About Verse

 

Welcome to the VERSE family. 

My story is an homage to the rebel. Being born into a family full of fashion entrepreneurs i quickly was thrown into the lingo and in's and out's of the world of fashion. After finishing school, my dream was to move to Amsterdam and work for a well known fashion brand. I managed to blag my way into an internship and the rest was history. 

As a naive starter in the corporate fashion world i was quick to shift into 5th gear so to say. I wanted to be a high performer at the top surrounded by talent and quickly raised in the ranks. The thing is, all of a sudden i started to feel disillusioned. On paper i should have everything i want, being super young, successful and living out of a suitcase jetting from one fashion week to another meeting with the worlds biggest and coolest accounts and stores. 

Being rebellious in nature and looking at the bigger picture has always been my character and it was during travels to Asia that i started to put 2 + 2 together and getting 10. All of a sudden the glamorous world of the beautiful things we were looking at all day and selling crumbled before me when i saw the path to creation. Of course there are many awesome things about working in fashion but what i saw was a problem creating more problems in terms of ethics and profit and not really a sustainable way to change fundamentally for the better. 

I decided to leave the corporate world and enter my own universe and forge my own path and follow my dreams. As a curious woman i have always looked towards solving problems and at the time saw a gap in finding well made products, made closer to home, focused on less waste and empowering females and LGBTQ community. There is a long way to go but VERSE is a journey and springboard on the way there. 

In 2016 i opened our first boutique in the 9 streets in Amsterdam and after the Corona crisis we moved to the cosy and bustling neighbourhood De Pijp. Curating brands together that fit our values and giving them a wider platform is our mission. 

VERSE is a love letter to a teenage me, who felt misunderstood being of Indian heritage living in Ireland. I felt under represented and a large part of our DNA at VERSE is to show diversity, colour and culture in all it's magnificence.  I truly believe that we can support makers and brands that are striving to change the course of fashion as part of their DNA. Not some tag line or greenwashed statement. 

Our story is continuously evolving, for now sit back and enjoy the ride and take a look at our core values detailed out below. 

XOXO Ciara

Verse breaks down the values into 5 core areas which cover the basis of our curation. These form the basis of the word VERSE ; VEGAN, ETHICAL, REDUCED WASTE, SOURCED LOCAL & EMPOWERING. We use these values to steer our over arching thoughts about brands and products. Allowing you to shop your values as well as feel styled to perfection.

 

VEGAN

Vegan products are products which contain no animal parts or have been tested or used on any animals. We believe that animals should never be harmed or abused in our pursuit of vanity. For us this also encompasses cruelty free. We look for natural fibres such as organic cotton, hemp, linen or recycled PET fibres to fulfil this value.. Other than that are are curating innovative new materials which are plant based such as apple leather, pinatex & bio resin. We are always looking for alternatives to polyester which is highly dependant on the fossil fuel industry to produce.
 

ETHICAL

Ethical products for us mean product that should not harm the environment and should fairly support the suppliers, growers or producers associated with it. Fair trade is important for us and we either work with makers who source fairly from suppliers or are certified. In some cases where start up labels are not able to provide certification we trust their processes and enquire fully about supply chain before stocking them. 
 

REDUCED WASTE

Since only around 5% of all clothing produced get's recycled we view consumption as an issue that we like to create a value for. By reducing waste through 1) recycling or 2) up cycling we curate products which are solving a waste issue that we are facing on a global scale. Our goal is to become fully circular by 2023 as a concept. We prefer labels that are creating product in zero waste packaging, all the way to recycled materials or dead stock fabrics
 

SOURCED LOCAL

Carbon footprint of the fashion industry is colossal. In this sense we prefer to work with local makers, labels who also produce closer to our physical location in some cases also hand delivering reorders to us directly. We prefer to financially support local entrepreneurs who in turn reinvest in local production. 
 

EMPOWERING

The use of eco - friendly and significantly less impactful and harmful materials during the production process as well as the production processes themselves. This category also covers things like packaging, total general impact of the brand and more.