Designing With Purpose: How Sustainable Clothing Company Oddli Repurposes Materials That Would Otherwise Go to Waste

Through extensive research for a school project, Ellie Chen and Jensen Neff learned that virtually every aspect of the fashion industry is unsustainable with roughly 14 million pounds of excess fabric being landfilled or burned daily. 

“From the initial design concept, to sewing the pieces, to the dying of threads, so many parts of the fashion industry process are currently run with no concern for the earth,” said Neff. 

Chen and Neff quickly fell in love with the concept of sustainable fashion and recognized the large amount of work that needed to be done in the field. This passion motivated the duo to turn their school project into a legitimate business in less than a year. 

The end result was Oddli, a sustainable clothing company that diffuses the inherent tension between consumer products and sustainability by placing sustainability at the center of each product and producing beautiful, vibrant pieces of clothing. 

Because there is too much to be done, Oddli focuses on one specific part of that process: the amount of deadstock that exists, or rather, the amount of fabric that is wasted every year. These pieces of material are often hard to use because they are misshapen and less abundant, but rather than this deterring the pair, it inspired them. 

Chen and Neff coined the term “ColorGrids” to describe what they do with wasted fabric. “Deadstock comes in various sizes and textures because you do not get to choose what already exists,” Chen explained, “so the patchwork style or what we call ‘ColorGrid’ allows us to use bits and pieces of what materials we like that would not be enough to make 1,000 pieces of the same top.” The beauty of ColorGrids is that it not only effectively uses what would otherwise be wasted fabric, but it is so distinguishable that it advertises itself. 

Along with unique tactics such as ColorGrids, another reason for the company’s overwhelming success thus far has been due to its social media presence. With almost 18,000 followers on Instagram and over four times that on Tik Tok, Oddli is making itself known rapidly. “It is all storytelling, and Tik Tok is a cool way for storytelling to be amplified quickly,” said Neff. Chen is in charge of the story writing, while Neff collects videos and imagery, and collectively, the pair have made numerous, viral videos. 

Chen and Neff believe that a large part of making a name for themselves in the sustainable fashion industry comes from being transparent, whether it be on social media or how they manufacture their garments. A way that they incorporate transparency into their company is by including themselves in the brand because, as Neff said, “what is a better way to be transparent than to show up ourselves and be honest about who we are.” 

Being honest and transparent affects every aspect of the business, including the name. “Jensen and I have a vision for a gender-neutral and quirky company,” Chen said, “and we wanted our name to reflect that.”

Neff continued that both Chen and she “want girls to feel comfortable wearing the baggy shorts and one of our guy models put on the halter top and he looked incredible, and those are the things we are huge advocates for which is why a gender-neutral name is so important.” 

The poetry collections “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and “Falling Up” by Shel Silverstein inspired Neff and Chen. The poems, as Chen said, “kind of have this offness, but there is also this playfulness, silliness, and beauty to them, and I think one of us said oh, that is odd… Oddli.” 

Among the numerous things they have learned within the past year, one especially important concept is that, to build a sustainable brand, you have to build ethics into every single step, whether it be the treatment of materials or the treatment of workers. 

Currently, Neff said, “The average wage for a seamstress in LA is six dollars an hour because so much is done under the table.” Chen continued that “We want the people working on our clothes to be adequately compensated. It is intertwined with sustainability because it is sustaining a livelihood.”

While this causes difficulties because it forces the company to raise their price point higher than what people perceive to be the right price, paying their workers fairly is something Chen and Neff strongly believe in.

Launching a brand during a pandemic poses many challenges, especially when attempting photo shoots. Oddli has made the most of it by using friends as photographers and models in socially distanced settings. They have done one photoshoot at a studio with hired photographers, and plan to do more after the pandemic. Along with more photoshoots, the duo is excited about the business and how it will take off after COVID-19, and they “cannot wait for the product to be in people’s hands, to see what they do with it and how that will take on what we hope to be a movement of its own,” said Chen. 

Creating a successful company is not an easy task, but Oddli co-founders Neff and Chen continue to try to do their part in educating consumers about sustainability and produce products that aim to solve issues within the fashion industry.  “It is a lot of learning,” Chen said, “but we are lucky that we keep each other going and we both just want to drive it forward so much that we will continue to do whatever it takes.”

Having only graduated from college a mere six months ago, the duo is still learning every day, and they want to be transparent about the fact that their mission of sustainability is evolving with them as they continue to build the brand. 

They hope that their customers and followers “will see us evolve and our voices evolve with the brand and allow us to show up in new and different ways,” said Chen.“We have dreams of partnerships, hopefully, our current collection along with a new collection that would incorporate both patchwork and new styles.

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