Meet the Queen of Raw

We all knew the Queen of Gambit, Here’s now the queen of raw

I have rarely come across someone who has impressed me as much as Stephanie Benedetto.
Corporate attorney turned fashion tech and sustainability entrepreneur, Stephanie is the Co-Founder of Queen of Raw, a marketplace to buy and sell unused textiles, keeping them out of landfills and turning pollution into profit.
Stephanie inherited her love for textiles from her great-grandfather who in 1896 landed at Ellis Island all the way from Austria. He started creating beautiful fashion garments by hand with minimal waste and minimal toxins because his bottom dollar depended on it.
Now it is Stephanie who is after her ‘sustainable’ American Dream. Discover her legacy... directly from New-York.

1. You created a business related to sustainable fashion based on the idea of solving... let’s just say quite a few big issues! Please could you describe the idea behind your business and the issues it is actually solving when it comes to sustainable fashion.

I am on a mission to solve the world’s water crisis. And my focus is textiles and fashion, which, by some accounts, is the second biggest polluter in the world of clean water globally. One tee shirt takes an average 700 gallons of water (3,182 liters) to produce; and that's just 1 shirt! Over 2 billion shirts are sold around the world every single year.

But, if you think about it, that also means that fashion and textiles have the power to solve the world's water crisis if we rethink the way we do things. And focus, for example, on waste as a resource.

In fact, every single year, $120 billion dollars worth of unused textiles just sits in warehouses collecting dust or being burned or sent to landfills. And, I like to say, at that volume, waste is not only environmentally irresponsible, it’s a CFO issue.

That is the problem that my company, Queen of Raw, addresses. We built a global marketplace with AI-powered supply chain software so businesses can buy and sell this waste, keeping it out of landfills and turning pollution into profit.

Why do I do what I do? By reducing textile waste, we have already saved over 1 billion gallons of water (4.5 billion liters). That’s enough clean water for 1.4 million people to drink around the world for 3 years.

I am on a mission to solve the water crisis

One tee shirt takes 700 gallons of water to produce and that’s just 1 shirt!

2. You propose deadstock and sustainable fabrics on your site, how and where do you source them? Who are the suppliers? Has it been easy to find them and convince them to join your venture?

When we first started talking to fashion brands and retailers years ago about opportunities to sell their waste and deadstock textiles, it was seen as a nice to have, not a have to have. We would end up only talking to the sustainability departments and, although they are great and our brand champions, they often didn't have a budget to take on new initiatives or were a newly created position within the company that did not have a clear line of vision into other parts of the business.

Bringing about meaningful change requires the participation of c suites - we need the CMOs who are worried about storytelling around the good sustainable work they are doing, the CIOs and COOs who are responsible for managing the supply chain operations day to day, the CFOs who manage the financial liabilities, and the CEOs responsible for setting the corporate agenda.

Fast forward to today and according to the latest McKinsey report, these issues of sustainability are top of mind for everyone. That's why we have to build sustainable business models that make good business sense.

Don’t get me wrong: I know a lot of businesses are trying incredibly hard to become more sustainable, but they also need to answer to stakeholders and investors, so it’s vital that we get the economics right. And from that point of view, you can resell waste to free up costly warehouse space, recoup up to 15% of your bottom line, and also get a better sustainability story to tell, that also improves your top-line sales.

3. I love the idea of an online marketplace gathering a vast array of people who come and go - the modern, digital version of our fruit and veg markets that have existed for centuries. Who comes to visit yours? What is the profile of your main clients?

At the end of the day, sustainability, to me, is about building solutions that make sense for people, planet, and profit. And I want to encourage everyone from fast fashion to luxury haute couture and from students, makers, crafters, and quilters to the biggest brands and retailers in the world, to be able to participate because they are all a part of the solution. Changing just a small percent of the way they do business can have a massive impact on our world. While allowing us to build for the supply chain of the future, one that is more on-demand, more local, and more sustainable.

bringing change requires the participation of c suites

The CMOs, the CIOs and COOs, the CFOs, and the CEOS who are responsible for setting the corporate agenda

4. What is / what are your next step(s) with Queen of Raw? Do you have any particular short, medium, or longer-term objectives you’d like to share with us?

There has been this myth for so long that sustainability has to cost you more money to participate. The good news is that by focusing on, for example, a business' waste and unused inventory, brands and retailers can sell it today and make money while growing end consumer loyalty. And then take that money and put it back into doing good things in their supply chain without their overall CAPEX expenses increasing. They can pay their workers more. They can buy more sustainable materials. They can adopt innovative technology solutions. That’s the goal.

5. What are you hoping to achieve with Queen of Raw ultimately? Do you have a vision in mind of where you’d like to arrive? Specific quantitative or qualitative objectives that you know you would like to achieve by a certain date or in an ultimate fashion?

Hopefully, some day, we write ourselves out of a marketplace business because everyone will be on our software and tools and we will have solved the world’s water crisis. We have a while to get there but this will allow us to not only survive today but truly thrive tomorrow.

I’m doing this for my children. I want them to have clean water to drink, clothes that aren’t toxic to wear, and a planet to live on.
Together we will change the world!