Partnership pairs sustainable fashion and coffee to raise brand awareness
Register for free and continue reading
Join our growing army of changemakers and get unlimited access to our premium content
Ethical fashion brand Everlane is collaborating with a Chinese boutique coffee company and an on-demand delivery platform to offer an environmentally friendly gift box
Spotted: Last year, US direct2consumer fashion brand Everlane opened a store on Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce marketplace Tmall Global. Now, the company is collaborating with Alibaba-owned on-demand delivery platform Ele.me and Shanghai-based coffee company Seesaw Coffee to mark its first anniversary in the Chinese market.
The trio has developed an environmentally-friendly gift box that includes a bento box, a T-shirt made from recycled materials and a package of Seesaw’s sustainably-sourced coffee.
Everlane is known for championing sustainable practices and for its ethos of “radical transparency,” which reveals the true costs behind each product – from materials and labour to transport and duties, allowing customers to gauge the company’s profit on each item.
The collaboration is just one of a series that will mark Everlane’s first anniversary in the Chinese market while also highlighting the values of sustainability at its core. Seesaw is known for its single-origin coffees and its direct relationships with farmers. For its part, Ele.me has also been expanding into areas beyond its core of food delivery, in its quest to compete with rival Meituan Dianping. All three companies have recently been involved in a number of collaborations.
According to Everlane’s founder and CEO Michael Preysman, “China is one of the most thoughtful and sophisticated consumer markets in the world. The Chinese consumer cares about beautiful quality at a great price and cares about the planet and their impact on the world. We want to help support their vision and offer beautiful basics that are also ethically made.”
Collaborations in marketing are not a new development, but recently the number and variety of such collaborations have been growing. Springwise has been avidly following this trend with coverage of such innovations as live-streamed eCommerce that combines live influencers and 3D computer-generated models and a partnership between the womenswear brand Amaro and video game Animal Crossing.