Talking French and American Sustainability

The French American Chamber of Commerce in New York is hosting an event to go deep on sustainability.

Evan Clark | April 14, 2022

Gabriela Hearst

The French and American fashion worlds are coming together to talk sustainability in New York. 

The French American Chamber of Commerce in New York will hold a daylong event at Apella on May 4. Neiman Marcus Group chief executive officer Geoffroy van Raemdonck and Gabriela Hearst will be among the more than 20 speakers. Investment banker Elsa Berry, founder of Vendôme Global Partners and Luxury, Fashion & Beauty Committee chair at the French American Chamber, will also have a conversation with The New York Times’ Vanessa Friedman. 

The event’s four main sessions will focus on sustainability and supply chain, retail of tomorrow, the circular economy and financing fashion’s future.

Count the event as another sign of just how deeply the notion of sustainability has planted itself in the industry, which is feeling pressure to go greener from employees and executives within and investors and partners without. 

And if that’s not enough, governments are increasingly looking to force the issue. The proposed New York Fashion Act is seen by at least some as a good first step, aiming to require companies with more than $100 million in revenues to map 50 percent of their supply chain, from the farms that grow the raw materials to the factories that stitch the goods.