confessions from a founder: on speed

Hi ,

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The world produced 100 billion garments last year. The biggest fast-fashion brand on earth now drops new pieces every 24 hours. That's not a typo. That's a Tuesday.

You probably already know this, but fashion's share of global carbon emissions is somewhere between 4% and 10%, depending on which study you trust. Either way, it's roughly the same scale as aviation. The industry throws away 92 million tons of textile waste annually. That works out to a garbage truck of clothing landfilled (or burned) every second of every day. I had to read that twice. Then a third time, hoping for a comma in a different place.

When we founded behno New York, we made a pact to address this head-on. I believe in the slow burn, the long stitch, the strong cup of chai, and the second cup that follows. Our supply chains aren’t fast; They take time. Our leathers alone take over 30 days just to achieve the quality standard we expect, keeping in mind that there are actual artisans – humans – behind every step of the process of making the fashion we love. They are not machines; They work with machines. I feel like I’m quoting myself now.

Here is the part the spreadsheet hates. Every quarter, I get pitch emails, sometimes from MBA students, sometimes from prospective factories, suggesting we could grow faster if we optimized. I’ve come to learn that “optimization” usually means taking shortcuts that tend to detract from the people and the product in our ecosystem. And that’s something we’re not willing to do; what we are willing to do is grow at a pace that meets the efficiency standards we’ve set as a brand. There’s a long way to go, but we’re quickly moving along.

Here is the trade-off I sit with most days: We are a small team running on a smaller budget. The fast-fashion giants can outspend us on logistics, advertising, factory minimums, and press coverage. The only resource we have more of than they do is care. So we have built systems for the parts of the work that repeat themselves week to week, like inventory ledgers, shipping confirmations, supplier reorders, and the small admin pile that always grows by Friday. That frees the parts requiring real human judgment to remain with humans, like which leather feels just right to touch, or how a bag sits on the body. While most fast brands tend to automate the soul of the work and leave boring clerical work for people. We try to do the opposite. We build a stronger relationship with the product and the people who make it.

So, here’s the beat: I’m willing to optimize for speed of process, never at the expense of people or products. Anyway, enough meanderings for now.

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More soon, but not too soon,

Shivam

Founder, behno New York