Meet The Disruptors: Adam Taubenfligel of Triarchy On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

You will never be able to control what happens to you in life but you will always be able to control your reactions, and your reactions create your reality. This is everything for me. Everything. There is so much power in understanding and implementing this. When it finally clicked for me, my life became bliss. I can remember the last time I raised my voice because of how infrequently it happens now. I have no problem being ‘wrong’, even when I think I’m ‘right’. I’d rather maintain peace in my experience and call it a day.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Adam Taubenfligel.

Adam is the Co-Founder, Creative Director, and Sustainability Steward for Triarchy, a sustainable denim brand. He works tirelessly to advance fabric innovations and water conservation efforts to lead the fashion industry in authentic environmental practices. He is also an author, with his first book released in 2021 called “Setting An Intention: 11 Brief Lessons on Achieving Your Greater Good”.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I started working in denim fresh out of college, at a denim factory in the Molise region of Italy, south of Rome. I was responsible for the factory’s licensed denim lines for bigger brands and after a few seasons, I pitched the factory to start our own line, since we had the facilities to do so. They asked me to help them hire a designer, and instead, I went off and taught myself how to use illustrator and brought them back a collection. I wasn’t sure if they were going to laugh at me or make it. Lucky for me, they made it. We brought it to market in 2008 when everything went financially south, and the factories had to close. So I rounded up the collection and brought it back to North America where my brother, sister and I reimagined it into Triarchy, the brand we all started together.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

After a few years of making jeans traditionally, it became very apparent to us how irresponsibly denim was made. Water usage was abhorrent, chemicals were everywhere — it was a disaster. We all agreed that the world didn’t need another traditional denim brand, so if we were going to keep Triarchy going, we needed to re-envision it as a leader in sustainable denim manufacturing. So that’s what we did. It took us almost two years to relaunch the brand with the strict responsible manufacturing lens it now operates with.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

We thought taking a sustainable pivot would only take six months. Unlike today, there weren’t many brands embarking on this kind of sustainable transformation, and we thought we would be able to adapt quite easily. Even our vendors didn’t have the info about what would make the best pair of jeans possible, so we all had to work on this together, and that took time which we weren’t prepared for. The lesson learned was that if you plan something, double the time and the budget to be safe.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Robin Kay, president of The Fashion Design Council of Canada, was an early mentor and continues to be to this day. She tells it like it is, which isn’t always easy to hear, but it makes a profound impact and has pivoted me into making hard decisions that prove to be the right ones in time.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

For us it was clear. Denim uses a ton of water and hazardous chemicals. Disgusted by this, we instead wanted to pioneer responsible techniques across the entire manufacturing process in order to make jeans better. That was very disruptive. We could barely find fabrics or factories that we could work with because no one else seemed to share our desire to make better jeans. In time the right patterns came out of the woodwork and it became clear that our disruption was a vision shared by others, which made it positive for us, without a doubt. I can only speak to the fashion industry, which is one in desperate need of disruption. This is why I believe our brand’s message is understood and respected by our consumer.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Stick to one thing and do it right. We were trying to branch out into other categories and the message was getting diluted. An editor friend of mine told me to do one thing and do it right. That really struck a chord with me. We stuck to denim, shelved the men’s line and stuck to women’s denim, and it worked.

If they throw you out the door, find an open window and climb back in. My mom loves to tell me this and it has made such a difference in how I react to situations. If the answer is no, I always view that as an opportunity to discuss other options. Sometimes it stays a no, but often it doesn’t.

Believe in yourself. One of my mentors instilled in me a deep understanding of this. It’s something we hear time and time again but do you REALLY believe in yourself? Or do you just want it really bad? I always believed in an exact vision of myself and my brand and when I saw success, I always viewed it as reality catching up to my beliefs.

Do the best you can with the tools you have and give others the same understanding. We are all doing the best we can with the tools we have and we are all working on our available tools all the time too, so be kind to yourself and to others with this in mind.

You will never be able to control what happens to you in life but you will always be able to control your reactions, and your reactions create your reality. This is everything for me. Everything. There is so much power in understanding and implementing this. When it finally clicked for me, my life became bliss. I can remember the last time I raised my voice because of how infrequently it happens now. I have no problem being ‘wrong’, even when I think I’m ‘right’. I’d rather maintain peace in my experience and call it a day.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

A lot of thoughts like the above have been turning points in my life that I delight in sharing with those closest to me, so I decided to write a book about it. The intention was to put all of my life-changing experiences into one easy to refer to place to help others apply them to their lives when the time is right for them. The book was published in 2021 and I’ve received positive feedback that it has made an impact for those who have read it so far. I’m very proud of it, as I look at it as an extension of what I do with Triarchy. We all have to stop reacting on impulse in order to make fewer, better, choices in life and the book was written with this in mind. It’s called “Setting An Intention: 11 Brief Lessons on Achieving Your Greater Good” available on Amazon.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

The book that inspired me to write my own is called “7 Brief Lessons on Physics”. It inspires perspective on how truly great the cosmos are and how things like time really make no sense. I reference this in my book — it’s a great read. It was a totally different avenue of thought and I loved that. The Four Agreements is also a must-read.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Disrupt internally to create the external change you want.”

So often we feel that the change needs to happen externally when the change has to first come from within. I know that if I want to be the change, that means I need to actually become the change. I need to sit in silence and work through everything that is coming up, as hard as that is, because then, and only then, will I be properly equipped to engage externally. The world we are in now is (sadly) built as a distraction machine to ensure that none of us have the time to examine internally for too long. If we did, we wouldn’t be interested in all the things competing for our money and our time.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would simply want to inspire people to ask more questions about themselves and of the things they interact with. Be curious about why you are making the decisions you are making. Is it passion, or validation? Clearing your mind and body and asking within will always give you the right answer but you have to give yourself the space to ask in the first place. This is why I wrote the book. To help navigate life from this perspective.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!