KZ_K Studio on Fabrics and Applying the Decency Quotient to Fashion
Fashion designer and FIT grad Karolina Zmarlak, along with business and life partner Jesse Keyes, evolved her private custom business into an eponymous label in 2009. The women’s RTW collection was sold primarily through boutiques and department stores, such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.
Keyes, an urban planner and architect by training, and Zmarlak evolved the collection again in 2016, this time to KZ_K Studio. The new model shifted the focus to direct client relationships and sales, with a smaller share of the sales component—less than 30 percent—with wholesale/retailer-based partnerships. That move has grown the direct client database from 50 to more than 1,000. The company opened its design studio and showroom at 35 Great Jones Street in Manhattan in April 2022.
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The slow-fashion brand is N.Y.C.-based and made, and is founded on the tenets of modernism. Using a sustainable approach to production and minimizing the use of intermediaries, KZ_K Studio also works with fabrications and producers that foster circularity. Here, Zmarlak, KZ_K Studio’s creative director and cofounder, discusses the slow fashion ethos of the brand, its focus on using consciously- sourced fabrics, and the introduction of its Decency Quotient.
Sourcing Journal: Tell me about your fashion label Karolina Zmarlak and KZ_K Studio. Is KZ_K Studio a different line?
Karolina Zmarlak: We transitioned from an eponymous label to an easy-to-remember set of initials. We joke now that KZ_K stands for K(imono, our studio pup), Z(marlak) and K(eyes): puppy before partners. More specifically, we’ve honed in on our architectural studio mentality, which essentially means we develop a deep dive understanding with our clients, designing and developing modernist multi-functional collections for their unique needs. It’s not about our specific name, it’s about our clients’ desires.
SJ: The KZ_K Studio brand emphasizes local production in New York’s Garment District. How large is your factory? Does your slow fashion ethos and direct-to-client sales approach mean that you produce as orders come in? Or do you produce in limited quantities ahead of orders? And if the latter, can you get back into production if you sell out of a size early in the season?
KZ: Over the last 15 years we’ve worked with several independent factories, each with something of a specialty and vision. In the last decade, we’ve committed to four factory partners, who demonstrate specific capacities, while all being extremely technically expert and willing to work with us on the ongoing complex techniques associated with multi-functionality.
We produce two concept-driven—rooted in modernist architecture and art—cycles a year, one for warm weather and the other for cool. We also revamp, and integrate into the concept collections, our Transformational Habits outerwear looks, and Core Valuables each season.
We hyper-focus on styles, sizes, quantities, fabrics, trims, and every detail in a lengthy production planning process, based on feedback from our sample collections, client awareness, retail expectations, and revenue growth. We produce quantities in line with our sales confidence, all at a fair—the gross margins cover our operational costs—full price, and no public sales.
At times we have excess fabric in a run, although this is rare due to our precise planning efforts, and may produce additional units should client interest dictate.
SJ: Given that you have tight control over production, how does this help with sourcing and your supply chain?
KZ: We have few middle people in the value chain, maintaining direct relationships with our mills and tanneries at one end, and our factories and varied production partners in the Garment District. We plan accordingly to loop in our partner production availability and timing.
SJ: I noticed that for the Fall 2024 Cool Cycle collection, the fabrics you use include shearling, upcycled leather, recycled cashmere, organic cotton, and cupro, among others. Are these your typical fall-winter fabrics that are used?
KZ: For a decade, we’ve worked with one key Japanese fabric group and two European leather tanneries. This is a slow fashion approach: trust and know each other’s needs and expectations, and meet them. Still, we deeply research new partnership possibilities with mills and tanneries, both to work with existing partners, and also to expand our understanding of what is environmentally healthy. This is an ongoing learning and execution process.
We’ve been excited to find Cycora, a fabric developed by Ambercycle that’s made of molecularly regenerated garments that would otherwise end up in landfills. We are the first designer-level fashion line to utilize Cycora, which we adapted to create the TECHNO_15 for the 15 year anniversary design of our original techno jacket, and the TRENCH_1, a multi layerable and functional trench and jacket combination.
SJ: Tell me more about Cycora. How did you first learn about them?
KZ: Our fabric partner StyleM—a fabric manufacturer in Japan, and close partner and friend—invited us to visit Ambercycle, the technology-based company in Los Angeles, who has been working for years on innovative recycling processes.
The world of ‘sustainable fashion’ is fraught with greenwashing. Molecularly breaking down garments headed to landfill to generate the raw material it takes to make new fabric, such as Cycora, offers up true circularity. A recycled-based regenerated raw material future preserves biodiversity in place, potentially—and with human cooperation willing— freeing mother nature to regenerate herself.
SJ: You also use a material called Cuwool, which is a composite made from 70 percent cupro and 30 percent shrink-resistant wool. Tell me more.
KZ: We’ve done further research on Cuwool, and though Cupro makes claims to be environmentally sound, we are not fully convinced. There are pros and cons to the process, and we’ve done our utmost not to get caught up in hard to substantiate claims to avoid industry-rampant greenwashing.
SJ: Why are you not fully convinced that Cupro is environmentally sound?
KZ: Cupro is a complex extraction and composition process (that much we are sure of), which very well may cause less environmental damage than a comparable development process. But after our research and understanding to date (as eco-friendly processes are evolving, and certainly our studio comprehension is as well), we can’t independently make a claim, either for or against, its environmental impact.
SJ: Your company also uses materials that are made from recycled plastic bottles. Are all materials used by KZ_K Studio each season consciously sourced and from ethically made fabrics?
KZ: We’re dedicated to learning and improving on this count.
SJ: On the sustainability front, you have launched what you call the Decency Quotient. The Decency Quotient was first used as a leadership attribute. You’re using it in reference to environmental claims. Are you the first firm to use the DQ concept in fashion? Why did you decide to go this route?
KZ: Jesse’s first job was at the Boston Consulting Group, a firm known for coming up with succinct ways to explain complex topics. We borrowed—a kind of consulting lingo—from Anjay Banga, president of the World Bank, who uses the Decency Quotient as a way leaders may develop potential in their teammates. We don’t claim with certainty to be the first design studio to use the designation, but we mean it, precisely, to be a specific, fact-based, verifiable claim of eco-friendliness, when it comes to fabrics.
Primary examples are the Goldman Blazer and Pant, both composed of fabric 100 percent derived from plastic bottles. And D Ornament cashmere coat, which is developed 100 percent from cashmere sections that would otherwise be discarded. The cost of this effort is 3 times that of typical cashmere. Both have proven to be complex to work with, but due to our design and production techniques, finely honed over the last 15 years, we’ve developed the pieces to meet exacting standards of quality, comfort and durability.
For us, we are going to be very straightforward in our environmental claims. We must be certain that when stating we’ve used an environmentally thoughtful fabric or process, the facts back up the claim.
Jesse visited a massive recycling plant in Taiwan—one of the few that exist worldwide—that converts plastic bottles into the raw material that goes into new fabric development. In this way, our claim is transparent. If the fabric is 100 percent made from recycled plastic bottles, it is just that.
SJ: And what can you tell me about what your customers are looking for? Do you think there will be an even greater focus on sustainability in the years ahead?
KZ: We often use the wonderful decades-long advancement in the food generation industry as inspiration. Alice Waters in Berkeley, California, circa 1971, at her pioneering restaurant Chez Panis, claimed the mantra that local, organically produced ingredients made for a more delectable meal, a healthier environment and a better consumer conscience. Our clients, and the world of fashion, must work together more intently to create a culture of good faith, earth-friendly fashion.
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