The Future of Fashion & Sustainability | 25 Meet ZERO - The Revolve for Sustainable Fashion

Take a step back and think about your favorite brands or creators online. What about their content, their storytelling, and their demeanor makes you come back again and again? I found myself asking that question after watching a video captioned “unpopular opinion” from the founders of e-commerce marketplace ZERO: Ellie Konsker and Brigitte Canty.

It’s not what they said but their presence that caught my attention. Some light social media research later, I figured it out. Ellie and Brigitte carry an authentic, no BS approach to brand storytelling. In my opinion, ZERO’s personal branding and social status are just as important as the products ZERO is trying to sell. The founders’ authenticity isn’t just slick social media strategy, their personal branding success is rooted in who Ellie and Brigitte are and the values that drove them to create ZERO in the first place.

ZERO Founders Ellie Konsker & Brigitte Canty

ZERO is a curated e-commerce marketplace, featuring up-and-coming designers and brands that adhere to sustainability principles. Mixing beautiful and fashionable designs with eco-conscious messaging, ZERO is the Revolve for Sustainable Fashion. Ellie and Brigitte are on a mission to challenge our understanding of sustainable clothing by showing that sustainable doesn’t equate to boring designs.

We usually associate sustainable clothing with gorpcore, technical apparel from Patagonia and The North Face, or high-end luxury items from Stella McCartney, whose designs are far from dull. However, ZERO curates beautiful garments for women, typically 25-35 years old, who are searching for unique, quality pieces where style is the main draw. Meanwhile, the brand’s sustainability credentials act as the foundation and a nice-to-have behind the scenes. Ellie and Brigitte have been spot-on in their messaging, and that’s led to significant growth for ZERO.

Where It All Began:

Let’s flash back a couple of years. It all started back at the University of Southern California, when Ellie was completing her masters degree in entrepreneurship, while working for Tom Ford, and Brigitte studied business and environmental science. Growing up in coastal cities with a deep appreciation for the environment and nature, Ellie was shocked to see the scale of fashion consumption at USC. She reflected on her own habits and sought out cleaner, more sustainable options. She quickly discovered that none of the options she liked were as sustainable as billed.

So, what does someone with limited options do? They decide to team up with their friends and build the solution themselves. Ellie notes, “At first I almost felt like we were creating a solution to like just my own issue,” but as it turns out, there’s a whole group of consumers facing the same dilemma. So many people have given Ellie and Brigitte feedback expressing that they’ve experienced the same frustrations: “I have been looking for something like this!”

Like many new founders, they both spent a significant amount of time on outreach and research. To this date, Ellie wonders why their first few brand partners decided to work with them after only reading an email pitch. For context…ZERO didn’t have an operational website up at that time. The brands joined on because they bought into ZERO’s vision of a world where sustainable fashion is the norm. ZERO provides elevated offerings that any aspirational customer would buy.

This vision is rooted in a robust set of sustainability criteria. Brigitte didn’t have a background in fashion supply chains or sustainable clothing at first; she lived in the environmental science world focused on biodiversity and deforestation. But she is good at reading, researching, and building frameworks. As Ellie aptly notes, Brigitte followed her curiosity and insane drive to learn to became “a sustainable fashion encyclopedia.”

Using fashion life cycle assessments as a framework, Brigitte identified the most relevant criteria for their target brands. This robust set of brand requirements covers living wages, material use, longevity, supply chain transparency, waste, chemicals, plastics, packaging, and carbon emissions. For example, all brands must adopt regenerative material selection, including the use of deadstock or recycled materials.

Transforming an Idea into a Business

While creating a business rooted in a strong value system is important for any fashion brand today, the business must make financial sense. Being mission-driven is not enough. From the beginning, Ellie and Brigitte have been cognizant about how their money is spent, with a focus on balancing growth and scale with profitability.

Brigitte recounts an important lesson: “if you want to be successful, your business first and foremost has to make sense.” The mission can’t compensate for poor unit economics. In their own words, Ellie and Brigitte have been fortunate to lean on the guidance and support of other founders in their industry. Individuals who are building and learning just like them. These people are invaluable.

One pivotal piece of advice on organic growth came from an eye-opening conversation with Good Girl Snacks founder and friend Leah Marcus, who challenged Ellie and Brigitte to post behind-the-scenes founder content regularly on social media…starting “literally yesterday.” Leah and her co-founder, Yasaman, started Good Girl Snacks and began posting online in October 2023, building a presence in the public sphere and allowing people to see the faces behind the brand.

Leah and Yasaman’s hook was simple: “We're two best friends in our early twenties who quit our jobs to start a pickle company.” They began posting every day and have quickly amassed 75k+ followers on Instagram and 15k+ followers on TikTok. Their viral following and tasty product selection have landed Good Girl Snacks in more than 65 stores across the U.S., including Erewhon. What Good Girl Snacks built and what Ellie & Brigitte are building for ZERO is social capital and status. Quite simply, people buy from those they believe in.

Ellie and Brigitte doubled down on getting in front of the camera. The strategy sounds straightforward, but how did they capture attention? According to Ellie, they kept track of the content they saw, the ones that were super engaging and made them think, “I want to buy that.” Make people connect with you and the brand; make them invest in what you’re building. We live in the attention economy today, and attention on social media means visibility, engagement from prospective customers, and web traffic. Most importantly, visibility online builds relationships and social capital, and showing up consistently is 50% of the task.

For a consumer brand, especially, social capital can help build credibility faster than the product. What you’re selling is important, but people must feel connected to your story. Personal branding, when done right, brings attention to the product. Ellie and Brigitte’s digital footprint organically amplified ZERO’s story, keeping ZERO top of mind and building the brand's credibility with prospective customers. Since the founders began posting in 2024, ZERO now has 45K+ followers on Instagram and 500K+ views on some of their videos. This next phase is focused on turning followers into customers. This new iteration focuses on social content and email marketing that is authentic and builds trust with customers. It’s the type of content that best sells products.

Take one look at ZERO’s social media or website, and you’ll see this strategy in action. ZERO couples beautiful web design, editorial-style product photography, compelling storytelling, and community engagement to bring the focus straight to ZERO’s curated products. In-person events put products directly into the hands of customers. While ZERO is an e-commerce platform, Ellie and Brigitte understand that nothing beats the experience of feeling and trying on clothes. These new in-person experiences allow the founders to connect with followers in person and deepen that brand connection.

While Ellie and Brigitte would probably argue they’re still learning, to me, ZERO is building a masterclass in brand strategy. ZERO is just at the beginning of a very long and prosperous journey, but the brand is setting itself apart from other sustainable options as the Revolve for Sustainable Fashion. Understanding that the everyday consumer places more value in quality and design than sustainability, Ellie and Brigitte are building a brand that can truly carry mass market appeal.

From elevating up-and-coming designers to portraying their true and authentic selves online to being a business rooted in sustainable principles, Ellie and Brigitte are building ZERO into one of my favorite new brands. Looking forward, ZERO is targeting some larger brands and key collaborations. You’ll just have to stay tuned and follow along. You’ve got a lot to catch up on because, in Ellie and Brigitte’s own words, ZERO has a pretty extensive digital footprint. I suspect you’ll also be drawn to the founders’ authenticity and the brand’s beautiful selection.