”Our mission is to be an alternative to the conventional textile industry. If you are going to get a little high-spirited, then it is to create a better tomorrow - that is what it is all about.”

Søren Alling Sørensen. Founder at RES RES. Guldbergsgade 29C, 2200 Copenhagen. June 2018. By Lilli Grothe. 

“We urge everybody to ask questions, seek information, to get to know the products you buy.  Always to ask for transparency! Why buy products made by a child or a slave receiving a minimum wage being too low to actually live?” 

What is driving you Søren?

”We always get to the same answer to this question: Because we can not help it. It is not because we have invented some smart business plan or are going to do that. We do not do what we do with the prospect of becoming rich. We do it because we can not help it.” 

So what is your mission?

”Well, our mission is very simple. I have been part of the textile industry myself for 24 years. Our mission is to be an alternative to the conventional textile industry and prove that there is an alternative. If you are going to get a little high-spirited, then it is simply to create a better tomorrow - that is what it is all about. A better world for me, my son, the people we buy our products from, those who produce our products; that is to create something which is better for those people out there because as it is today there is no transparency. One does not even see the top of the iceberg, because the iceberg below the surface is humongous.“ 

As I know you, you continue, go on, and as you say, you can not help it?

“I have a responsibility for the people working for me and I have a great responsibility for the people, who produce all the products we have in stock and the brands we have; we help improve lives somewhere – in Europe, Asia, South America.  I have an indirect responsibility and can do something by offering products, which we can approve 100%, when It comes to choice of chemicals, wages, saying no to child labour and so forth. It is very important for us to tell what we stand for and what kind of challenges we face in relation to transparency, choice of materials and not least when being compared to conventional and fast fashion products. - In relation to being compared to conventional produced fashion products, we are happy, when we have customers telling us that they can’t see any differences between our products and conventional products.” 

“When I am choosing to work within this segment, it is because that we in the western world can’t continue to do what we are doing now. We are using 60% too much of the resources in the world. Denmark uses 140% too much. - I don’t have a choice! If I want a better tomorrow, I must make a choice; I must choose to do the things, which I manage to do with this store. Because otherwise there will not be a better tomorrow. The climate change being talked about for 40 years is happening right now and it was also happening 10 years ago. This is not a matter of what will be happening in the future as it is happening right now. Some of the things happening are too late to slow down, so it is about trying to minimize the damages. That is basically where we are at the moment.” 

“I just read that so far 9 billions of plastic have been produced of which 79% still out there. 79% of all that plastic having been produced live today, 12% has been recycled, 9% has been used to the production of heat. - 4/5 is still out there. A humongous plastic island being 16% larger than earlier expected is floating around. For sure, we have to do something; all of us! Even if it is just small things: Use your plastic bag again. If you have used your plastic bag twice, we have halved the use of plastic bags. We are using this quote: 1 million plastic bags are being used every second in the world. That is a lot of plastic bags in 60 seconds, 1 hour, 24 hours. We vote with the coin, we spend. What do we support with our coin? Do we support existing child labor, use of chemicals, ongoing pollution of our nature? What we support will grow.” 

“Then there is the challenge of overproduction of clothes: When have we produced enough of the correct clothes, as it is not just about producing the 150 billions pieces of clothes being produced every year organically. It is still too much clothes. It is still about 20 pieces of clothes per person worldwide. If we look at the distribution between rich and poor, many people not even get 3 pieces of clothes every year. Many people get more than the double, 40 pieces of clothes, which is beyond…., and I could go on.” Søren is evidently personally touched and says: “Sorry, I just can not understand that many people don’t care. Many people are running around being in their small ego bobbles thinking that they have to get their fix.” 

“I want us to utilize our knowledge and to be proud of our country. We think that we are one of the most highly developed countries in the world and we should be utilizing our knowledge to prevent our own annihilation from earth. Denmark is one of the richest and most developed countries in the world. I will not say well developed; we are developed in the sense of sharing knowledge and access to information, but if we were well developed, we would utilize our knowledge for something. There is an old roman quote saying that annihilation of a civilization comes from within and that is what we are into right now.” 

“We urge everybody to ask questions, seek information, to get to know the products you buy.  Always to ask for transparency! Why buy products made by a child or a slave receiving a minimum wage being too low to actually live?" 

In India, the minimum wage is 66% lower than the living wage. That is India, we can speak of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Africa”.