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From an idea that popped into my mind back in Grade 5 to launching our first product – the launch of Eco Apparel has been a remarkable journey for me. I have learned so much from this experience, and I feel that it is time for me to share my journey of revolutionizing the fashion industry.
The idea first came to me in Grade 5, when I stumbled upon a YouTube video on how vegan leather is made. I was completely fascinated – the company would receive otherwise wasted mangos from a mango export company in the Netherlands and would use that as the raw material to create a sustainable textile. I thought that this could be the invention that could forever change the fashion industry, but I was wrong.
The manufacturing process was expensive, and people were skeptical of calling it “vegan leather” when there wasn’t any cow skin involved in the manufacturing process. Despite all the pessimistic views on this invention, the seed of the idea for Eco Apparel started to grow in my head, as I started to think about bringing this invention to more people and the population that may not be exposed to these types of technologies.
The idea came back to me when I saw the video again in Grade 7 – the exact same video I saw in Grade 5. I started to think deeper about what I could do to bring this to life.
At first, I wanted to invent another type of sustainable textile, and I even did research on what types of fiber and raw materials I could use to create sustainable textiles. However, after diving deep into the possibilities, I realized that this may not be the path for me to take as basically all the possibilities are used and they are products that you can buy from companies that produce them that have unfortunately patented them, so that means I could not produce them and make that into a business.
However, after sharing my ideas and findings with a teacher, who I’d like to say is a mentor to this project, we decided to develop this project into a fashion business where I take the sustainable materials manufactured by those companies that make them and process them into clothing and sell the clothing. This idea was not particularly appealing to me back then as I thought that the world of fashion is way too crowded and the space for me to grow would be minimal.
However, after considering all the pros and cons of spending the next four or five years of my life engaging in a research project that requires so much more money and time compared to starting a fashion business that would generally take less time and bring more revenue for me to use for charitable purposes, I decided to execute the idea. And the first step was to find MONEY.
The first step my team and I decided to take on the project to seek funding was to apply for the Jim Koerschen Award from the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS). I was hesitant to apply for the award as I did not know if I wanted to bring the project to life yet. However, seven days before the award application deadline, our mentor notified us about the upcoming deadline, and we immediately started crafting our award application. We submitted it one day before the deadline.
Then, I saw advertisements for the Avenir business competition, and I decided to sign up. When I got into a group with one of the team members from the award application, we used Eco Apparel as our idea for the competition. We attended the competition and won the Junior division. The primary reason why I attended the competition was the fact that there was the potential for me to win the prize money, and thankfully, we received the prize money as intended.
We got the notification for the result of the Jim Koerschen award, and even though we did not win the award, the executive director of ACAMIS back then, Mr. Tom Ulmet, emailed us saying that even though we did not receive the Jim Koershen award, the committee felt that our project was very worthy of the Service Learning Grant. Thus, they presented us with the funding of the that grant.
Right after we received those two funds, I wanted to pitch our idea to a VC and see what they thought about it. However, even though we mentioned every single unique selling point and specialty of the brand, the VC was not particularly fond of the idea and even suggested to us that we could start getting paid for working on this project even though it would be illegal.
After we pitched to the investor and received his rejection, four of the six members of the team left, and the only two people that were left were Selena and me (Eco Apparel’s current team), and that made me doubt if this project was really worth doing if everyone did not want to do it with me. This is a point of the project that I would consider a lowlight, and even though I did know that there would be parts of this startup that would not be successful and would not be going as planned, I was not ready to receive such a result for an idea that won two awards.
However, the lesson that I learned here allowed me to push through the next stages of the project and made me more confident in the fact that although there will be parts of the project that people do not like, I am the one who carries it out and makes it a success; it will be a rewarding journey regardless.
With those two funds in hand, my team and I got started on executing the project. We began to discuss the design and negotiated with the manufacturer if we could purchase an order that is below their minimum order quantity, and thankfully, they said yes. We then were able to have our design manufactured and made into the product we have today!
Below is a picture of the product we launched in December of 2024 on our 小红书 account (ecoapparel), and we hope you can support us on our journey!
Images: Avenir Photographers, Margaret Yang, Pexels
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