How Dedicated Uses Retraced to Turn Transparency into a Business Advantage

“Sustainability is embedded in our business model,” says Margaux Schleder, Head of CSR at Dedicated. “It’s not just me pushing it. It’s the whole company.” 

But bold values require a strong infrastructure. As the brand scaled its offering and deepened its commitments, one question became more urgent: How do you maintain full traceability across a growing supply chain, without overwhelming your team? 

When Margaux joined Dedicated, she took on the task of structuring the brand’s sustainability efforts. At the time, they knew all their Tier 1 suppliers and had partial visibility into Tier 2 and some cotton sources, but the supply chain overview stopped there. Traceability work was done manually, stored in Excel files that were hard to manage and even harder to communicate.

“It was a good start, but not manageable long-term,” Margaux explains. “I was spending more time organizing data than using it. And traceability isn’t a goal on its own. You need it for communication, for carbon footprinting, for B2B clients. We needed a system.” Retraced came knocking at just the right moment.

When Retraced approached Dedicated in 2020, Margaux was deep in thetraceabilitytrenches. At the time, there were few digital platforms offering what Retraced did. The solution promised two key outcomes: better internal traceability workflows and customer-facing transparency tools, all in one system.

Retraced’s built-in widgets made it easy to publish verified supply chain data directly to product pages and gave Margaux the confidence that her work wouldn’t stay locked in a spreadsheet. “It’s also a way to hold ourselves accountable,” she says.

To build momentum internally, Margaux created company profiles and mapped the supply chain herself before inviting suppliers to the platform. This approach kept onboarding simple for partners, who were more willing to join once they saw how they were already represented on the website.

Today, 88% of Dedicated’s Tier 1 suppliers are on the platform, with others already connected through Retraced’s broader network.

With Retraced in place, Dedicated gained real-time supply chain visibility – all the way down to the cotton producer. Cotton makes up 85% of Dedicated’s product volume, and being able to trace its full lifecycle has been essential for footprinting and due diligence. 

The impact? Margaux puts it simply: “We’ve saved a lot of time and effort.” The benefits extend beyond operations. “From the beginning, we wanted to be transparent. We believe in showing who we work with, not just for our customers, but for the industry. Retraced helped us do that.” 

Dedicated’s open approach means other brands can tap into shared supplier relationships, helping build stronger business cases for better factories. “We’re not a luxury brand guarding secrets. If our suppliers grow, we grow.” 

For Dedicated, transparency is also a way to stay competitive. Retail partners increasingly expect verified traceability as part of vendor selection. With Retraced, Dedicated can show detailed supplier data at the product level, reducing friction in B2B conversations and making it easier to support partners’ own compliance needs.

The platform also supports sales and sourcing teams during wholesale pitches by making transparency visible from the start.And by being early adopters, Dedicated positioned itself as a leader in digital product transparency at a time when most brands still didn’t show their supply chains at all. That head start continues to pay off.

Looking ahead, Dedicated is working to strengthen its traceability system further, and doing it with Retraced. The next step is onboarding more suppliers and using the new Supply Chain Mapping feature to track sourcing decisions earlier in the process. 

“We want to be involved from the beginning, especially with the current disruptions in organic and fair trade cotton,” says Margaux. “Retraced is going to be the backbone for that.” 

Photo credit: ©Dedicated