As Cally Russell, the CEO and co-founder of This is Unfolded – a UK-based company creating ethically made clothes for women and children – recently turned down the Dragons for the second time on BBC’s Dragons’ Den, we caught up with the entrepreneur to talk about his recent collaboration with Bristol-based charity The Grand Appeal and how he’s driving long-term change in the fashion industry…
Where did the inspiration for This is Unfolded come from?
I’ve been working within the fashion industry for a long time having launched the Mallzee shopping app, way back in 2013. We grew Mallzee to over 1.5million downloads and used the millions of insights generated to help retailers make better stock ordering decisions.
Sadly, like all too many businesses when Covid struck, we immediately lost our key revenue streams. But we also knew that there were others within the fashion industry suffering far more than we were. With store doors closed, big brands and retailers were cancelling their stock orders and weren’t paying suppliers for items already made. We couldn’t stand by and simply watch this happen, so we set up Lost Stock, buying the cancelled stock from the factories in Bangladesh and selling it direct to consumers as mystery clothing boxes. Our small team pulled this initiative together within three weeks and we ended up selling 125,000 boxes of clothes worldwide, allowing us to support over 113,000 garment workers and their families, for a month each, during the pandemic.
Lost Stock was always a short-term solution to a particular situation but the experience taught us that long term change was needed in the fashion industry to make it more sustainable and equitable. This led us to launch This is Unfolded.
For those that may not know, can you talk us through how Unfolded works and how garments are made after an order has been paid for?
It’s estimated that 30% of new clothes made are never sold. So, based on a rough calculation; of the 80 billion new items of clothing manufactured every year, approximately 20 billion of them are destined to head straight to landfill. We launched Unfolded to remove this waste.
We do this in three ways; we offer limited collections of clothes (approx. 20 items) designed in collaboration with our customer community so we can be sure that they are clothes that shoppers actually want, our clothes aren’t produced until we start taking orders – enabling us to match supply against demand and the clothes are delivered direct from our sustainable factories.
By making our clothes in this way we create savings as, unlike traditional retailers, we don’t have to build in high margins for unsold stock. We use these savings to make our clothes affordable (sustainability shouldn’t only be a choice for the rich), to pay our garment workers better and also to create long-term change by funding children’s education around our manufacturing factories.
How did the Unfolded community come together?
Our Unfolded community is incredible. We have over 12,000 customers in the UK and everyone who purchases from us is invited to join our Creator Facebook group and help us with future designs.
We name all our clothes after those people in the Unfolded community who give us the most feedback on the design of an item and our clothes are also modelled by our customers.
Furthermore, while we do accept returns, we encourage our customers to swap any unsuitable items between themselves. We have a swap platform to enable this – and we pay for the postage between customers. Anecdotally, we know that many of our customers have said that the community aspect of This is Unfolded is one of their favourite parts and they love being part of this group and making new friends through swapping, meeting at photoshoots and communicating in the Facebook group.
How did it feel to be back in the Dragons’ Den?
Going into Dragons’ Den for a second time was just as nerve wracking as first time around – in fact, maybe it was even more so as I knew what level of grilling to expect. The clip that is aired may be only a few minutes long, but you are being questioned by the Dragons for hours, which is exhausting. Sadly, while we would have loved to accept one of the offers made, we simply couldn’t at the reduced valuations they offered – this would have been unfair to our current investors and the valuation would have prevented us raising future investment to scale our mission. However, it was fabulous validation that the Dragons believed in what we were doing to have received three offers, hopefully the Dragons will soon become customers…
What does it mean to Unfolded to be partnering with The Grand Appeal? Who else have you partnered with over the years?
We are absolutely delighted to be working with The Grand Appeal, who are the dedicated charity for Bristol Children’s Hospital, to help raise all important funds with them. We are firm believers that clothes shouldn’t just look good but they can do good too. We have committed 25% of each sale from this new range to go to The Grand Appeal. The range itself is for kids aged three to 10.
Every This is Unfolded item purchased not only prevents clothes heading to landfill and pays garment workers better wages but also creates long-term impact in the manufacturing communities in India where our clothes are made. We believe that the key to long-term change is education and by partnering with local NGO Pratham, each This is Unfolded item bought funds a child to learn to read and write for at least one month. In India, only 74% of people can currently read and write. So far, over 4,000 children have been supported in education through the sale of This is Unfolded clothes.
What’s next for Unfolded?
Alongside our kidswear collection, we recently launched our sixth ladieswear collection and we think it’s our best yet, a couple of items have already sold out. Our plan is to continue to grow, scaling our collections to have even greater impact. Our ultimate mission is to entirely change the fashion industry and the way people buy clothes. As well as having our own collections we are looking at using our unique platform and approach to deliver sustainable collections for other brands.
• Shop The Grand Appeal x This is Unfolded collection at: thisisunfolded.com. All images courtesy of This is Unfolded
