Interviews

FAER: “We are Standing for a Sustainable and Individual Fashion World.”

Anyone who has spent a long time searching for sustainable and vegan fashion now has access to a shortcut: FAER. This app offers a number of possibilities like a voice and image search function to connect fashion-conscious people with sustainable brands easily and quickly. We spoke to the founders Petar & Pedro about their concept.

Why did you decide to launch FAER?
Before Faer Pedro and I worked at Rocket Internet with different online fashion retailers all around the globe. This way we came to experience first hand what kind of impact today’s fashion consumption has on people and the environment. This is the reason we founded Faer. Our goal is to leverage the possibilities of digital technology and artificial intelligence to connect fashion consumers and sustainable fashion brands in an easy way.

What does FAER stand for?
Faer stands for a sustainable and personalised world of fashion. As a fashion consumer, I should not have to think about whether people or animals had to suffer for the new pair of sneakers I just bought.

How many vegan fashion brands are currently involved, and in what categories?
We have many brands on Faer that have both, vegan and non-vegan products as part of their collection. Brands that exclusively offer vegan products are quite often to be found in shoes and accessories. Overall, we feature hundreds of vegan products across categories on Faer.

Which criteria do brands have to fulfill for being authorized on FAER?
For us it is important that transparency is at the heart of the brand, it must be immediately apparent why a brand is sustainable or vegan, the related information must be readily available. Certificates like GOTS or PETA-approved greatly help in terms of transparency, even though these certificates are not the perfect solution either. Smaller brands often can’t afford the price tag associated with the certification and the criteria what is considered vegan and what not differs for every standard.

How has FAER developed since you started?
Currently, our goal is to steadily broaden the selection in terms of products and brands. At the same time, we’d like to standardise details about production processes and materials to make it easier for consumers to get the information they need to make a purchasing decision.

In our user research we always find that a broad assortment and high level of transparency is most important to our users.

How do you think the market for sustainable and vegan fashion will develop over the next years?
As example, the demand for vegan leather has has increased steadily over the last years. Global brands like Hugo Boss or Adidas now offer products made from vegan or recycled materials. Elle had published an entire issue dedicated to sustainability recently and Meghan Markle wearing sustainable brands is hot topic in Vogue. The transformation of the fashion industry is just getting started and the importance of sustainability as fashion shopping criteria will continue to increase.

Bookmark
See all bookmarks

Share