Alan Mak
Meet Alan Mak @alancmak, Founder and CEO of Version Tomorrow. Having spent 20 plus years in the fashion industry making goods for other luxury brands, Alan Mak understands the impacts of the fashion industry on our planet. About 5 years ago, he decided that it was important to utilize our knowhow to innovate on new materials and new methods of production. “Our responsibility was greater than just innovating and keeping it to ourselves; we had to use our voice to tell the world about it. Additionally, we had to open up these innovations to allow other brands and creators to hop on board. This was necessary in order to create massive impact at scale.” Version Tomorrow was created, as a result.
IRK: Alan tell is your “Why”
Alan: Version Tomorrow sits at the intersection of luxury and sustainability. Version Tomorrow is a lower impact luxury apparel production platform. Here, we’ve designed and created our own unique materials and lower impact supply chain. We are brand agnostic and allow brands and creators of all kinds to take advantage of our 20 plus years of luxury apparel manufacturing expertise.
They can also leverage over 3 plus years of materials and supply chain innovation. This helps them create the highest quality sustainable apparel without any compromise. We offer this without any of the heavy lifting and R&D that would normally be required to do this. The goal is to level the playing field for small to medium sized brands. Then, creators can make luxury sustainable apparel without compromising quality.
As individual small to medium sized brands, our impact is limited. However, if we operate as collectives, we can achieve massive scale and hence massive impact.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and planet?
Alan: I’m most passionate about promoting the ideas of conscious consumption. I’m fully cognizant that as humans, we love nice things and consumption. But that doesn’t mean we can continue to consume at the pace we are currently at. In recognizing this, it’s my thought that we can still consume, but we must be more mindful of what we are consuming, how we are consuming, and at what pace. This means we can still have nice things, but we need to start slowing down our consumption. We must change our habits from buying throwaway pieces to those that have higher quality. These should be pieces that last and you will continue to covet as time passes. We need to consume better, slower and more ethically.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you Alan Mak, implement in your daily life?
Alan: In my everyday life, I strive to be minimal. I aim to have my consumption be as considered as possible. This means walking or taking public transportation whenever possible, eliminating or reducing the use of single-use plastics, and conserving water. Additionally, it involves building communities and coalitions to help one another achieve these goals. Within the fashion industry, we’ve operated in silos for too long. My vision is for us to create communities. Here, we can share our knowhow rather than gatekeeping and not sharing. By doing this, we can truly create impact at scale.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet Alan?
Alan: My hope is that people will become educated enough to identify and make the necessary changes to their consumption. People should alter their habits to reverse the harm that has been done to our planet.
IRK: What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most?
Alan: Our main SDG that Version Tomorrow is aligned with is #12 Responsible Consumption and Production. However, we align closely with Goal 6, Clean Water and Sanitation and Goal 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth.
