She spent 2 years finding the perfect fabric. Now she wants you to wear it forever

FastCompany: The most sustainable piece of clothing you own probably has nothing to do with recycled polyester or organic cotton. It’s the little black dress you’ve worn on repeat for 15 years and the pair of ripped Levi’s 501s you can’t imagine ever throwing away. The harder question—the one the fashion industry has never quite figured out—is how to design something like that on purpose. How do you make a garment someone loves now and will continue to wear for years? This is something Sarah Bonello thinks about constantly as she designs for her new label, The Park .

Sarah Bonello [Photo: The Park] After decades in fashion PR, where she developed a finely tuned sense of what the market was missing, Bonello believed there was room for a line of basics—T-shirts, simple dresses, pedal pushers—that make it easy to get dressed in the morning. She came to the conclusion that the garments we love are the ones that fit beautifully, thanks to the drape and feel of the fabric. “It was interesting to see the pieces I’ve had for 20 years that I never want to get rid of,” she says.

“They’re evergreen pieces that make you feel beautiful.” Bonello set out to reverse engineer some of her favorite garments, creating a collection she believes will make women look and feel good at any age and size; 18 months ago, she launched The Park with a tightly edited collection of T-shirts, trousers, and dresses. The bet paid off faster than she expected: Retailers like Moda Operandi and Net-a-Porter started selling out of her pieces regularly, and Nordstrom has just picked up the brand. Now she’s expanding the line, making her best-selling silhouettes in new materials—velvet, a gossamer sheer—while keeping the edit deliberately tight.

The Park tries to be sustainable from the ground up . Each piece is made using fabrics with a small environmental footprint, like fibers sourced from responsibly managed forests and nylon made from fashion waste. But Bonello doesn’t believe most consumers buy clothes because of their environmental credentials. What she believes—and what she’s building her entire business around—is that she can nudge customers toward more sustainable behaviors simply by making pieces they want to wear on repeat.

[Photo: The Park] The Anti-Trend Collection To make clothes that fit beautifully and will last for years of repeated wear, Bonello knew she needed exceptional fabrics. She scoured the market for high-quality materials from leading mills. Eventually, she came across the Spanish textile innovator Pyratex, which had created a fabric called Power 3, made from a blend of micro-Tencel and recycled elastane. These materials are sourced from sustainably managed forests and are certified by both OEKO-TEX (that tests for harmful toxins) and the Forest Stewardship Council. But what sold her wasn’t the certifications; it was how the fabrics feel.

They offer a bit of compression, so you feel hugged by the garment. They’re soft and drape nicely. But they also have some of the features of technical activewear, like moisture-wicking, antibacterial, and temperature-regulating qualities. “This is too expensive of a material to use in yoga, but the clothes I am making are activewear, in a way, because we have active lives,” Bonello says. Bonello used the fabric to develop The Park’s first collection, which is narrow by design: tops, bodysuits, bralettes, straight-leg trousers, skirts, a handful of dresses—almost entirely in black, white, and neutrals. No prints. No seasonal collections.

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The article discusses a new clothing label that challenges fast fashion by promoting timeless design, which is significant for the brand/design industry and offers actionable insights for brand strategy professionals.