Pauliina Martikainen, an investor who works with technology companies at pre-seed and seed stage across Europe, spotlights how technology and fashion will interact in the coming year
As we head into 2022, technology and new digital-first services are reshaping the way we produce and consume brands — and the biggest change they will make in fashion is in sustainability. How can the fashion industry justify its growth in a world that’s already very thinly stretched for resources and pushed to the brink with pollutants, waste and rising emissions?
Like the bright poppy patterns on a Marimekko dress, we cannot ignore the trends emerging in tech and the new league of groundbreaking brands driving this move towards sustainability. Never before has this shift been as rapid as it will be in 2022 – so here’s my forecast for the upcoming year.
Sustainable materials and processes will hit the shelves like never before
You can’t talk about fashion without addressing its ugly upstream. I know that drinking water comparisons have become somewhat of a cliché, but they really drive the point home: if growing the cotton needed to produce a single pair of jeans consumes as much water as one person would in 10 years, the equation is hardly sustainable. The fashion industry is responsible for up to 10 per cent of global emissions, over half of which comes from material production and processing.