The Conscious Edit brand spotlight - SABINNA

SABINNA's founder Sabinna Rachimova answer below some questions on her brand's inspiration, advice on sustainable fashion and much more.

What inspired you to create a sustainable fashion brand?

My family is originally from Uzbekistan and Tatarstan, we moved a lot (I lived in Russia, Spain and Austria) and it was always difficult to find a connection to a new place, a new environment. My grandmother taught me traditional Tatar and Russian handcraft (knitting, crochet and embroidery). Handcraft became my safe space, my way to communicate with the world whenever we moved to a place where I again didn’t speak the language. The love for handcraft was the main reason I wanted to work in fashion and ended up studying at Central Saint Martins. Quite quickly I understood that fashion is unfortunately not about the makers and not about handcraft skills and I wanted to change that. That’s how the idea for SABINNA was born. I wanted to shift the focus to the (local) makers, passing on the handcraft I learned, honouring my grandmother and the heritage of the women in my family.

SABINNA is more than just sustainable products. We are all about consciousness, storytelling and innovation, offering sustainable products and educational content. In the last years we were active changemakers in the field of sustainable fashion, working on groundbreaking projects, rethinking the way we showcase and sell fashion, bringing the customers on board and making them an active part of our community, offering a range of tools to fight greenwashing in our industry. I also work as a lecturer, public speaker and consultant to spread the word about conscious consumption and sustainable business models.

What are your favourite ways to incorporate sustainable and ethical practices in the day-to-day of the brand?

SABINNA is a playbook for the future of sustainable fashion. We are ethical, innovative, and female-led, dedicated to exploring sustainability beyond the product.We’ve nurtured close relationships with our manufacturing partners in the UK, Vienna, and Portugal, keeping our production local and considered. Beyond our products, we are mindful about all aspects of our business – from eco-friendly packaging to fair wages for everyone in our supply chain.We want to shift the perception of what sustainable fashion can look like, through our focus on bold prints, statement pieces and timeless silhouettes. Transparency is at the core of the business. By educating our customers on ethical fashion and consumption, we are combatting greenwashing and giving them the power to make informed decisions. We do this through a variety of mediums, including workshops, a podcast, and webinars. We are well known in the industry for our unusual approach towards sustainability and have received several awards in the past, with the most recent one being the Draper’s Sustainability Highly Commended Award for our Price Transparency Customer Engagement Campaign.

What are your predictions for the future of sustainable fashion/beauty/homeware?

It will be inevitable for companies to focus on impact and social causes. We will see more raw material innovation, degrowth, pivoting business models and rethinking the system. I’m also hoping for better policies around responsible consumption and sustainability communication. Brands need to be accountable for the claims they make around their products and for the supply chain of those.

Can you tell us something about your favourite collection/item?

Currently I would say it’s Nora Dress and Alma PJs. Not only because you can wear them in so many different ways but also because for me it’s the perfect combination of ethics and aesthetics. Plus the Abstract Flower Print is super special to me and I love it deeply.

What can customers expect from your brand in terms of quality, materials, involvement in current sustainability/ethical issues?

We listen to the demand and feedback of our customers, making sure that we continuously improve our product range. In the past years we have eliminated conventional synthetics from our products and worked towards more size inclusivity. We also work with Compare ethics, a third party that validated our sustainability claims. It’s important for us to offer our customers a transparent insight into our supply chain.