WE ARE ON A MISSION
HOWL is an Antwerp based ethical, ecological, and sustainable fashion label that offers a permanent collection complemented at times with designer capsule collections regardless of seasons. Part of the profit will go to planting trees.
HOWL’s mission is to develop locally and transparently, permanently available, timeless, ecological, and qualitative designer clothing.
HOWL’s vision is to make the planet green by being a leading figure in an ecologically and socially responsible fashion world.
To do so, HOWL is authentic, honest, respectful, and independent in its creative activism, but with a slight touch of humor and a free spirit. It’s not because changing the world is a serious matter that we shouldn’t laugh, have fun, and look good.
THE WOLF
In 1995 when the grey wolf was reintroduced in the Yellowstone National Park in the west of the United States, something unforeseen but wondrous happened. After all the wolf has a bad name, it is a predator, a threat to humans, animals and the environment alike. But just because of the wolf’s predatory behavior towards herbivores, nature recovered. The drastic decline in certain species resulted in others returning to the park while more than ever before trees started to grow and rivers changed their ways.
The wolf cured the whole region’s ecosystem and created a harmonious environmental balance.
HOWL creates a balance in the fashion world’s ecosystem while taking humans’ needs and the environment into account. To ensure that the viability of our planet takes priority over the artificially sustained supply of the big fashion houses and the fast fashion brands.
The punishing pace of the seasonal whims puts immense pressure on designers and manufacturers as well as on sewing factories in low-wage countries and on the consumer who cannot tell winter from summer apart anymore, let alone spring or autumn. It causes immense damage to the planet and its inhibitors.
PLANTING TREES
Every second 476 trees are being chopped for the simple reason that production must increase, the economy must grow, and people must consume too many cheap, worthless products. But we need trees more than anything, because they allow us to breathe, they’re necessary for the fight against climate change, they keep viruses where they belong, and they’re even part of the solution to end global poverty.
That is why with every piece you buy, you plant at least 1 tree.
For that HOWL collaborates with Dronecoria, a Spanish non-profit organization that shares the HOWL-mission and works on the restoration of the ecosystem. Dronecoria plants tree seeds with drones as well as manually, but depending on the degradation of the ecosystem, it also might use shrubs.
The forests Dronecoria grows are meant to last for a minimum of 30 years, and the trees have absolutely no productive function of wood.
The more wolves join our HOWL-community, the more trees will be planted for a greener planet.
Be a wolf.
SUSTAINABILITY
We know you know about the greenwashing. And we know you know that ‘sustainable’ is a very fashionable word. If not a ploy to lure you in. And we’re not holier than the pope. But we’re on a mission. So, we’d like to explain what we do, with whom we do it, where we find the fabrics, what they are made of, and how we send it to you.
Our standards are high. We only work with organic and recycled fabrics. Now and then we use dead stock fabrics to avoid waste. But the feel of the fabrics must always be soft and smooth and gentle to your skin.
Manufacturers in Portugal are providing us with the best quality of organic, recycled or low impact jersey there is. The people that work in the factories, knitting and sewing, are paid decent wages.
The process of designing, choosing the fabric, and producing the items, is permanently analyzed and improved. That also means that we care what you think. We value your feedback. Don’t be shy and share your thoughts with us.
On the product pages, we explain what your top is made of.
ABOUT
The creative activist core of HOWL consists of fashion designer Sofie Claes and author/journalist Han Zinzen.
Fourteen years ago, and brimming with dedication, Sofie entered the fashion industry with her own label WOLF.
She took some pretty heavy hits and it all ended far too early. But it did put her on the map: ever since she has been working for renowned Belgian fashion-houses.
Sofie got to know the ins and outs of the industry, started to question and saw how unnatural, skewed and twisted
the fashion industry really is.
Han has been writing novels, short stories, poems, and columns for over twenty years; he has worked for cultural organizations as well as for media- and production- houses. Whether it is about poverty in Johannesburg’s shantytowns, the fate of drug users, the colored youth’s powerlessness, or the simultaneously healing and devastating power of love, the common theme of his stories is people’s vulnerability. And how unnatural, skewed and twisted the world really is.
That is where Sofie and Han found the thread that binds, and each day they are more convinced of the necessity of HOWL.