WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE ARE. HERE IS OUR STORY.
There is a lot of talk about sustainability right now, but fair or ecologically produced fashion is still bought too little. Fairly produced clothing remains stuck with a dusty eco-image. At "the wearness", we want to offer a shopping alternative: Here you can shop fairly, transparently and with a clear conscience - without sacrificing style and quality!We love fashion. As long-time fashion journalists, we have experienced first-hand how the industry has changed in recent years. It has become faster and more short-lived over the years. Collections change more frequently than ever before and global textile consumption has doubled since 2000. More and more garments move straight from the shopping rack to the closet and from the closet to the landfill. Fashion no longer means anything to us. It has become a disposable commodity. It no longer has anything to do with a good feeling or personal expression. The dramatic consequence? Mountains of discarded clothes that were produced far away as cheaply as possible. How a garment is made, who worked on it and under what conditions - that is hardly comprehensible any more. What is certain is that the clothing industry ranks second in the environmental polluter ranking, just behind the oil industry. "the wearness" makes it easier to choose the right products. We only work with brands and designers who run their businesses with respect for people and planet and who meet our three most important criteria: great design, impeccable quality and sustainable production methods. It's not always easy to see if and why a product deserves the label sustainable. That's why we use ten sustainability icons to screen labels and looks. Only if a brand meets our sustainability criteria, we offer the collections to buy on "the wearness".
Just as important in the selection of products is the aesthetic approach. "The biggest problem is: buy, wear three times, throw away. We want to stop that by selling customers what they really love." And that works best when the items are fair AND beautiful. We personally select every product that can be bought on "the wearness".
MEET THE TEAM
Julia Zirpel
Julia had her first fashion moments at an early age. She grew up in India and Nepal and saw first hand as a child how precious clothing can be. "I remember the expressions of women who could finally wear a sari that they had saved so hard for. A new garment gave them dignity - it meant something."
As a fashion editor and fashion director at various magazines, she noticed more and more that fashion has become a disposable item: Purchased in passing, stuck carelessly into the wardrobe, and quickly disposed of again. A fact that the studied designer no longer wanted to accept. For Julia, however, this was no reason to turn her back on fashion. On the contrary, she decided to devote herself even more intensively to the subject. In 2017 she decided to offer fashion-conscious customers with environmental awareness a transparent shopping alternative and founded "the wearness" - an online marketplace for sustainable and high-quality fashion and beauty.
"I think it would be great if people would care more about fashion, about what suits them, but also about the origin of a garment and its actual price. That feels much better in the end than blind consumption."
"Not all that glitters is gold." In 2007, Guya Merkle could not have imagined that this wisdom would become her motto. After the sudden death of her father, the German with Italian-Belgian roots became the managing director and creative director of Vieri, a high-end jewelry company founded by her grandfather in 1939. She studied at the Gemological Institute of America to learn everything about manufacturing and the jewelry business. But until the end, she was concerned with the decisive question under which conditions gold is actually mined. A trip to Peru brought clarity: In so-called small-scale mines, miners and children worked under catastrophic conditions. They mined the gold by hand, inhaled toxic mercury and were permanently in acutely collapsing mines.
For Guya Merkle it was clear that she would not continue working like this with Vieri. She decided to use only fairly mined, ethical gold and recycled gold. To make "happy mining" a standard, the entrepreneur also founded the Earthbeat Foundation - a foundation that works for better working conditions and decent wages for gold miners. Guya Merkle firmly believes in "the wearness" principle that luxury and sustainability must go hand in hand.
Guya Merkle
Jennifer Dixon
Sometimes a conversation among colleagues changes the way you look at things - and in the end, maybe even the world. That's what happened to Jennifer Dixon in 2017. After 14 years at a fashion magazine and then as editorial director at a luxury platform, she realized: "It was always about bringing great fashion to women. Without taking a deep breath or an "Isn't this too much?" The topic of sustainability, like many others in the industry, didn't cross her mind for a long time - something the fashion journalist admits today. It wasn't until a dinner with Julia Zirpel that she began to fundamentally question fashion production methods, and the idea for "the wearness" was born. Jennifer Dixon is now convinced that a responsible approach to fashion is possible if everyone joined in. "I didn't realize how many cool and great labels there are out there that do everything right." Jennifer is convinced that any path that leads away from mass production is the right one. It is especially important for her to show how beautiful, but also how luxurious fair fashion can be: "For us as fashion editors, sustainability used to have a dusty eco-image. At "the wearness" we show fashion, we ourselves like to wear."