Only a year after completing her MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Borenstein began her tenure with Reformation in 2014 when she signed on as the Director of Merchandising for the LA-based fashion house. From there, she moved steadily up through the ranks, holding positions as Vice President of Merchandising, Design, and Ecommerce and then President until she was named Chief Executive Officer in June 2020.
Why They Made the Worthy 100: As head of Reformation, Borenstein takes the reins of an organization whose mission is to excel in fashion and sustainability. The company has publicly stated it intends to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2025, an ambitious goal for any manufacturing organization. To get there, Borenstein has the company recycling garments (upwards of 400,000 in 2020) and spending 93 percent of its fabric budget on materials made with low-impact dyes, which means they don’t contain any toxic chemicals or require toxic mordants to fix the dye to the fabric. Such dyes also require much less water during the dying process, which both saves H2O and reduces waste. Unlike many companies that claim to be making strides in sustainability, Borenstein has Reformation tracking its progress in an annual sustainability report. So far in 2022, the report shows Reformation moving steadily towards its carbon neutral goal as well as a new membership in the California Cotton & Climate Coalition and a new goal to achieve 100 percent traceability down to the farm level for how all the animal-derived materials the company uses are sourced. When interviewed by Entrepreneur magazine, Borenstein said, “there’s a common misconception that operating sustainably is more expensive, but that’s not true—especially if it drives things like efficiency and materiality. Many brands find it challenging to change their supply chains and production practices, so we try to show that you can make sustainable fashion profitably at scale.”
