As we began mapping our supply chain and working more closely with our partners, what stood out to me was how much there is to learn when you take the time to look deeper. You start to see the connections between materials, people, and processes, and you begin to understand the bigger picture. It shifts the way you think. It becomes less about assumptions, and more about the need for responsible actions. This shift is also being shaped by a broader movement across the industry and regulations. Expectations are changing, from consumers, from partners, and through evolving standards that are pushing all of us toward greater clarity and accountability. Transparency is no longer driven by one force alone, but by a collective need to better understand and take ownership of impact.
What feels especially important is that this work is grounded in something real. Transparency must be credible to matter. By building established methodologies and shared frameworks, we can turn complex information into something that is clear and meaningful. Not simplified but understood and quantifiable, which allows us to make better choices. Digital Product Passports are a natural extension of this. I see them as a way of opening the conversation, making information accessible in a way that feels intuitive and immediate. With a simple scan, you can begin to understand a product’s story, its origins, its materials, and its impact. It creates a different kind of connection, one that is based on knowledge, not just appearance. The future information imbedded in the digital product passports could potentially allow for more possibilities to capture the full value of an item for the long term in ways we have yet to imagine.
Since the pre-fall 2025 collection, we have started to integrate these passports across our products. It’s something I’m proud of, but also something I see as ongoing work. Transparency at this level doesn’t happen overnight. It requires patience, collaboration, and a willingness to keep improving, especially when it comes to the quality and depth of the information we rely on.
For me, the most important part is what we do with that knowledge. Transparency should lead to action. It should help us make more thoughtful decisions, about materials, about impact, and about where we want to go next. It gives us the ability to set clear intentions, and to measure our progress in a meaningful way. It should allow us to create a future of fashion that is more informed and equitable for years to come.
Ultimately, I believe transparency is becoming part of a new definition of luxury, one that is more conscious, more informed, and more connected to the world around us. It doesn’t take away from creativity. It deepens it. It asks us to create with greater care, and to stand behind what we create with clarity. For me, that feels like the right direction forward.
One year in: KARL LAGERFELD and Fairly Made
At KARL LAGERFELD, this perspective is being translated into ongoing work. Over the past year, this has taken shape through our collaboration with Fairly Made, a French mission-driven company focused on supply chain traceability and environmental impact measurement.
Through this partnership, production chains
are mapped, and supplier data is collected to assess social and environmental impacts. These insights are translated into Digital Product Passports, accessible via QR codes on product labels and online interfaces, providing visibility into where products are made, the materials used, and their environmental impact.
Over the past year, the focus has been on building a reliable data foundation by expanding supplier mapping, improving data quality, and integrating this information into Digital Product Passports. Supplier engagement has been a key driver of this progress. Since the pilot stage, the verified supplier network has expanded from 73 to 1,238 suppliers—an increase of 16.9x. Since the Pre-Fall 2025 collection, KARL LAGERFELD items are equipped with such a passport, accessible via QR codes on product labels and online. At the core of Digital Product Passports lies a robust and science-based methodology. Fairly Made applies Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a globally recognized framework that evaluates a product’s environmental impact across its entire lifecycle: from raw material extraction to end-of-life. This approach ensures that impact is not viewed through a single lens, but across multiple environmental dimensions.
By combining primary supplier data with verified secondary datasets, the methodology balances accuracy with scalability. The results are translated into a set of standardized environmental indicators, aligned with the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) framework, allowing complex lifecycle data to be communicated in a clear and comparable way. These insights form the foundation of the Digital Product Passport, enabling more transparent, data-driven decision-making for both brands and consumers.
While this progress marks an important step, it also highlights the complexity of building transparency at scale. Strengthening traceability and accountability is an ongoing process. It requires continuous improvement on how we understand and manage our impact. The
next phase will focus on deepening supplier engagement, improving data completeness, and using these insights to define measurable improvement targets, particularly around materials and environmental impact reduction.