Champions of Sustainability: The Canvas by Querencia Leads a Green Movement in Retail

The Canvas by Querencia Studio champions sustainability from every business approach. Creating synergy between transparent supply chain practices and production differentiation based on conditions of sustainability has enabled The Canvas to successfully overcome some of the major cost challenges faced in the sustainable retail industry. Their success has not gone unnoticed with the United Nations featuring the brand in exhibitions and hosting The Canvas to present a collection. 

After attending The Island School, a 100 day program centered around an environmental approach to education, Co-Founders Devin Gilmartin and Tegan Maxey sought to bring transparent sustainability to the forefront of the fashion industry. Together they launched Querencia Studio LLC. Initially the brand worked to design an eco-friendly shirt for The Island School but quickly expanded by creating other designs and sending them out to consumers. Their initial network expanded quickly and soon people  across the country, including several celebrities, were wearing Querencia’s designs.

Using this momentum, the company pivoted by launching The Canvas. The Canvas serves as an online and physical marketplace for sustainably and ethically manufactured fashion products. Historically, its collective space overcame the real estate dilemma many retailers face by seeking revenue share agreements over fixed rent. Gilmartin and his team reached out to owners of vacant retail spaces across the world to offer a revenue share system of rent payments; while they got some rejections other landlords accepted the innovative offer. This enabled the brand to build a mobile and efficient platform with resources other brands were eager to access.

“Retail fashion is struggling because rent is too high now,” Gilmartin said. “We identified a cost efficient way to share space and bring brands from around the world to use those spaces. "The problem we are addressing is widespread given the discrepancies in the amount of retail spaces and the number of brands willing and able to pay a fixed rent within them. This problem will likely only be further in the post-pandemic retail environment.” 

The Canvas operates as a collaborative space, enabling retailers from around the world to create a sustainably-championed experience and grow. They vet potential brands for partnerships using the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as a framework. This gives potential partnered brands the opportunity to open up and identify why their products are sustainable in transparent communication. For The Canvas, transparency is equal to sustainability. 

By creating a multifaceted platform, The Canvas bolsters the market shares reached for its supplied brands and the brands enable it to tout its sustainably certified products. According to Gilmartin, working with other companies is seen as collaborative rather than transactional; all of The Canvas’s products are commision-based sales rather than wholesale. By giving the resources of a strong fashion competitor to emerging brands, which otherwise are not financially able to simulate such an integrated marketing and sales approach, The Canvas is catalyzing them for growth and expansion to compete with large powerhouses in the retail industry.

“The space we’re using in Antwerp is three blocks from an H&M. We’re championing our carried brands to compete with that brand,” Gilmartin explains. “We’re giving consumers a spatially close retail alternative that is more sustainable and ethical.” 

The Canvas’ main goal is to create a more sustainable consumer and retailer experience. With innovative partnerships to promote transparency, they’re taking on some of the major problems of pushing sustainability in the fashion industry. 

Through partnerships, The Canvas promotes dynamic changes to the standard retail experience. One company has provided The Canvas with augmented reality technology to eliminate the waste associated with commercial wholesale fashion. By scanning a QR code, customers can create a display of products in front of them through their phones. Customers then customize the product in color, style and skin before ordering. This sales approach reduces overproduction and changes the entire experience of shopping. 

The Canvas is also partnering with Sourcemap, a supply chain spatial mapping service, to provide transparency on the manufacturing methods of the brands it features. This data-based system holds suppliers accountable to providing information on every point of their supply chain’s processings with photos and footnotes for consumers. The Canvas plans to implement Sourcemap tracking on all of its carried brands, allowing consumers to see exactly where and how brands are creating their products. While increased manufacturing transparency is seen to increase buyer power in transactional relationships, The Canvas is able to use this tactic to bolster its product differentiation and brand image. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Canvas launched a catalogue website in a successful bid for ecommerce. Through this effort the company created a dualistic platform focused both on sales and media and launched a section on their platform called “The Palette,” which operates as a journalistic production pursuit. The Palette features stories and interviews with the creators of brands featured on The Canvas as well as narratives on the integration of technology into the fashion industry. 

Looking to the future, Gilmartin strives to emphasize the global mission of The Canvas.

“We need to put sustainability in front of everything else,” he said. “We have to take it more seriously so we can both sustain life and allow life to continue on this planet and beyond. If we’re not going to survive, then the conversations around sustainability mean nothing.”

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