Our methodology
It all starts from our mission which is also in our name: VÒNG means circle in Vietnamese and sounds like the signal for a big announcement, a change. VÒNG is aiming to help individuals and businesses kick-off and commit to change: become more sustainable, embracing circular economy. We do this with the help of technology, making it easier for both individuals and businesses to identify where and how they can improve and giving them both tools that facilitate the process of change.
For individuals
What is the most sustainable thing you can do concerning your clothes? Wear them! VÒNG helps individuals do exactly this: wear their clothes. Having developed an advanced system to help them digitize them (so we get to know what each person has in their closets), we give recommendations on how to combine them based on:
- Style “rules”: based on large databases of reviewed outfits, indicating the popularity of a number of outfits and comparing how similar the most popular of those are to the ones we suggest you.
- Personal style: based on your records of what you like wearing on different occasions.
- Circular habits priorities:
- Shop first from your closet: The outfits we suggest you prioritize the use of your own clothes
- Can a friend help with something in their closet they don’t need or wear? The outfits we suggest you consider your friends’ clothes (assuming they also use VÒNG) and whether they could offer them to you given how often they wear them.
- Shop from businesses that strive for sustainability: We review brands and retailers and suggest you alternatives to consider for shopping compared to fast fashion or other less sustainable options.
Are our recommendations perfect? Straight answer: No. They highly depend on the users’ input. The more clothes you digitize (the ones you wea r and the ones you don’t) and the more you register how you like to combine them and whether you like our suggestion, the better our recommendations become. It’s a group effort!
For businesses
Sustainability is not a yes or no characteristic. To be honest: there is not one fashion business that is 100% sustainable. Where does this bring us? To trials and errors, to intentions for change, commitments, and exhibitions of effort towards getting better. Here again, technology is one of our best friends. We have developed digital solutions to search and/or register information for businesses to get better:
- An assessment tool that helps businesses reflect on all aspects of their businesses and identify opportunities for improvement.
- A recommendation mechanism that rewards the businesses that have managed to achieve a certain level of sustainability and circularity by suggesting them as alternative options to fast fashion to our users when recommending outfits and clothes the latter ones ask for.
- We create and host Digital Product Passports (DPPs) for each produced item, to enable the extension of its life and to better handle it after its first life ends. . DPPs are enhancing transparency at the product level, giving all interested parties access to useful information for pro-longing the life of a product and processing it after its life ends. They also help in holding producers accountable for their design andeventually for whether their products turned into waste.
Is our methodology for assessing businesses and picking them up for recommendation bullet-proof? Straight answer here as well: No. BUT it is traceable and explainable and we strive to continuously improve it.
Hereby a few more details...
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