house athena. Your new home to everything sustainable fashion
house athena aims to be your go-to place to discover the rapidly growing space of sustainable fashion, addressing one key question: what is sustainable fashion ?
The most sustainable wardrobe is your existing one – but with house athena we consider the love for fashion and creativity of new designs as the starting point. So we repurpose the question differently: what are my choices with regards to the materials in the clothes I buy and the brands I buy from – and what is the impact of each of them on our environment and on the people involved in the value chain ?
Fashion impacts climate, water, biodiversity, human beings and animals – and one person may give different weights to these different facets. Therefore in a way, sustainable fashion is to be individually defined. Similar to how different people adopt different diets.
However – while many people already make conscious decisions on what they eat, very few have an idea of the impact of the clothes in their closet.
Therefore, our vision is a world where people make conscious choices on their fashion footprint. Our mission is to educate you on your fashion footprint, and to empower you to shop fashion sustainably – within your definition.
what does house athena stand for?
Athena is the ancient Greek goddess associated with warfare, handicraft and wisdom, and therefore lends herself very well to the vision and mission of house athena.
Warfare
because we declare war on climate change and strive against environmental pollution, human right infrictions and animal cruelty
Handicraft
because fashion is an art above anything else, one that remains to require the skilled hands of artisans
Wisdom
because the route to sustainable fashion for a consumer starts with education and knowledge
what to find on house athena and what not
When googling sustainable fashion, an increasing pool of sustainable brands and marketplaces show up. Companies like Good On You rate brands on sustainability and even Zalando introduced a filter to screen sustainable items.
However, given the incredibly wide scope of sustainability in fashion, it is very hard to assess sustainability as simple as "yes"/"no". For example, cotton is better than synthetic textiles when we consider microplastics, but cotton does use a signficant amount of pesticides and water. In addition, our principles to sustainable purchasing are very personal and individual. For example, one may only buy second-hand, another may refuse to buy clothes in natural materials from animals like silk or wool.
Therefore, house athena will not preach a pre-defined view on sustainable fashion. On the contrary, it will be your home to get educated on the impact of your fashion footprint, and become empowered to define your own values.
house athena offers a platform where you find facts, insightful information and inspiring brands & organisations
to shape your individual view on what sustainable fashion means to you.
Who am I?
house athena started from a personal interest that quickly became a passion for sustainable fashion. Originally I was fascinated by new business model trends including fashion rental services and the uptake of resale, but inspired by Dana Tomas’ Fashionopolis, my interest expanded to sustainable textiles and slow fashion. Working as a consultant I had the chance to work on sustainable fashion topics as well, including the Fashion On Climate report with Global Fashion Agenda.
Before I knew it my passion grew out of control. I discussed every singly thing I had learned and was learning with every single person who crossed my path. I overflooded my social media accounts with reshared statements from the organisations I followed and with my latest slow fashion founds. And what was the most astonishing to me: not only did people not know most of what I shared, they also showed real interest. The idea for house athena was born.
With house athena, I do not intend to tell people what’s right and what isn’t as I truly believe that everyone sets their own boundaries to what they consider as sustainable purchasing. Instead, I want to empower you to shape your independent principles and live by them. And I hope you can find that here at house athena.
Love,
Heidi
