By far the most exciting thing I saw last week during the couture in Paris wasn’t couture at all, but a website that launches today: www.honestby.com. The brainchild of Belgian designer Bruno Pieters, late of Hugo Boss, it is the most subversive etail initiative I have seen. I think it has the power to transform the fashion industry. Really. You know I don’t say these things lightly. Indeed, my natural instinct whenever a fashion person tells me they have something “revolutionary” happening is to roll my eyes and grimace. But then, Pieters didn’t tell me this – I thought it up all on my own when I saw his project.

Why?

Because this site, which will sell a collection of 56 pieces for men and women (only 20 items of each style will be made, including different sizes) by Mr Pieters, and then start offering collections by guest designers in three months (he wouldn’t tell me who they were), is transparent, and mostly sustainable. Let me say that again: transparent financially and in terms of manufacturing.