When you're shopping online for clothes, it's so easy to put that $10 T-shirt in your cart and check out without much thought about why it's only $10 or how well or ethically it was made.
Gary Phan '23 wants to change all that with his company, Sleeve, which helps sustainable boutique and small clothing stores find larger markets for their clearance items or excess inventory.
"There are a lot of companies recommending sustainable clothing products, but none that are addressing the affordability question," he said. "A lot of people are interested in purchasing sustainable fashion, but the barrier is price."
Phan's company was recently chosen as one of 700 semifinalist teams for the Hult Prize, which challenges young people to solve the world's most pressing issues through social entrepreneurship. This year's theme is sustainable fashion, so it was perfect timing for Phan to apply.
In June, Phan traveled to Portugal to pitch his team's business to a panel of Hult Prize judges from around the world.
"It was an amazing experience to see how other countries were innovating on sustainable fashion through textiles and efficient production manufacturing," said Phan, whose team wasn't selected as a finalist. "We came to this competition to absorb as much as we could, and left with our pockets full of knowledge, network and friendships."
Phan said that he and friends from home had dreamed of creating their own sustainable clothing brand, "but growing up low-income, we realized that doing something 100 percent sustainable and ethical was so expensive," said Phan, who transferred to Cornell and is a student in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. "When I came to Cornell, I joined the Social Enterprise Group at Cornell (SEGC), and we came up with this idea for a Chrome extension that could intercept consumers from buying fast fashion and suggest more sustainable alternatives."
Phan's team, also composed of Serena Huang '24 and Ioana Nechiti '24, was chosen for eLab last year, and after lots of research and customer discovery, they moved from the Chrome extension idea to an online marketplace.
"We found a lot of retailers who have trouble selling their excess inventory and getting rid of clearance products," he said. "We realized that we could help them sell that consistently, do all of the marketing for them and make that a business."
Sleeve's founders choose companies for the platform by beginning with a database of businesses that have sustainability and ethics at the core of the mission. They have created an additional more rigorous weighing system that checks for a company's records on labor practices, animal welfare, transparency, responsibility, clothing materials and public relations.
They're targeting smaller sustainable clothing companies, Phan said, because they have more marketing challenges. The Sleeve site includes 25 brands and Phan said more are ready to be added soon.
Sleeve is spreading the word to its target audience of college students and young adults through Instagram, TikTok and email campaigns, as well as social media influencers in the sustainable fashion space. The company is also looking to roll out with ambassador programs to universities by the end of the year.
Phan's team includes students from Cornell, as well as UCLA, USC and Cal State Pomona and Cal State Long Beach, and graduates that have industry experience in sustainable fashion and web development.
Phan is grateful for the Cornell support.
"I also want to give a huge shoutout to my amazing team, the eLab program, and Nancy Almann from Blackstone Launchpad for being such an amazing backbone and support system throughout our company's development," he said.
After graduation in December, Phan hopes to work on Sleeve full-time.
"I love entrepreneurship. If I can make something and run with it, I definitely will," he said. "We're looking for partnerships with sustainable and ethical fashion brands, so if any brands are interested, don't hesitate to reach out."
As far as Phan's own fashion sense?
"I think I'm a bit more fashionable than I used to be a few years ago," he said. "But it's secondary for me. What I really look at is how long I'm going to be able to wear these clothes."
