one to go when this one is ruined.
Goyeneche spent the three first years on sourcing and developing fabrics. The problem was that when I sourced the market for recycled materials the offer was small and of very poor quality. Most fabrics only contained a very small percentage of recycled material (15-20%).
So he found the need to start creating partnerships with factories in order to develop fabrics, lining, straps, labels and cords using recycled materials.
The goal was to create the first generation of recycled products with the same quality, design and technical properties as the best non-recycled products to show that there is no need to use our world’s natural resources in careless way.
Discarded fishing nets, post-consumer plastic bottles, worn-out tires, post-industrial cotton, and used coffee grinds…where people see trash I see high quality raw materials.
Hopefully, in a near future, their vision and efforts will encourage others to move in the same path, as more sustainable fashion labels will emerge resulting in a global compromise towards recycling and sustainability.
When EcoAlf first emerged, their first challenge was to change people´s conceptual approach of recycling, as recycling and quality did not seem to connect. People imagine them taking their grandmothers quilt and making a simple rough backpack.
Their efforts during the past years have clearly proven that recycling connects with quality and design, resulting in boosting a change of mentality where people now believe trash equals natural resources with the same quality.
Think micro and act macro. Goyeneche believes this change will be not be driven by governments but by small companies who will step by step guide the small customer towards this world compromised with recycling and sustainability and demonstrate that things can be done in a different way.
By investing in R+D and traveling around the world, he started to identify the ideal manufacturing resources, and started to build carefully the foundation that would become EcoAlf.
Today the company has 11 active alliances around the world (Taiwan, Korea, Portugal, Mexico, Japan, Spain, etc.) that allow us to continually develop all necessary elements to manufacture with recycled materials.
In the short time of EcoAlf existence, 30 million plastic bottles and 40 tons of fishing nets were recycled to make its products.
There are too many people complaining and a few pushing to change things. All industries should act, react and focus all resources in I+D. Natural resources are not endless and we need to start acting now, as we can still change the world we all live in.
If you want to make a difference don’t let anybody tell you “it’s impossible”!!
EcoAlf is working on a major project for a while now. Until now, EcoAlf has been reducing waste by recycling materials from landfills but my personal challenge has always been to help cleaning up the ocean.
The idea is to collect marine debris with the help of Fishermen and recycle them into consumer products. I had spent the last year investigating the feasibility of the project and finding all the right partners, such as recycling facilities, spinners, weavers and most importantly Fishermen Associations. Because the Fishermen are pulling up a huge amount of plastic in their nets and have always been throwing it back in the sea. Simply because that was how it was done during generations.
Agua Bendita was founded in 2003 by Catalina and Mariana while they were studying fashion design at the local Colegiatura Colombiana University. For a class project, they came up with the idea of taking discarded offcuts of fabrics and sewing them together to make bathing suits.
The idea of designing hand-made swimsuits from sample fabrics caught on. It quickly grew from a university project to the swimsuit brand all of their friends wanted to be wearing. As demand grew, they reached out to large textile manufactures in Medellín and Bogotá, and asked them for fabric samples, the more quirky and colourful the better, which many of them gave the fledging designers for free. They continued to produce amazing, individual handmade items.
Several years and some domestic success later, Alvarez and Hinestroza decided that they needed to reach customers outside of Colombia and travelled to the 2006 Miami Fashion Week. Their exhibition display was tiny and tucked away in a corner of the event, but an editor of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition from stumbled upon their small collection and loved what he saw. A few months later, SI’s Swimsuit Edition featured Marissa Miller and Bar Rafaeli wearing Agua Bendita swimsuits. “The day that edition came out I had more than 400 or 500 messages from people who were interested in the swimsuits,” says Alvarez.
When describing her and her-co-founder’s inspiration for the style embodied by the company’s suits, Alvarez looks to the her fellow countrymen and women – their happiness, extroversion, and diversity, especially in the way they enjoy their country’s warmth and natural environment. In a phrase, the founders of Agua Bendita have tried to embody “part of the essence” of their country through their design.
Today Agua Bendita is sold in over 50 countries around the world, from small boutiques to department stores such as Nieman Marcus. The brand is a favourite of fashion models such as Kendall Jenner, Bar Rafaeli, Irina Shayk and Candice Swanepoel; as well as by Colombian models María Fernanda Yepes and Ana Sofía Henao.
The two founders have worked hard to create a program called 700 Hearts. The program employs single mothers that have been called the soul of the company as well as heroes. It is their to improve the life of every woman they employ. Over 700 of these local women, with a passion for handmade items, work hard to put together each piece in the Agua Bendita collection. Beads and other decorations are carefully added to the swimsuits, one piece at a time. The 700 Hearts are meticulous at their job and ensure that those who purchase these swimsuits are getting the best possible product. They are excellent and combining modern and traditional styles in each swimsuit they create.
The Medellin-based company now ships more than 150,000 bikinis per year, plus 50,000 other items of beachwear. At the traditional Colombian-style red tiled house that is Agua Bendita’s headquarters in the green hills on the outskirts of Medellin, the founders have continued to expend, bringing in a CEO to look after the financial side of the business. Alejandro Ceballos admits that the company had looked into moving production abroad, to India, China and Bali, but ruled it out.
“It didn’t make economic sense” says Ceballos in an interview with then BBC. “There’s not such a big difference in the pricing, but also we do not want to be investing in developing suppliers abroad. “That would take a lot of time, a lot of effort, and we wouldn’t have the capacity to control their production the same way as we can do here in Colombia.”
To reach its customers, Agua Bendita sells wholesale, as well as through its own shops in Colombia, franchises round the world, and direct global sales via its website. Although ecommerce currently only accounts for 6% of revenues, the company says it is rapidly increasing.
With the global swimwear market now a multi-billion dollar industry, Marguerite Le Rolland, a fashion and retail consultant at market research group Euromonitor, says that Agua Bendita has been clever to create a “recognisable visual identity”. “It is a cluttered market. As a way to stand out, swimwear brands have to think about a particular design that will make them easy to recognise,” she says. “Having a recognisable visual identity means that the promotion of your brand will be done by all these fashion bloggers and Instagrammers.”
However, the founders say that the company is not resting on its laurels, and is instead continuing to expand the range of swimwear it sells that doesn’t stick to the house style. “We cannot just sell birds and flowers,” Alvarez says. “We have to have a perfect mix, understanding that there are so many trends, and sometimes you have to be part of those trends.
The company also plans to expand beyond swimwear and beachwear to “athleisure”, clothing that can be worn both while doing exercise or simply as casual wear. Alvarez adds that it also wants to expand its range of clothes for children and men, and that selling online will be a key focus. “Ecommerce is very important to these ideas, because I think it has no barriers, no limits.”
Qatar Sports Investment bought PSG and gave Dragon Rouge a two pronged challenge. Revamp the brand’s position in the eyes of Parisians, and engage a broader global audience with PSG, and by association, Qatar itself.
PSG was focussed too narrowly on a small (and shrinking) hard-core support base. It is now a showcase of how to build a sporting brand for a global multi-media audience, whilst not forgetting its roots.
Signing the likes of David Beckham for a time in 2013, and more recently Zlatan Ibrahimovic, PSG now has an unassailable lead in Ligue 1 in France and is making an impact on the world’s most popular sport.
After Qatar Sports Investments bought the club in 2011, the project’s aim was to reflect their vision to make PSG one of the best clubs in Europe, and to create a brand that sits in a global arena next to global sports brands such as Manchester United, the New York Yankees and the LA Lakers. The key to this is Paris itself; the city of light, the city of sophistication. Starting with the central brand element – the logo – “Paris” is emphasised above the Eiffel Tower, creating a stylish, compact mark that has been crafted in 3D as well as the flat graphic version to work across the many applications.
Chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi said “The evolution of the Paris Saint-Germain logo marks an important stage in implementing our ambition.”
The brand has evolved to reflect the style and elegance of Paris itself, the club has taken this concept to all levels, on and off pitch, from the sleek offices to the players exuding a confident Parisian style. Launched in June 2013, it’s already changing attitudes to the game in Paris with a sense of spectacle that you expect from the city of light. With the stadium rarely having an empty seat, it seems that the PSG story has only just begun with plans to expand it to 60,000. And while the club is dominating the scene in France, the fans (and the team) are ‘dreaming bigger’ for the future.
The project has widened the club’s appeal, PSG now have 32,500 season ticket holders – more than they have had at any time in the club’s history. They are expanding the stadium to meet demand, and most tellingly, there are more family season ticket holders than ever before. The brand continues to climb sports power brand rankings and has a broader and more global engaged audience.