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Steven Bethell is a thought leader and pioneer in the post-consumer textile space for over 20 years, who’s creating innovative and relevant solutions to the crisis of stuff.
Steven is co-founder of the Bank and Vogue family of companies, which includes a major remanufacturing plant where the circular economy for textiles is brought to life. Taking post-consumer waste and transforming it into relevant products, Steven works with big brands to help them bring their sustainability platforms to the next level.
Steven is also behind Beyond Retro, the largest vintage retailer in the UK and the Nordics which launched in 2002 and now has 15 retail outlets and an online shop, offering a wide selection of handpicked vintage clothing.
When we donate clothes and shoes to a charity shop, how many of those end up being put on display and successfully sold? You might be surprised by the stats that Steven shares.
Steven explains how he at the leverage points in the overall system, to work out where B&V could get involved and how to retain more value, in particular by reselling. Steven then took this further, finding ways to repurpose and remanufacture clothing and footwear – at scale. Steven explains how this works in the retail business he set up – Beyond Retro – and how he then looked upstream to develop remanufacturing services for a major US footwear retailer.
Steven thinks at a system level, looking at the whole value network both upstream and downstream to see where he can intervene to make the biggest impact, and how to create the critical mass needed to create value, and overcome the sticking points.
In his spare time Steven lives off the grid in the Canadian wilderness. He is an avid woodsman: fishing, paddling and learning about the outdoors and its many wonders.
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Read on for a summary of the podcast and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
Links we mention in the episode:
Links for our guest:
- Steven’s LinkedIn
- Bank & Vogue LinkedIn
- Beyond Retro LinkedIn
- BVH Services LinkedIn
- Beyond Remade LinkedIn
- Beyond Retro Instagram
- https://www.bankvogue.com/converse-renew-upcycled-shirts/
- And here’s an article about the Converse+Beyond Retro remanufactured sneakers: https://www.fastcompany.com/90821217/converse-velvet-sneakers-vintage-dresses
Books, people and organisations we mentioned
- Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation, by Paul Hawken
Guest bio
As co-founder of the Bank and Vogue family of companies, Steven Bethell has been a thought leader and pioneer in the post-consumer textile space for over 20 years. He has dedicated his work life to innovative and relevant solutions to the crisis of stuff. Steven and his team have traveled to over 30 countries working extensively amongst the robust second-hand markets of the world.
Steven is also the brainchild behind the largest remanufacturing plant in the world, where the circular economy for textiles is brought to life. Taking post-consumer waste and transforming it into relevant products, Steven works with big brands to help them bring their sustainability platforms to the next level.
In his spare time Steven lives off the grid in the Canadian wilderness. He is an avid woodsman: fishing, paddling and learning about the outdoors and its many wonders.
Beyond Retro is the largest vintage retailer in the UK and the Nordics. Since launching in 2002 Beyond Retro has remained a trailblazer, earning a reputation as the go-to destination for fashion-forward originals. Offering the largest selection of handpicked vintage clothing to style-conscious shoppers, each 15 show-stopping stores and the online shop is a dazzling celebration of style through the decades.
In a world of throwaway fashion, Beyond Retro provides customers with on-trend items without the carbon footprint. Through the cycle of vintage and second-hand products, Beyond Retro consistently seeks out innovative avenues to make a lasting impact on the fashion landscape, contributing to a much-needed circular economy.
Working in what the industry calls “rag-houses” around the world, a network of trained treasure hunters scale literal mountains of secondhand clothes to find the vintage diamonds that match our trends. Our pickers look at colour, size, fit, quality, and label to meet our buyers’ needs and it is no easy task with only 1 in a 1000 making the cut!
Once we have handpicked thousands of items and saved them hitting landfill or the shredder, we ship these items to our warehouses in London and Sweden.
We’re not just vintage nerds; we’re data nerds too. Specially developed software tracks the crucial fashion stats of each unique item that arrives at our East London HQ: trend, decade, size, style, and source, among others.
We process multiple shipping containers per week, where our product experts examine each box for quality control before hanging items for pricing. All this TLC gets us closer to retail success, and you closer to awesome vintage pieces that are truly relevant today!
Beyond Retro has 6 UK stores – Dalston, Westfield, Argyll St (Soho), Bristol, Brighton, Coal Drops Yard Kings Cross (Soon to be opening in Cardiff in Summer 2023)
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Podcast music
Thanks to Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow, otherwise known as the brilliant, inventive and generous folk duo, O’Hooley & Tidow for allowing me to use the instrumentals from the live version of Summat’s Brewin’ as music for the podcast. You can find the whole track (inspired by the Copper Family song “Oh Good Ale”) on their album, also called Summat’s Brewin’. Or, follow them on Twitter.
