Jakob Dworsky and August Bard Bringéus, co-founders of Swedish menswear brand ASKET, know the toll that fashion takes on the planet, consuming resources and labour, filling landfills and polluting the environment. ASKET’s slogan is ‘the pursuit of less’, which seems counter-intuitive for a brand that needs to sell products in order to make money but Jakob and August believe in buying fewer but better clothes – meaningful essentials that are timeless, made to last and anti-fast fashion.
Rather than creating seasonal ranges, ASKET has one permanent collection, which contains fewer products but ones that every wardrobe needs, like a merino sweater, a t-shirt, washed denim jeans and a wool coat. Breaking out of the seasonal cycle allows the brand to focus more on development and release new items when they’re the best they can be. As well as working with responsible manufacturers, ASKET also promotes proper garment care – they have a series of guides on their website – to ensure that their pieces last longer, meaning you buy less.
And ASKET aren’t afraid to get down to the nitty gritty details when it comes to transparency. There is often a lot of vagueness when it comes to the inner workings of the fashion industry, even with sustainable or eco-friendly brands, so it can be hard for the customer to truly understand what has gone into the making of a piece of clothing. After working closely with the Research Institute of Sweden, ASKET has launched The Impact Receipt; a full breakdown of the environmental impact of a garment’s creation in terms of emissions, water, and energy usage.
Across their four most popular items, including the t-shirt, you can see the cost of production in relation to the pricing, the traceability of the raw materials, the impact in terms of resources and the lifetime of the item. ASKET is aiming to have full transparency across the full permanent collection by summer 2021.