How Ganni Became a Global Brand

How did Ganni become a global name? Is Ganni a sustainable fashion brand? What innovation is needed for fashion brands?

Recorded live at Copenhagen Fashion Week at 1Hotel Copenhagen, Victoria sits down with GANNI co-founder Nicolaj Reffstrup  to talk about building one of fashion’s most recognizable global brands. 

Nicolaj shares how his background in tech shaped the way he and his wife, Ditte Reffstrup, built GANNI. He also reflects on the rise of the “GANNI Girl,” taking on outside investment, expanding internationally, and what happens when a brand becomes bigger than its founders.

The conversation explores why GANNI has never called itself a sustainable fashion brand, the business decisions behind its responsibility strategy, and why the company once walked away from bestselling products because of their environmental impact. Nicolaj also shares what he looks for when investing in founders, where he sees opportunity in materials and AI, and why he believes the future could become increasingly difficult for mid-market fashion brands.

Nicolaj answers audience questions on what he would do if he were starting his career again today, his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, and what actually makes someone stand out when applying to work at GANNI.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's an independent media platform now with intersection of fashion, tech and culture. And who better have a conversation with Nikolai, co-founder of Bonnie? So thank you so much for all of you being here and Nikolai for having this conversation during Copenhagen Fashion Week.

SPEAKER_07 0:15

Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

So I would love to get started with kind of Bonnie's return to Copenhagen Fashion Week this season. Where did that decision come from and what can we expect to see from you guys?

SPEAKER_07 0:32

If you don't mind, I just wanted to know. I'm so impressed that so many people showed up. We have totally appreciated. I I thought anything that protects to sustainability is would be dead in the water these days, right? You sometimes get that feeling. So thank you all for showing up. And just to kind of calibrate what we're talking about here tonight, of of the three options that would be fashion, uh business, and sustainability. If I if you don't mind raising your hand when I ask you what what's your interest, but is it business? One fashion and sustainability. Okay, so nice. Okay, right, right. Well, so I mean coming back to Copenhagen fashion, we just it feels super natural, obviously. I mean, this is where we build our platform. And it's been interesting throughout the years how through kind of this Copenhagen storytelling and anchoring our fashion narrative around this Copenhagen girl that would kind of cycle to work and go for swimming to hard work and kind of lay up for a party later at night and stuff like that. It was we managed to reach an international audience, right? So Copenhagen's been an amazing platform. And we kind of grew with Copenhagen, I feel like, because Copenhagen definitely had like 10 years of like leaking, right? And it seems to continue. And there's so many awesome things to be said about Copenhagen. I think we all appreciate that, and that's why we are here today. So that since coming back just made totally sense. I I it's not that we have a left left, right? Because now we're all back, if that's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

I think everyone's so happy to have you guys more back as well. I want to get into how you began finding Ghani and you mentioned you were approaching it as a tech business. What does that actually look like in terms of a fashion brand? Because with fashion, I'm sure there's some things that you can't exactly scale the way that a tech company can. You have this tech background. What did that actually look like when you were building Gonnie?

SPEAKER_07 2:31

Well, so it's not about thinking of the product as a piece of software. It's not that that's not that at all. But bear in mind, I come from a tech background, and the last project I did before entering any, starting Genny with my wife was a chatbot, actually. So in 04, I raised $10 million to build a chatbot. But it turned out it was like 20 years too early and probably $5 million short. So we had to wrap it up. So but all I knew was kind of how to run a tech company. So that's just I applied the same principles, right? So it was very much about having a super flat hierarchy, a lot of like trust in people, right? So a lot of delegation. It was about kind of trusting in talent more than titles, right? So we had a lot of young kids that worked with us and we gave them huge responsibilities. But we also had this culture of testing small and failing fast, as you have intact. So that was kind of empowering, right? But it was also a very transparent culture where if you made a mistake, you had to share it with the rest of the organization so that we could all learn from it. And you were not allowed to repeat that mistake. That was the only condition, right? So we created this, and there were also like very specific tools or methodologies that we use. Like we had Scrum meetings, which is like a project management tool. So we would every morning we would uh have 15-minute calls, and I would time them so everybody had like a minute to tell the rest of the team what they did the day before and what they planned on doing that day. And that came for a super coherent organization with a lot of like tacit knowledge being shared across teams. So we were super aligned, but we kept the meeting so short that people didn't grow frustrated, or we didn't really waste each other's time. So if we identified a conflict or a challenge in those meetings, the people responsible for that would start with outside the actual meeting. So stuff like that. So it was more about like the alignment and the platform that we will.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's super interesting. A lot of the podcast conversations will focus at like fashion tech, and so it's interesting to hear the tech within the company. I want to talk a little bit about how much Ghani has grown and when you begin to scale that much as quickly, the brand that represents often gets interpreted by the people interacting with it, the customers, you don't get to control that narrative anymore. And the internet culture consumers start to almost redefine the brand and you don't get to come in into that conversation. What is that like as a founder and how you dealt with that building body?

SPEAKER_07 5:08

But the short answer is I guess that's exactly the point, right? You want the brand to be out there living through a community around it, right? The brand is nothing without people interacting with it, right? So you can learn as a risk, right? That people kind of take over the brand and interpret it differently and it kind of takes on a life of its own. But it's also where things thrive. I mean, things thrive where there is friction. Like the cool streets in Copenhagen, it's like Vanderdamps, right? Or you go, you those guys who know that one. It's a super busy, super annoying, two-way street, right, with lots of pedestrians and cyclists and shops everywhere. It's impossible to kind of get through it, but it's the coolest street in Copenhagen, if you ask me. And I guess that's the same thing you're trying to achieve when you build a rank, right? You want it to be out there living, interacting, right? And especially a brand like Gennett that was built on a shoestring budget, right? And was extremely community-driven. So I I don't fear it. I see it as a token of success when other people take it over and interpret it in their own ways.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

And I think we saw that kind of peak with the Ghani girl. I would say it was roughly 2017, 2020. How, what has she changed? Has she grown up with the brand? Who is the Ghani girl in like 26?

SPEAKER_07 6:24

Well, yeah, that's it's an interesting question. I thought a lot about that actually when we were preparing for this uh this call. It's I think first of all, we didn't even quite term ourselves, right? It was former 90s supermodel Gelena Christensen, now photographer, right? And the actress Kate Buffer. That showed up for the same thing wearing the same kind of jacket, I think it was way back, right? And then they posted a photo on Instagram and hashtag Getting Girls or something like that, right? So it's literally a uh hashtag that we've worked from from Helena and Kate Buffer. So that in itself was awesome, right? And I think it would never have been a company that would identify a persona necessarily, or kind of set up different segments that we would target by all means. It was more like an inside-out conversation, right? So we doubled down on this Copenhagen girl that we knew because we were that girl. I weren't, I wasn't, but my wife and we're 90% women in the company, right? So the team intimately knew that girl, right? And we just tried to emphasize that storytelling. And in that sense, that has not changed at all. I mean, it's the same girl we're talking about and talking to and working with, right? And it's the same thing we try to recruit in the people that we work with us. So I don't know if she's changed necessarily. Of course, we've throughout the years we have an older customer also that we didn't have before. Because she quite agreed with us, but I think we've still got uh engaging with a younger audience too.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

I'll never forget Michelle Obama in the denim, and everyone said she's a Ghani girl.

SPEAKER_07 8:02

Exactly. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

You have been leaving Ghani for 17 years, even Dita. There's been a lot of changes. There was outside investment, a move to Paris for a little bit, there's been global expansion. Have the core values that you began with changed at all? Has it been a challenge to keep them as it grows so much? What has that been like?

SPEAKER_07 8:26

Well, I think I mean bringing on for other shareholders was less a matter of money and more a matter of us sometimes maybe doubting ourselves, right? Bearing my kind of both Dita and I felt like orphans in the industry. Did it has a background in fashion as a buyer. I gave them tech, right? But we were kind of always looking at it from the outside, and we were never part of like the fashion jet set. That was also part of the success because we just did things our own way, right? We definitely felt we were looking at it from the outside, and there's sometimes when you feel super confident about what you do and you just ran through and do your own thing, right? But there are also lots of times where you're like, can we open a store in Paris or New York? Does the metrics make sense? Like, how do you go about doing that, right? So we wanted to find a partner that could help us with that, that had that experience, that knew how to go about it, that had the network and had done it before. So that's why we brought on board El Carleton, which is like the world's biggest consumer banks investor. And also me coming from tech, it's very natural to have partners, investors, uh, people you work with. It's a very hard dynamic industry where fashion is a little different in the sense that it's typically more about a person or somebody somebody kind of distinctively identifying the brand, right? So it just felt natural. That's the short answer, right? Yeah, I don't know if that answers your questions and solid.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Definitely. I think it's so interesting that you said it was a you were doubting yourself, and that's why you brought other people on. Because I know maybe people in this room, people listen to the podcast, I think are often aspiring entrepreneurs where it's maybe a side hustle and it's not their full time yet, and that comes with a lot of doubt. Is there anything you would maybe the partners is one of them, but kind of say to those people in that space where they look at Ghana and like, you made it?

SPEAKER_07 10:21

I I think it's it comes down to very much who you are as a person, right? I mean, some people can just kind of have so much trust in themselves, right? I don't know about their upbringing, but uh my parents did something wrong there for sure. I mean, so both did and I are what you call insecure overachievers, right? And and it's definitely not something I can recommend because it you you're always in doubt as to whether what you're doing is good enough, right? So it's hard to sometimes appreciate what you've achieved. It's to kind of just remind yourself what you could have done better, and you may get up like early and keep working on that, right? So you gotta be extremely careful, but it's also a fire that burns inside of you, right? And it's what kind of gets you up in the morning and and keeps you up late and die, right? So it's uh it can also be super productive, and I think a lot of people feel like that, right? And it's great to have those people on your team, but it's just super bad being that person because it's uh it can be super stressful, it is super stressful.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

I haven't heard insecure over cheater before, that's funny. Something I'm very curious about, obviously, I'm coming from an American perspective, is Ghani famously does not call itself a sustainable fashion brand. But if you ask a lot of people to name a sustainable fashion brand, they say Ghani. One, why do you think that is? And two, how would you describe Ghani's value system?

SPEAKER_07 11:44

Oh, the not sustainable thing. It was kind of naive because back when we in 2013, when we started on the charity, the sustainability journey, or whatever you want to call it, I I naively thought that it would form the baseline at some point, right? That it would be required by law or it'd be a license to operate it to kind of behave well, right? Because we saw earlier on how crazy this industry is, right? So I didn't want to tie anything that pertains to sustainability to the brand, right? Because I felt like it would be diluted completely, right, at that point, right? Or in the future. So we never wanted to tie sustainability to the brand in any way. Also, our dream was to make sustainability or responsibility, as we prefer to call it, relevant and cool and fun and not something you had to think about. So that's why. And then probably the biggest reason, especially back then, as I said, these days people seem to care less about sustainability, right? But back then it was also super sensitive topics, right? And we are totally aware that you cannot allow yourself to call to call yourself sustainable when you're fashion ranked. Like fashion is raw consumption. There's no denying that it's all about new stuff, right? We don't need more gold if we all know. So that was the reasoning behind it. But having said that, if I can allow myself to brag just a little bit of uh I'm bragging on behalf of Lauren Bartley about sustainability officers, here I mean I think we have probably one of the highest, I mean, for Appel manufacturer, the highest e-core score only next to Pentaconi or something like that. So I I think to my knowledge, we're probably the only brand that has managed to reduce our carbon footprint in absolute terms relative to us growing over the same period of time. But I don't think anybody else has achieved that.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

US have done a lot, and I want to get into the sustainability report later, but first I want to get into an example of I think Gandhi putting its money where its mouth is. I again I can't think of a US company who would put planning for profit, but Gandhi discontinued one of its best-selling cowboy boot colors when it learned about the environmental impact. Can you tell that story a little bit from the inside and just kind of touch on these trade-offs that you have to make with values of responsibility, but also running a business?

SPEAKER_07 14:15

Yeah, it's a great, it's a hero story of obviously. So I like to talk about it and I emphasize it on it. I'm sure there's lots of situations where we could also have done better. But in this particular case, when we mapped out our carbon footprint, we found obviously that leather was a huge corporate, but maybe the biggest source. Materials are obviously the biggest source. And within materials, leather is like a big corporate. So we decided to face out virgin leather. As part of that phasing out, it turned out that there were two. Oh, at that point we sold a lot of color. It turned out that there were two colorways that we couldn't replace with a leather alternative. And we ultimately decided to then like sell up the stock and not do those colorways again. And at that point, they could just send the 2.5 million, 2.4 million Danish corona in sales, right? So substantial money for our company that's not that big. So, but it was a decision we made like in unison, like Lauren, being our CEO at that point, and it felt awesome because it felt like there was responsibility in action. It was not just talk, right? But I'm sure there are lots of other situations where we could have done something similar, but we didn't, it just felt awesome.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, it's a very honest company, I think. And I think the sustainability report is a big piece of that. I remember talking to Laura too on the podcast last year. It's kind of like a report card. You guys came out with Game Plan 3.0, and it focuses on women, climate, and innovation. What is it like one kind of going through that process of seeing everything that the company maybe hasn't or has done and setting those goals for the future? Why did you pick those three?

SPEAKER_07 15:57

It's been an onboard process for a while now, right? And I think most importantly, it's an all-encompassing, very profound strategy. It's not just like a piece of paper working report on stock, right? It's kind of ingrained in everything we do. And it's tied tightly to like our business strategy. It's not like a parallel track or anything like that. That I think is the most important thing. So it's an ongoing process. We've been going at it for a while, revising our targets, and it's constantly evolving, right? I mean, doubling down on women is obvious, it's like a 90% women company. Innovation is like the level that will have to save us all, right? Because I think that's the only option we have left. There are not really any politicians that are kind of taking action like on a profound level. Consumers are lacking behind too, for many good reasons. And if we don't have how to take innovation, coming up with innovative materials, creating more efficient supply chains, all of that, then we won't stand a chance, right? So innovation is an obvious choice. And what climate at this point is all about and has always been for us. It's what got me started on this journey was 30 years ago, maybe even more, when I was studying business, economics, and philosophy, and I went into a rabbit hole of game theory, which is a mathematical way of describing human behavior. That not surprisingly turns out to be super optimistic and short-sighted, right? We just sub-optimize constantly. We're not capable of sacrificing like short-term materialistic convenience for longer-term gains, right? We are just not capable of that. And at the same time, I learned a lot about climate change. So I realized, Jesus, we're never gonna solve it. We are just not capable of it. So that's why I've been so engaged with the climate change for for many years. Now it's mostly a climate check investor. So that's obviously always part of like our strategy.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Philosophy and economics is definitely very interesting. Mix to study. Has that influenced maybe your theory of how you invest, what companies you invest in, the founders you invest in?

SPEAKER_07 18:03

Oh, but mostly so in the sense that that's where I learned about climate change from. So it's kind of formed the basis of my scope. And again, in all transparency, it's been so I invest from a platform called Lookup Ventures that took its name from the movie Don't Look Up. We called it Don't Look Up Ventures in the beginning, but it felt too depressing. So now we call Lookup Ventures. So that's an igno investment platform where we try to support in the beginning mostly climate tech startups in growing. And also from a London-based fund called Giant Ventures, which is uh impact on only investing companies for the sense of purpose, right? From lookup ventures, we only did climate tech for a while, but we found that it's a little hard one, especially these days. So we had to broaden the scope that are investing more broadly. Like, yeah, I don't know if that answered your question.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Can you maybe like give an example of one that you're excited about?

SPEAKER_07 18:57

Yeah, so one that we're working with at Gany or the process of is a company called Avino. So I have super high hopes for AI. I I try to be optimistic about AI, and it's super sensitive, right? Because that's the energy consumption which is mind-blowing. Like you cannot get your head around how much energy can consume. That's insane. So, but if we set that aside for this conversation, I think, I mean, we'll be seeing new materials coming out of AI that will be so mind-blowing that they might give us hope that we can save the planet and all that, right? So we have one investment in a company called Avalon. That's a company that basically builds the crops of the future, right? And it's not GMO, but they can identify like the crop trades that you'd want for a participant to solve a particular problem, right? And then they kind of uh develop those fans in a greenhouse. So it's not GMO. It's a little heretic explodation, but they are awesome. So they they developed, for instance, a cotton crop that grows in Texas and land that was otherwise abandoned because it can survive on literally hardly any irrigation, no pesticides, no fertilizer, and with a hugely improved carbon footprint, right? So it's companies like that are just awesome to invest in and work with, and it's like great people, super smart people, and it gives you a lot of both.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

I think the agriculture side intercept so much with fashion, people don't do that that much. So that's really interesting. I'm wondering if you have any advice for we talked about this a little bit before firing entrepreneurs, but founders who look at Gami as kind of what they aspire to be. You have this book that's so great. I I have a copy. Is there like one lesson you can pull out of that for someone who wants to have values but also run a business that makes profit?

SPEAKER_07 20:51

Yeah, I think it's super uh boring and annoying. It's like a parent advice or human advice. But it's I mean, I've always found that it's like some sometimes people kind of go looking for that great light bulb idea that will kind of solve everything for you, right? And you can I think you get like this vision or idea, and then you just go through that no star and it solves everything, right? And in reality, it's hardly ever like that, right? You're constantly in doubt. You just get up every morning and you grind through, and you think there's no direction and no progress in what you're doing, but you still have like a gut feeling that you're on the right track, but you're confused and it's messed up and it's frustrating, right? And then suddenly a year has passed by and you look back and you actually kinda made progress, right? And you might have ended up in a slightly different place than you thought you would, but at least you're going forward, right? So I'm afraid that like it's just kinda just going through the day grind and believing in yourself. That's the best advice I can do, but it's gonna hurt.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

It's gonna hurt. Okay, I always get asked, ask the people I have on the podcast. Someone wants to work at Ghani, how do you stand out? What do you look for in your company culture? Because I'm sure it's a lot of people's dream job.

SPEAKER_07 22:08

I mean, I always look for, and more these days than ever before, because of like AI, everybody can be builders, everybody can kind of leverage their own effort, right? So I always look for people that can build stuff themselves. I work with these AI tech entrepreneurs, and they're like, they always talk about what is the data, they always ship build self or something, build self-ship or something like that. That's their mantra, right? And I kind of like that about them. So it's just people that that just take action, right? And if it's too huge of task, then just slice it and eat the elephant one bite at a time, right? It's like that kind of mentality matters more than anything else, right? It's your ability to take action and just kind of make progress every day rather than sitting back or waiting for a budget or a project plan or somebody else to help you, right? I love those people that just make things happen.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

I love that. And I'm curious because I think throughout this conversation we can see the impact you have had on Ghani. What impact has Ghani had on you? The community, the customers, the designers, the team?

SPEAKER_07 23:16

Oh yeah, so I mean I mean, again, I still today I feel like an orphan in the professional industry, given my tech background, right? And I was uh a little kind of suspicious to put it by that. I was super suspicious, actually, to be honest, when I came into the industry. But I mean, two things I learned about it and I I've always loved about it, is like firstly, maybe people look awesome and are so much fun to work with. Like I've met so many characters, and people are not afraid to kind of emphasize whatever they believe in through how they express themselves. That's been an awesome journey. And I sometimes have these uh memories of parties we've had, and I kind of look, and we've had maybe sometimes 300 people in our house in Urst of the War, and it was crazy. The whole thing was just uh a tornado that ran through it. But it was I have these images of like beautiful, crazy people all over the place. I I love that. That that industry, this industry is second too long when it comes to that. And then uh I've learned how powerful this industry can be in the way it can build brands and how brands can change people's behavior and driving them in their direction and make them become aware of stuff. And uh it's not just that I've seen how the industry can do it, but also that you can actually, with very few means, create like global brands, right? And you can actually put a lot of that work into a formula that ultimately builds that brand. It's not pixel magic, all of it. That is something I've learned from the fashion industry, and that I'm trying to bring back into tech, like how to kind of build a brand or set a context for what you're doing, and use that to kind of get whatever you do out there and make people relate to it.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

What is Nept for Ghani? Is there something you're excited about in the next year or so that you can share with us?

SPEAKER_07 25:09

Yeah, I mean, there are lots of great collabs coming up that I cannot name. I did that yesterday. And everyone's like, Yeah, I feel so sorry for that. I haven't sold the tea yet, but I even did it to a journalist. But um lots of awesome collabs coming up, but mostly like we talk about a homecoming, right? And I love that. It just feels right across all premises. We just know exactly what we're gonna do, I think. And everybody loves a comeback kit, right? We are a comeback kit, come back to Companeg kit. So that journey uh I look so much forward to. But for once, I don't have any doubt as to what we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Well, the party yesterday was so fun. I think everyone's so excited to have you guys.

SPEAKER_07 25:55

Once I had my wife down from the roof of that car, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

I didn't see well, thank you so much. This has been so insightful. I find it so interesting to hear your perspective on the tech, the innovation, what you're excited about for Bobby's future. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_07 26:12

Of course, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

And I would love to open it up to the audience if anybody has any questions.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

First of all, thank you so much for this lovely conversation. My name is Dr. Schenfer. I'm a doctoral researcher at Lutz University where I write in my thesis on feminist activist practices in fashion. So I I wanted to pick your brain on some of the questions that I'm dealing with, and I'm also forwarding from some of my students back at the program I teach at. And I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about how you navigate your own interests with the interests of investors because you work together with a lot of investors, and obviously we've talked a lot about mission drift and what it means to maybe be in moments where your own ideals are questioned when you're face to face with interests of investors.

SPEAKER_07 27:03

Well, I actually I don't have much to add. They actually surprised me because I got a grand case and they'd never mess with that. I I think from the very beginning they understood that that there was an ingrained part of who we were as a brand and what we were doing. And still today they I think they appreciate that Gany as a business case is hugely dependent on especially my wife, but also me to some extent. So they've literally just let us go do our thing. I c I gotta grant them that. But it was a huge concern for us in in the very beginning. Yeah, but it's been a surprisingly pleasant marriage in that sense. Lots of bothered jokes, but not there.

SPEAKER_04 27:42

That's it. Thank you. So my name is Chanel, and thank you for this talk. I was wondering if you would start over again with a whole like start a new business or go over. What is the like two, three main things that you would think about doing? What would you focus on?

SPEAKER_07 28:02

I'd probably work five years in a fashion house in Paris. Learn the traits and the traits of uh of the industry and get a thorough understanding of that, kind of uh extend my network, kind of get a good group of people around me, get acquainted with a few A-level celebs that could help specify. No, forget about the last phase, and then I just do it. I I think sometimes you could just gotta do it, but you need to strike a balance, right? Because I also think, still today, I think the most successful entrepreneurs, generally speaking, broadest thing across all industries, are 40 years old. They have the highest rate of succeed, and that is obviously because they've spent some time in an industry, they know the insides out, they have the network, they have a clear idea where they see an opportunity, right? So there's a bit of truth to that. So I've made you kind of work for a while, identify the opportunity, and then I put all in for it, right? And and accept that it's like a hundred hours per week for a year or two before you're getting anywhere boring about it.

SPEAKER_06 29:09

It's real. How do you identify from the beginning that there's brown to be a success? I mean, obviously it's the founding team, but also maybe the product in itself.

SPEAKER_07 29:20

So Gammy Techlet and Sophie Bilabar, they all are kind of led by creative geniuses, if you ask me. And for various reasons. So my wife is extremely good at kind of building community. She has a great, like she's super creative, and but she also has a very commercial mindset. So it's an awesome combination. Johnny Hedeen from Tech, like Sophie Bilwise, uh, they are really kind of creative strategy masterminds. Like I can't explain it, but they just have it. Like you can put the both of them in the basement for a year and they'll come up and know exactly how they want to have a sensitive table for a dinner with the press or a call that they want to do. So in those cases, you you were never in doubt that they have the creative potential. You just needed to build a platform around them and kind of figure that part out. So in the case of consumer brands, if you want to call them that, it's not flattering. But I I I think you you need that kind of genius quality with the founder. So that's what we've been looking for. And yes, I'm inundated with like question with proposals from consumer brands. I I see a lot of them. I say no to pretty much everything, right? Because yeah, times have definitely changed. You have to have something very exciting to roll for the market, has to be extremely distinct. In my case, it also has to make sense from a kind of responsibility perspective in order for me to get engaged.

SPEAKER_05 30:55

The climate that we're in currently, do you think that will change in like 10 years that you might be looking to invest more into consumer brands?

SPEAKER_07 31:02

I mean, my personal belief is that if you're familiar with Marcel Ferrogive needs, right, we are kind of headed downwards.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 31:09

But in a funny way, I think we'll be spending more money on basic stuff like air conditioning, initially, or energy prices will go through the roof or whatever, inflation in general in general. So there'll be less money to spend on something that isn't distinct. At the same time, the gap between rest and pool is also widening. So ultra-luxy experiences, stuff like that, I see kind of continue to grow, expand. Maybe not so much luxury fashion, but like broadly speaking, experiences in that segment. So that's how I see it. But like offering, coming to market with a mid-market brand in the next 10 years, I wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Maybe the last one, yeah, thank you. Very interesting talk. And I love how you said if you try to make sustainability fun and cool, I think you even make it sexy. So that's always really nice. I have my own social fashion enterprise. And I was wondering, as a big brand like Gandhi that has pioneered in sustainable fashion fashion in general, how would you benefit from like a company that helps you with a certain aspect of the brand? So would it be a company in materials or in rules and regulations? Where do you see the biggest gap?

SPEAKER_07 32:28

So uh probably in materials innovation. So, I mean, our biggest challenge is materials, because as I meant, it's the biggest source of costume too. So we try to partner with a lot of brands in that spin or startups or uh players in that industry. We've had this project called Fabrics of the Future for since 2019, where we've kind of tried to help bring those materials to the market. Uh, and we have been trying to invest in a lot of those projects. So we've kind of built our own RD department, several RD, through a bit of money and resources from Lauren and her team. However, I also have to say that I was about to say we've failed miserably, but that's probably too slow. But I that the failure rate has been massive, right? So we've had to kind of take a step back and be a little more conservative in how we work with these startups, right? So anybody that can help us kind of come with more scalable solutions to the problems we're faced with are more than welcome.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

I feel like the Ghani Lab Instagram has some really cool deep dives. If you want to like see more of those projects, I'll like go and learn about a new company there. Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for your insightful questions. Thank you everyone for being here. Again, Nikolai, Lauren in the back helping put everything together. And we'll be around for I think for a few minutes if anyone has last questions. But thank you guys so much.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Thank you so much for joining us.