Innovation & Sustainability in Fashion: Panel Discussion & Clothing Swap at Civic Hall

Apr 22
2 min read

On April 17th 2026, at Civic Hall in New York, Elpis Labs hosted an evening around innovation and sustainability in fashion and beauty together with the Civic Hall community.

We brought together people from across the industry to talk about how fashion is actually changing — and then gave everyone a chance to take part in it.

Panel: Innovation & Sustainability in Fashion & Beauty

The panel featured Naika Colas (Parsons School of Design), Jamie Richards (Bansk Beauty), Irving Rose (Echo Design Group), Nia Rhodes (ex-Nike), and Anastasia Lykova (Elpis Labs).

The conversation stayed grounded in reality. We talked about what it really takes for brands to move toward more sustainable practices — especially when they weren’t built with that in mind.

Some of the themes that came up:

transparency is still difficult to achieve end-to-end
sustainable materials exist, but scaling them is more complex than it seems
consumer expectations are changing, but not always consistently
updating existing systems is slow, but necessary

Overall, it gave a clearer picture of where the industry is right now.

Clothing Swap

After the panel, we moved into a clothing swap.

People brought pieces they no longer wear and exchanged them for something new-to-them. Each item became a swap ticket — simple, intuitive, and surprisingly fun.

It was a nice reminder that sustainability doesn’t always require something new — sometimes it’s just about giving things a second life.

Why this format worked

What made the evening work was the combination of both parts.

The panel focused on how companies are approaching sustainability and adapting their existing systems, while the clothing swap made that shift more tangible on an individual level.

Together, they reflected the same broader change — just seen from different perspectives.