Frank & Eileen is celebrating 15 years with the debut of its inaugural impact assessment following its B Corp recertification score of 125.5.
The Meghan Markle-beloved button-down brand structured its first report around five key areas of betterment. While the regularly referenced “people” and “planet” pillars are covered — the framework’s third pillar, “profit,” is not — Frank & Eileen reported on the betterment of materials, partners and community as well.
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“Sometimes I think, I mean — we’re not curing cancer, right? We make clothes,” engineer-turned-founder Audrey McLoghlin told WWD’s sister publication Sourcing Journal of the “love letters” Frank & Eileen fans send. “But what we can do, what we are able to do, is have an incredible impact on the customers we serve.”
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For context, the slow fashion brand is named after McLoghlin’s grandparents, Frank and Eileen, who married in the “garden of Ireland” around the same time “A Streetcar Named Desire” made its Broadway debut. The first-generation Irish American said their relationship and simple life in Ireland inspired her to connect the brand name — and mission — to the Italian fabrics she loved.
More specifically, she was reminded of this love story, one from the “old-world and of epic proportions,” when meeting the “godfather of sustainability,” Silvio Albini. McLoghlin “instantly connected” with the Albini Group’s late patriarch and the Italian mill became Frank & Eileen’s first partner. The president later passed in 2018.
“[Albini] has always been at the forefront of sustainability and helped pull us along,” McLoghlin said. “It’s always been so great to have this partner, that when we were so tiny, had so much more experience and so much more resources; we just really kind of evolved together in that.”
But the County Wicklow wedding is also a story of resilience. McLoghlin, too, survived trials (like filing personal bankruptcy during the 2008 financial crisis) and tribulations (like $11 million in canceled COVID-era orders) in pursuit of profit.
“If you’re extremely patient, it takes 15 years of blood, sweat and tears to become an overnight success,” she half-joked. Keeping her head down and staying quiet, McLoghlin said she was able to cyclically leverage her last win to secure her successive one.
“Eventually, you can keep leveraging whatever you built the year before and say, ‘Well, now that we got here, what can we now?’ Sort of, as you would say, engineer a layer on top,” McLoghlin said. “If that foundation is wide and solid enough, you could build almost anything on it, right? But the patience of what you have to build into that foundation is something I think a lot of people don’t necessarily want [or] have.”
On the topic of foundation, Frank & Eileen “prioritizes high-quality materials to create durable clothing that stands the test of time,” the report reads. “By making pieces that last, we help reduce textile waste and the need for frequent replacements, cutting down on the demand for new raw materials and the energy, water and chemicals used in production.”
Those materials include American cotton — both Upland and Pima — as well as organic and GRS-certified cotton. Lenzing’s Tencel lyocell and European Flax are also highlighted.
“This commitment to quality is why we strive to use natural materials whenever possible,” said the report. “While we do incorporate a small amount of synthetic fibers like spandex, we limit its use to the minimum necessary for the fabric’s performance.”
To understand how those materials perform, Frank & Eileen categorized its various blends into around 20 “core fabrics,” evaluated against various third-party methodologies and assessments.
The 81 percent cotton, 11 percent lyocell, 6 percent EME (a type of ecstatic, moisture-wicking polyester) and 2 percent elastane is the recipe (if you will) for the cocktail that, with some proprietary secret ingredients, becomes Italian Dream Denim. The Heritage Jersey’s recipe card, on the other hand, has one ingredient — cotton — while Italian Cashmere Touch requires 61 percent cotton and 39 percent Tencel.
Frank & Eileen’s “clean chemistry” commitment outright axes manufacturers without certifications such as SA800 and ISO 14001 or affiliation with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and ZDHC, including the Supplier to Zero program.
As such, any materials made with “dirty” chemistry (rubber, cashmere, nylon) are not used. More specifically, the brand’s “Do Not Source” list calls out acrylic and angora as well as conventional silk and vinyl, among others.
“From Day One, we’ve partnered with ethical and sustainable manufacturers, because when it comes to bringing our beloved products to life, our partners are everything,” the report’s second section begins. We invest in high-quality suppliers that have superior environmental and social standards who are in it with us for the long haul. Our very first partner, the Italian textile mill Albini Group, is still with us to this day.”
Frank & Eileen closed out 15 years with a cherry on top, courtesy of B Lab. The Angeline Jolie-approved brand’s second B Corp assessment was up 28 points from its inaugural 2020 score of 97.5, effectively remaining the Lab’s highest-scoring woman-owned, globally recognized apparel brand in the U.S.
“I have this thing about wanting to memorialize memorializing big things,” McLoghlin recalled upon hearing the recertification score. “When this happened, I think — on behalf of the whole company — I wanted to do something that would make us never forget the moment. I sort of sat and thought like, what could I do that would make us never forget this?”
Enter Frank & Eileen’s philanthropic efforts.
The Citizens of Humanity collaborator’s 2020 “Giving Pledge,” which promised to commit $10 million over 10 years to educate women entrepreneurs of the future, was fulfilled with six years to spare.
That included the 750-plus entrepreneurial women who “engaged annually” with the Frank & Eileen Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (F&E CWEL) at Babson College. While visiting the private business school last March, McLoghlin joined the Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab session to share with students a “direct portal into her wealth of wisdom and experience,” per the college.
“McLoghlin’s dual investment of both her time and resources possesses the unparalleled potential to cultivate and empower the next generation of women entrepreneurial leaders,” F&E CWEL executive director Dr. Shakenna Williams said at the time. “Forging a path toward a more inclusive and innovative future.”
By strategically partnering with educational institutions, funding scholarships and fellowships as well as supporting various programs and initiatives, the Oprah-approved brand’s $10 million pledge was fulfilled in four years. Now, Frank & Eileen is doubling its pledge to $20 million, which is to be fulfilled over the original 10-year period.
“We said, let’s create the giving pledge,” McLoghlin said, “and we’ll pledge $10 million over 10 years to help create more women entrepreneurs — which, for me, feels like the single thing that could change the world for the next generation.”