Faiyaz Khan remembers distinctly that day he sat in geography class in Year 9 at King George V School with a room full of distracted classmates, indifferent to what his teacher was teaching about the topic of climate change. “This is your whole future here,” he remembers the teacher exclaiming when it seemed that no one was paying attention.

Fast forward to June 2020, Faiyaz, along with his course-mates and close friends Akash Shivnani and Vinay Nankani at City University of Hong Kong, was also distracted. Eight months after the first recorded case of COVID-19 in the city, the threesome was not content with their lives, having the pandemic and shut borders stunt their creativity.

“We wanted to do something substantial and that we were passionate about, something that would give us meaning during the pandemic [in Hong Kong],” said Faiyaz in a Zoom interview with The Beat Asia.

Studying university degrees in finance and business, with family backgrounds in garments, and a passion for streetwear, the group founded FAIVIASH Clothing in February 2021, a streetwear brand committed to bringing to market fresh designs at no cost to the climate.

Their mission? To bridge the gap between sustainability and affordability through fashionable designs that represent a stand against climate change in Hong Kong.

Faiyaz manages operations and quality control for FAIVIASH, alongside design and marketing guru Vinay, and finance specialist Akash.
 

“A sustainable business is not just about the end product, it’s about the packaging, the processes, the mindset, the whole operation,” Vinay said in our joint Zoom interview. The threesome combined their knowledge of corporate social responsibility learnt at City University to market a fashion brand that does not harm the planet.

Each T-shirt sold by FAIVIASH is made by Fairtrade organic cotton and sourced from farms that use minimal water and no artificial or environment damaging pesticides in the harvesting process. Faiyaz made sure that the Shaoxing, China vendor they work with to produce the T-shirts has an operational organic cotton certificate.

Currently, FAIVIASH markets three stylish designs in the arsenal – in black and white – with more styles in the pipeline: “flying object,” “timeless,” and “I need space.” All designs are printed on oversized tees, the style for streetwear in Hong Kong and worldwide.

They are sleek, affordable, use organic cotton, and ship fast. Orders can be made through their Instagram page.

Faiyaz is a second-generation Bangladeshi immigrant, born and raised in Hong Kong – his parents lived their whole lives in Bangladesh before “leaving the village” and immigrating to Hong Kong to begin a now-successful garments business.

Being a child of an immigrant businessman, Faiyaz has always wanted to be able to put as little financial pressure on his father as he could. He began work with his parent’s’ business at 16, producing buttons, labels, and tags in bulk high-end brands. Whilst working part-time jobs alongside studying for his IB diploma, Faiyaz was able to repay his parents back for “their investment” in him.

His venture into co-founding and self-funding FAIVIASH Clothing represented Faiyaz’s aim to emulate the success that his parent's’ business brought to their family. With a great interest in climate change, FAIVIASH was an exciting business venture for merging his passion for fashion, with an effort of sourcing sustainable materials, products, and means of production.

The climate crisis “hits home” for Faiyaz, whose parents grew up in Bangladesh, “at huge threat by climate change.”

FAIVIASH’s latest business venture is the establishment of FAIVIASH Cares, a soon-to-be-registered non-profit founded by the group to create a set of designs for apparel to raise awareness of Hong Kong’s social issues and funds for donating to a group of charities in the city.

Each new social issue will focus on different designs, Vinay says, with FAIVIASH accepting donations for secondhand clothes in turn for a 15% discount to the whole store, with funds and clothes going to mental health charities assisting young Hong Kongers.

The future for FAIVIAH is bright, Vinay says. The group hope to focus on FAIVIASH Cares for the fourth quarter of 2021, “reaching out to key opinion leaders” on how to tackle mental health in Hong Kong, source funding from City University on the business, and continue designs and production of their line-up. Over the first quarter of 2022, Vinay, Faiyaz, and Akash will release further designs to raise funds for different social issues in Hong Kong.

“We treat it like our baby,” Faiyaz commented, speaking about the long-term potential of the project. “The fad is definitely starting” with the spread of sustainable clothing, shopping, eating, and living in Hong Kong.