Price Transparency
At Gergana Ivanova, we believe in complete transparency with our customers. We understand that sustainability and transparency go hand in hand. That's why we disclose the true costs of our products, including materials, labor, and transportation, and offer them to you without the traditional retail markup. We believe that you should know exactly what you're paying for, so you can better understand the value of the garments you buy.
Most brands hide their pricing, supply chain, or production transparency because it could tarnish their image and lead consumers to reconsider buying from them. However, we are not like most brands. We value honesty and transparency above all else. Unfortunately, fast fashion and overproduction have conditioned consumers to expect low prices for clothing, without understanding the true value of the clothes they buy. As the saying goes, "you get what you pay for."
Our slow fashion approach allows us to produce thoughtfully, sustainably, and ethically in the USA. We create each garment in limited quantities, using eco-conscious fabric, and fair working conditions. Our skilled seamstresses earn up to $20 an hour or more, along with benefits and overtime pay.
We continuously review the fabric, packaging, buttons, zippers, and labels available on the market to see how we can strengthen our sustainability goals. We are taking steps to increase the repurposability, recyclability, and compostability of our latest collection. At Gergana Ivanova, we are committed to transparency and sustainability, so you can shop with confidence and peace of mind.
Here's the breakdown of our pricing model:
Labor: the cost to produce the garment. This includes the hourly wages, insurance, sick and vacation pay, lunch breaks, folding and packing the pieces, and everything else that goes into providing our seamstresses with fair and livable working conditions while producing our garments. Each garment also goes through several rounds of inspection to make sure it's perfect before being shipped to us.
Transportation: the cost of safe transportation for the final garments. We try to bulk ship everything to minimize transportation. And because our garments are all made domestically, our transportation emissions are already much lower than most brands.
Other costs we can't neatly account for: our markup allows us to afford photography, employee salaries including sick pay and insurance, design, fittings, samples, office rent, hang tags and care labels and other packaging materials, website fees, transaction fees, marketing, and still make it possible for our brand to grow and invest in future collections. Typically, production costs are paid in advance of the product being produced.