H&M Foundation is a non-profit foundation – functionally and financially independent of H&M Group but with the same industry connections. The foundation asked us to help them leverage that unique position to achieve its core mission of jump-starting a sustainable transformation in fashion.

There’s no shortage of start-ups and companies with innovations that could solve many of the sustainability issues that fashion is facing. The problem is that they’re not getting the funding and backing they need to become viable options for big brands. Our strategy was to use the power of the foundation to connect startups with influential investors – a pure B2B approach but with an innovative twist.

The answer to the foundation’s mission became The Billion Dollar Collection. A virtual clothing collection where each piece isn’t a garment you can buy, but an innovation you can back.

We identified 10 startups globally – from Kenya to Estonia – with the greatest potential to bring sustainable revolution to fashion. Start-ups with breakthrough technology that were missing funds and backing to scale their investments. Each innovation was turned into a virtual garment that showed the garment’s look, the price of the garment representing the amount of money the start-up was seeking, and the potential sustainability impact that innovation could have.

Together with Accenture, we calculated the planet-positive impact of each startup and created a business case for investors. The purpose was to showcase the multidimensional value the innovations could create at scale with support from the industry, essentially enabling them to reinvent the fashion industry. The potential impact created by Accenture was indicative of high-level estimations of the innovations’ multi-dimensional value potential in 2030.

The collection was completely designed in 3D and modelled by one of the first virtual fashion models the industry had seen. The entire collection was designed by French fashion designer Pauline Chardin and packaged in a lookbook. It was available for download at the Billion Dollar Collection website but also showcased in a Hero Film launched on YouTube.

The collection reflected the big-picture brief – ‘fashion 2030’ futurism – and Pauline created it using gender-fluid design and an environmental palette of clays and floral tones. Apart from the muted tones, we also incorporated small glitch elements in blue and pink on the website and in the lookbook to tie everything together.