That sucks! Nau had some revolutionary ideas and it's sad to see them fail.

This is what happens when you base your business on a passing trend ('sustainable" clothing). Have you heard that Anna Cohen is folding too? It's sad, true, but how many people can honestly say that they thought "sustainable" clothing wasn't a trend?

This is what happens when you base your business on a passing trend ('sustainable" clothing). Have you heard that Anna Cohen is folding too? It's sad, true, but how many people can honestly say that they thought "sustainable" clothing wasn't a trend?

I think sustainable clothing is a noble goal. However, I think much of Nau's downfall was trying to change our basic desire from leaving with our purchases to waiting for UPS to deliver it. And honestly, how "sustainable" is it to have people drive to your store, and then have thousands of UPS trucks individually deliver the goods after the fact? Not very eco-friendly. I just feel bad for all the people left unemployed by management's unwillingness to adjust their business model.

re: Adam's comment on Anna Cohen. She just emailed me back, and has confirmed that she is taking a break from her line and will be working on projects for other companies (she doesn't yet want to go public with what these are). She does say she intends to re-launch, and sounds happy about her "decision," which seems to suggest it's a voluntary shift more than a folding.

I totally disagree that sustainable clothing is a trend. Doesn't something have to be popular to be considered a trend?
I think they were trying to blaze a new trail in retail and unfortunately, it didn't pan out. I admire them for attempting to establish a business for other reasons than just pure profit.

Adam Arnold gets +1 for being more business-minded than some designers, but -10 for being an ass, and -20 for being a dinosaur.

And I get a +50 for getting more people to talk about this one post than any other for quite a while. In the end, it's always comes down to opinion anyway, and like assholes, everyone's got one. I'm just happy to keep people talking and thinking about what they want to wear.

I don't know what I'm going to do with all these points anyway, so why don't you take them?

Nau's cessation is sad. I think one of the key tenets of sustainability moving forward will be affordability. It's not economically sustainable for the average person to pay $90 for a long sleeve t-shirt. I understand that there are costs associated with making things sustainable, but when you walk into the glitzed-out, stainless steel and LCD paneled store it just seemed like unnecessary overhead for the market they were trying to appeal to. No faulting the clothes though, I thought they were distinctive (you can spot Nau stuff a mile away even though it's unbranded) and wearable.