Climate+ | 48 | Julia Dietmar @ OpenWardrobe

Hello and welcome back to Climate Plus: Purpose and Prosperity in an Unprecedented World. So take a moment to think about what you are wearing right now. Why did you choose it? Does it fit your body and fit in with the rest of your wardrobe? Will you wear it a few times and then toss it, or is it a keeper? These might seem like simple questions, but they are not, especially when we consider the climate, environmental, social, and economic impacts of buying, wearing, and disposing of clothing. My guest today, Julie Dietmar, is working at the cutting edge—terrible pun—of this challenge as co-founder and CEO of Open Wardrobe. Open Wardrobe is using artificial intelligence to help consumers make sustainable fashion choices effortlessly. Their platform encourages mindful dressing, empowering individuals to make choices that are both stylish and sustainable. Open Wardrobe is dedicated to keeping clothes out of landfills by equipping customers with innovative tools, creative inspiration, and practical education to reimagine and reinvent their existing wardrobes. Welcome to the podcast, Giulia.

Thank you so much, Lincoln. I'm very excited to be here.

So let's start at the beginning. Could you frame the challenge for us from carbon emissions to pollution to social impacts and beyond? Of course.

I think most people don't even realize how much impact our closets have. Fashion industry produces at least 100 billion garments a year. And I say at least because by some reports, it's even bigger number. But let's just take 100 billion garments a year. That's enough for every person on the planet to get 12 new items every year. In America, we on average, each of us buys 68 garments a year. 68. 68 garments a year. That's average.

That's like, that's like one every 4 days or something like that.

Yeah. Every 5 days. Yes. It's more than one a week. Exactly. And we, we are not really keeping those items. That we buy. On average, a garment is worn maybe 7 times. And by many reports, for a garment to be considered sustainable, we need to wear it at least 30. And if you think about that, 85% of everything that's produced but we're not wearing ends up in landfills or gets incinerated. It kind of compounds the problem. Another interesting fact is if fashion was a country, It would be a third largest emitter after China and US. And, you know, and then we can consider water, right? Like everybody knows this, this statistic has been everywhere that it takes 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton t-shirt. That's enough for one— 2,700 liters or 713 gallons. That's enough for one person to drink for 2.5 years. So that's definitely a big impact if you think about it. Yeah. Yeah.

So it really is, we're really talking about a full life cycle view of what we're causing to be manufactured and purchasing and wearing or not wearing and then disposing of. I guess this is something that people, this last part is something that people don't really think about where does our clothing go? I'm thinking if we throw it in the trash, if we throw it, if we donate it, where is, where do things go?

Yeah, it's a really good question. And most people, you're right, most people don't think about it. Sadly, most of it ends up in landfills. So of course, if you donate, good quality clothing gets reworn and people use it, but it's actually not majority of it. Right? So there is a good, good number of garments that we donate that actually gets up to be thrown out. So pictures that you see of landfills in third world countries, because we don't process our garbage, we outsource our garbage, right? We ship it elsewhere. There is another sorting typically that happens in those countries when they get big containers. There are people who make living out of sorting through it and reselling on local markets, but majority still ends up thrown out. So yeah, that's, that's a big problem. And even clothing that is not been used. So if you think about clothes that you purchase online and then you return, a lot of times, especially large online retailers, they do not restock it. They just chuck it straight out. Straight. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's not even resold because it's very expensive logistics of restocking, putting it back on kind of virtual shelves. It's, it's expensive and inspection, like making sure it's still in good condition. So that gets thrown out. So there've been businesses lately, startups trying to solve this problem. They're doing a great job to figure out how to solve that problem. So returns that they don't end up on landfills, how do you, how do they dispose of it sustainably? And when I say dispose, it doesn't mean that they're going to kill it there. They might try to find a new home for it, maybe off-price resellers or charities and stuff like that. But yeah, and then there is a third problem and we, some of us, maybe you even have read the article. It was around 2018. There was a pretty big scandal about Burberry burning hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new clothing because they didn't want it to be an off-price market and they didn't want their brand to be diluted. So if you think about it, right, they produced all of this clothing, which took a lot of resources, and then they just burned it. Nobody got use of it, and it's just kind of sad. So because this story was such a big deal, a lot of brands, apparel brands, are rethinking and relooking at their, their practices. But yeah, these things still happen.

Such an irony that they were trying to protect their brand by burning all this unsold clothing and ended up, ended up burning their brand by doing so. So tell, I've always been curious about fast fashion and this phenomenon of rapid, you know, rapid manufacturing, rapid. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and how it what part it plays in all of this.

Yeah, so fast fashion was named like that because of the faster cycles that they take to plan, design, plan, produce, and sell. Typically in more kind of traditional apparel manufacturing, from the conception until the product goes on shelves, it took 18 months. So from the what we're going to sell, how we're gonna design it, how we're going to make it, what materials we're going to use, So 18-month cycle. And what fast fashion like Zara and H&M did, and that was their big innovation, is they reduced that cycle to 6 weeks.

From 18 months to 6 weeks. To 6 weeks.

And in some cases it's a little bit longer, but 6 weeks was a kind of a big innovation. And that allowed them to produce new collections, so to speak, right? Much more often than traditional manufacturing. And so there is a novelty element. So you drop new collection, you advertise it, and, and people supposedly will want to buy it. So what that does is we're kind of designing the system for overconsumption because you're giving a lot of newness to the market. You're putting it in front of the customers. You are advertising, you are creating social media posts and influencers that are doing these hauls, and people feel like they have to have that new thing. And that kind of creates that vicious circle, circle that I'm buying something, I don't even have a chance to wear it 30 times because something else comes new, right? So I wear it. I photograph myself in it, or I go to a party in it, and then that's it. I forget about it. So it's average 7 times. It's average. So that means that many items are worn just once or twice, or maybe even never. I just buy it and it hangs in my closet with tags still attached. So all of that creates wrong signals to the fashion industry, because if we don't wear things, there is not very accurate signal for planners and for inventory merchandisers or inventory planners, assortment planners to figure out what we actually wear and what we need next. Because it's always like new, new, new, new, new. And then we are trying to produce as much of things that we know or not know, we think people will want. And some of the things are not really sold very well. So where does it go? Landfill. Right. So that's kind of becoming this self-fulfilling prophecy of more, more, more, more, more. And instead of thinking about it in a little bit more mindful way, I'm thinking that there's this incredible relationship between fast fashion and social media.

Absolutely. That you've pointed out. And I'm wondering, did anyone see that coming? I mean, was this something that, as social media has become this sometimes dominant part of our lives, is that fast fashion social media cycle, did anybody see that coming? Or is this just something that's happened organically, and we just live with it now?

I think it happened organically. I don't know anybody that anybody actually was predicting any of that. But if you think about this, a lot of us are very much influenced by what we see on social media from friends, from influencers, from celebrities. And if we are being made to feel like we're less than if we do not get that last latest thing, right? It's kind of creates that, that circle again. And then what people— I've been talking to a lot of our customers and just friends and even from my own experience, the closets are overfilled and people still feel like they have nothing to wear. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, um, um, environmental problems, climate problems. Yes. But what about psychological problems? Like, I feel stressed out every time I look at my closet. I feel anxious when I have to go get ready for a meeting or a date or, or, or something, right? Because it's just overwhelming. And the whole, the industry, the whole social media, society, everything is kind of designed to more, more, more, more, more. So that's, that's unfortunately a bit of a challenge. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, tell, tell us about Open Wardrobe because it seems like what you're trying to, trying to cut some of the connective tissue between social pressure and pressure on these brands to produce newer and newer and newer and more and more and more. And then this global disposal problem. What's the origin story? How did you come upon this? How did it— how has it developed until now?

Well, it kind of started with my own closet because I was looking at what I had and I had things that I liked, but I never wore them. Obviously, I bought them because I liked them, but I didn't know how to style them, or I just liked them, but they didn't quite fit me. Right. And it was, they were just sitting in the closet. I had things that I wore a lot, but there was minority. And I had many things that I even forgot I had because they were just balled up somewhere in the drawer. Right. And, and then I realized that most of us don't need more clothes. We just need better ways to use what we already have. And what we're trying to solve at Open Wardrobe is just to give people tools, digital tools, to let them organize, to let them track better. We have AI that help them kind of remix, restyle, spark creativity around how to dress and really just extend the life of every piece. We also have connections to services like repairs and alterations, resale through through our partner ecosystem. And it's all designed to just kind of extend the life of your clothing. Because another interesting thing that people do not realize, if you extend the life of a garment by just 9 months, it reduces the impact of it, environmental impact, by 30%. So water, because you're just, you're reusing it, right? And that's what we're kind of designed to do.

A lot of, a lot of, uh, there are really good companies out there.

They're trying to solve, uh, the problem from the industry point of view. So better production, better raw materials, less water usage, better dyes that are not toxic. We decided to approach it from the consumer point of view. So just give people tools to make better decisions. That's all it is.

Yep. So do you, do you, does, does the tool reach back into that manufacturer world of, as you said, better dyes, less water, better working conditions, or are there other tools that people can use to make those good decisions?

There are other tools that people can use. There is a website and an app called Good On You, and they track every brand and they report on how good their practices are in, in terms of environmental impact and, and sustainability. We are focused primarily on the consumer. What we have realized is we— it's very, very difficult to change consumer behavior from the point of view of buying because at the end of the day, cute and cheap wins every time, right? Do I spend $5 on something super cute that maybe falls apart in 2 times, or do I spend many more dollars on something that is maybe just as good looking, but it's, it's a lot more expensive? Yes, it will last me forever. But, you know, if I'm looking at it from the point of view of a, you know, young girl who's watching social media and seeing what everybody's wearing, can't necessarily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on clothes, on big closets, right? Needs something that looks just as good, but maybe not great quality, but looks good in pictures. We're looking at it that way. So what we're trying to do is we're saying, okay, fine, we understand that you are not going to stop buying things that maybe not have been completely responsibly produced. We're going to leave, leave it to manufacturers to worry about that. What we're going to give you, the consumer, are the tools to make smarter decisions. So if you do buy that top, maybe instead of wearing it 2 times, Wear it 15 times and we'll show you how to do that. Maybe instead of throwing it out, just take in the hem or something and we'll show you how to do it. We'll help you, we'll help you do it. And so, okay.

So how does that, or is it, I'm fascinated by this. Is there, do you, when you use the tool, do you go through and photograph everything in your wardrobe or photograph it? On yourself and you can help with fit and alterations and such. How does somebody, how does somebody use that tool? It almost seems like I'm going back to, you know, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Yeah. This idea that, hey, wait a minute, clothing really needs to fit. It needs to fit your body and your personality and who you are. How do, how do, how does that work?

How do the nuts and bolts work? Yeah, sure. So, so yes, you start with digitizing your wardrobe. That's, that's typically the first step for people. It doesn't have to be, but typically it is. We have an AI that kind of helps with digitization. You do, you do need to take a picture and everything else is, is done by our AI. So we categorize it, we extract all the attributes and so on and so forth. Put in the price for which you bought it and then start logging your wares. Then we also track things like cost wear, and we track how many times you wore it, and then we show you what you wear, what you don't wear. Then we have other tools. So we have something called Style Blueprint, where, um, it's a questionnaire, and then based on that, we determine your style personality, because that, that's very important when you're dressing, right? We're determining your body shape and your coloring, and then we're giving you very simple guidelines on These brands suit your personality. These styles will look good on your body shape, and these colors will enhance your natural look. Okay. So, and then we're kind of giving you like a little roadmap, so to speak, on how to put your closet together. You also can take your closet with you, your digital wardrobe with you, when you are shopping online. So we have a browser extension and let's say you're shopping on, I don't know, macy's.com or Zara or H&M. You're looking at a blouse or a shirt or a sweater that you're potentially interested in. And you can say through our browser extension, we have AI. She has a name. It's a she. Her name is Lola. And we have like little ask Lola AI button. And you can, you can say, show me how this sweater that I'm looking at would work with what I already own. And she basically accesses your digital wardrobe that you digitized and says, here are possible outfit combinations that you could put together. And what that does, it immediately, before you bought it, it immediately helps you to visualize how you actually might wear that item 30 times., right? Then you can also ask, okay, what is the resale value of this sweater? And what we do is based on the brand, the category, and current market demand in your local market, we are giving you a range. So let's say you're looking at this sweater from Hugo Boss, let's say, right? And then it says, okay, so Hugo Boss sweaters In the US, uh, resale value is from— I'm making this up— from $50 to $100. Um, so at least you know that you buy it, you wear it a few times, hopefully 30, and then when you're done with it, you can resell it and give it to somebody else and recoup some of your investment. So what it does, it does a few things. It hopefully helps you be a little bit more mindful when you're, when you're buying. You have immediate knowledge on, oh, I'm looking at the sweater, it's blue, or let's say, yeah, so it's blue. Blue may be not one of my best colors that I should be wearing near my face. Let me see if they have it in the color that suits me better from the blueprint, right? And what it does is since you're making all of these decisions before you buy, it's very likely that your— the chance that you will return it is going down, right? And what that does, it reduces the carbon footprint of shipping that item back and forth. If you happen to buy from the retailer that typically does not restock and sends it to landfill, we're avoiding that problem. And now you understand that you can— how you can wear this item, and then you're going to be a little bit more better equipped when it actually is in your closet and you start using it. Yeah.

So have you, have you seen enough? Do you have enough data now to measure the effectiveness, the impact of Open Wardrobe? We do not have—

we're not tracking data on returns because we're not selling anything, right? So we don't, we don't, we're not equipped yet to do that. But anecdotally, from just our users, we have a lot of people saying to us, I used to have a huge closet, nothing to wear, and that stressed me out every time. Now I have much smaller closets, much smaller closet, and I can go a year without repeating an outfit. Wow. Another person told us that we cured her shopping addiction. Another person told us that she had a skirt that she bought in Paris years ago, loved it, but she bought it to wear with one blouse for like one special occasion. And since then it's been sitting in her closet. We showed her, we basically sparked her creativity on how to style it in many different ways. Now she wears it on repeat. So again, anecdotally, I have many different stories like that. We just need to figure out how to measure it. Right. Right.

And are you asking people to be not just to see more options, but to be more brave about expressing who they are through their clothing?

Absolutely. I don't know if brave is the right word, but for many people who come to us and obviously people who know how to dress themselves, who don't really care about cost per wear and stuff like that, they're not using tools like this, right? People who come to us are people who care either about being more mindful when shopping because of the environmental issues, or they're just not sure. Um, they're not confident. Maybe that's the better word. Yeah, they're not confident that they would— they put on their body actually works and presents them in the way they want to be seen. So this kind of tools, especially Style Blueprint, right? That kind of gives them that conviction. And then the Lola AI does through outfit recommendations is just be creative, right? We are not designing her to create a perfect outfit every time. We've designed her to really just spark your creativity. And then another kind of stories that we, many stories that we've heard, people said, I would've never ever put that top together with that bottom. Would've never occurred to me. But, and when I got that recommendation, I thought, hmm, let me try. And it looks great and I'm getting tons of compliments and I just found a new way of expressing myself. So yeah, it's been very, very interesting to read all the stories. That's great.

I can just, you know, the, the, the, the numbers that you started off with, in terms of the number of wears and especially the amount of water just to make a simple t-shirt is just mind-boggling to me. So ultimately you're getting people to place greater value in what they have and in what they acquire. And because they place greater value in it, they don't need as much to, as you said, go a year without repeating an outfit. And maybe that causes them to make fewer— it's a lot like what I think a lot of people, me included, try to do with food, is less and better. Exactly. Ultimately. Yeah. Yeah. And then seeing the life cycle, you know, as you described, seeing the incredible life cycle benefits of just this tiny little choices, you know, in that 30% reduction, as you mentioned. So it's a great segue for the lightning round questions, the 3 questions that I like to ask every guest. So the first one is the opportunity question, the bank account question. So if you had $1 million to invest, to spend on moving the solutions to these problems forward, how would you deploy that capital?

I would use it to remove friction more from wardrobe digitization, because that is still the bottleneck. And people, to get the full value out of tools like ours, people have to do the work up front. Yeah. So we have tons of ideas on how to make it less, um, with less, more frictionless. So I would find better AI, better visual recognition tools, maybe even a bunch of partnerships So yeah, that's how I would deploy it.

And what if, what if every piece of clothing came with a QR code that, that basically digitized it into your wardrobe?

Yeah. Yeah. That actually already exists. Uh, we are partnering. Yeah. We're partnering with a company that, uh, um, works with manufacturers to basically codify every garment. And, uh, it's still very, very small percentage of garments that are being manufactured, but we do have that integration. So if, um, if the The code is there and you scan it, it makes its way into your wardrobe. But there are still, I mean, just think about your closet, right? Most of the items you probably have and I have are not that new, right? They weren't manufactured in the last year. So that's when these things became prominent. So we still need solution to manufacture, to digitize what you already have. That does not have those codes. Yeah, great.

So second question is the maybe the opposite, the bulldozer question. So if you could get rid of one barrier to these solutions other than money or time, one barrier, what would you—

what barrier would you remove? I think it's more kind of a cultural inertia, if you will. It's like the knowledge or the idea that new means better and we always have to have something new, new, new, which is how fast fashion trained us to live and associate novelty with value. But the reality is the most sustainable outfit is probably the one that's hanging in your closet already. So how do we kind of change the paradigm for people without, you know, from thinking that they need to sacrifice something to be sustainable or to be more mindful, to shift it to more kind of a creativity problem. Problem.

Love that, what you said there, associating, equating novelty with value. That is— and I'm thinking back, and maybe I'm just imagining this, but it seems like in generations past, fashion didn't change that as quickly. And so people were buying things and wearing them until they wore out. And so the quality equated with value. And now it's the novelty that equates with value and somehow turning that around.

Yeah. Going back to the past a little bit. Exactly. I remember my grandmother, she had dresses that were made specifically for her. Every dress was special because it was made specifically for her, fit her well. And she wore it for decades. She would restyle them. She would, you know, refresh them somehow, but she wore them for— because they were quality. Yeah. Yeah.

Good. Well, third question is the spotlight question. If you could shine a spotlight on some part of this that you feel is under-known, underappreciated by the world, where would you shine that big spotlight?

Yeah, I think we talk a lot about sustainable materials, ethical factories, and, um, and we are absolutely— we should talk about that. But what we are ignoring largely is the biggest phase of a life cycle of the item and its use, right? So post-purchase solutions, because how manufacturers and brands and retailers talk to us is typically Here's a new thing, buy it. Here's a new thing, buy it. Here's a new thing, buy it. Instead of you bought it from us, here's how to make the best out of it. So reframing that a little bit, it's, it's really, and there are shifts I'm seeing that brands and, um, especially more kind of expensive luxury brands, they're trying to help people to repair their items, the recycle and so on. So I'm thinking that post-purchase solutions and having focus on on use rather than acquisition is something that deserves a little bit more attention. Great, great.

Well, thank you so much for being on the program today. This has been fantastic.

Thank you. It was a pleasure and fun talking to you.

If you'd like to learn more about Julia and Open Wardrobe, check out openwardrobe.co. And I hope you'll join us again for another episode of Climate Plus, another set of challenges, opportunities, and solutions in our unprecedented Climate+ world. In the meantime, you can find the podcast at climatepluspod.com, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky, and pretty much wherever fine podcasts are streaming, including Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Buzzsprout. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to hit that subscribe button so that you never miss an interview. Also, I would really appreciate likes, comments, follows, and of course reposting and sharing the podcast with anyone who might enjoy it. It is a great way to help grow the Climate Plus audience. You can provide, and you can provide feedback to me directly by emailing me at leb@climatepluspodcast.com. Climate Plus is hosted by me, Lincoln Blevins, and comes to you from beautiful Half Moon Bay, California, just over the hill from Stanford University and Silicon Valley. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time on Climate Plus.