New York City’s shopping options are growing greener.
Sustainable clothing brand Amour Vert opened its first New York City location in Nolita last week, providing consumers an immersive experience designed to educate on sustainable fabrics and responsible design. The store is green, both figuratively and literally, decorated with freshly planted greenery inside and out.
Since it was founded in 2010 as a wholesale company, Amour Vert has integrated sustainability into every facet of the business. From its name—Amour Vert is French for “green love”—to its biodegradable packaging and signature eco-friendly fabrics, the fashion house didn’t simply adopt sustainable initiatives. It built its entire company on them.
The brand’s core ingredients include Tencel, organic cotton, ethical wool, OEKO-Tex mulberry silk and its signature modal fabric made from sustainably harvested beechwood fibers.
Its denim is also responsibly produced. Since last fall, Amour Vert has collaborated with premium denim brand Agolde on an exclusive organic cotton denim collection. Styles include skinny and straight leg silhouettes, all of which are ethically made in Los Angeles at a vertically integrated denim production facility.
A store in New York City helps cement Amour Vert as a serious player into the sustainable fashion space. The city has seen a wave of eco-minded brands and retailers move in, including Nudie Jeans, Everlane, Reformation and Naadam, a sustainable cashmere brand.
The epicenter of fashion and tourism, New York was a first choice for Amour Vert CEO Aaron Hoey, who spearheaded the company’s move from wholesale to direct to consumer in 2016. But “landlord battles,” as he called them, postponed the New York location from opening until now.
“We were finally able to find a great partner at this storefront,” Hoey told Rivet. “It’s a prime location in the city where locals and tourists alike will see us—and that’s all you can ask for in a brick-and-mortar location, which serves as a great tool for brand awareness and customer acquisition.”
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This marks the 10th storefront for the company, which has locations throughout California, Georgia and Washington. A San Francisco-based company, Amour Vert makes 97 percent of its products in California—most within just a few miles of its offices.
“In-house production is a huge advantage for us for a number of reasons,” said Hoey. “It’s greener—we prototype designs right in our office, which creates less waste during production and removes the need for shipping samples—and it’s also speedier.”
He added that within just one day, his team could come up with a design, manufacture it and offer it online. In this sense, Amour Vert offers sustainable fast fashion—a term previously considered an oxymoron.
Next up, the company will double down on e-commerce growth and open three to five stores in 2020—some of which may be in the New York City area.
“I’d love to grow brand awareness in one particular market, especially such an influential market as New York,” said Hoey. “We’re on the hunt for new locations.”