Forget Rags to Riches, Now It’s Plastics to Fashion

2003

By Elizabeth Wulfhorst

You don’t have to look like Lady Gaga to wear plastic as long as it’s recycled into fibers first. Recycled clothing and home goods may sound like science fiction, but more clothing companies are embracing recycling for the good of the planet, especially on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

ROTHY’S
Rothy’s makes shoes and bags solely from recycled materials, like fabric made from recy- cled marine plastic. The company has already used over 45 million plastic bottles to make their products.

“It’s becoming increasingly more important for the fashion industry to adjust their standards for production and materials to those that are more sustainable,” said Kori Mallett, Vice President of MSH Branding & Communications, a public relations agency in New York City. The “fast fashion” trend that companies like Forever 21 and H&M championed a decade ago is waning, giving rise to brands developing smaller capsule collections with staple, high-quality pieces consumers can wear for many years and in different ways, said Mallett.

ROTHY’S

Companies like Unifi, headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, have found a way to take plastic bottles and other single-use plastic items and manufacturing waste and turn them into high-tech fabrics used by many brands today. According to a counter on the Unifi website, to date it has kept almost 19.5 billion plastic bottles out of landfills and oceans.

Because human activities near coasts are responsible for most of the plastic that leaks into the ocean, Unifi sources plastic bottles collected near the coastlines of developing countries, according to their website.

Unifi’s Repreve high-performance fabric is used by brands as diverse as Quicksilver, Jockey, Lane Bryant and Ford Motor Company for everything from jackets to pants to car seats.

THE SLEEP SHIRT
The Sleep Shirt, a luxury sleepwear brand, upcycles the leftover fabrics from its clothing production into a line of home goods, like napkins, tea towels and laundry bags.

The Sleep Shirt, a luxury sleepwear brand, offers a small home accessories collection made from the leftover fabrics from its clothing production, said Alexandra Suhner Isenberg, the company’s founder and creative director, a process she calls “upcycling.”

Larger pieces of leftover fabric are made into other clothing items, but the smaller pieces are repurposed into home goods. “We use really high-quality cottons and linens, so they make great napkins, tea towels and pouches,” Isenberg said.

“In the case of our upcycle collection, it was about finding practical uses for our leftover fabrics,” she said, adding that large companies simply throw away old or unused fabrics – or often leave them to rot. But The Sleep Shirt tries to be “zero-waste, so this small collection seemed like the most logical way for us to use our small fabric remnants,” Isenberg said.

“Reducing consumption is important if we want to address climate change, by using recycled or waste materials,” she said.

While brands both large like Patagonia, Adidas, Nike and even Timberland and small are entering the recycling game, it’s the smaller companies that seem more willing to fully embrace the trend. Clothing company Everlane introduced a recycled down jacket this season that was extremely popular with its customers. Travelwear company Summersalt makes swimwear from 78 percent recycled materials, including plastics, post-consumer materials and nylon waste like old fishing nets, and travelwear from vegan silk crafted entirely from pre-consumer waste, like cotton leftover from yarn used in factories. Sunski produces polarized designer sunglasses made from recycled plastic saved from U.S. landfills. Its products have a lifetime warranty, meaning they never have to end up in a landfill themselves; send them back to the company for repairs.

THE SLEEP SHIRT

Girlfriend Collective, an athletic-wear brand, not only uses fabric from recycled plastic, it also recycles its own waste, treating the manufacturing wastewater to remove all dyes and stray fibers before discharging it into the environment. The leftover “dye mud” is then sent to a facility that transforms it into paving stones for sidewalks.

Rothy’s, a shoe and bag company, was one of the first to offer consumers only products made entirely from recycled materials, like fabric made from recycled marine plastic. Since its inception the company said it has used over 45 million plastic bottles to make their products. The brand’s flats, sneakers and bags are fully machine washable.

And it’s not just the products but often the packaging that is recycled and recyclable, as well. Every pair of Sunski sunglasses comes in recycled, folded boxes, forgoing the use of plastic or glue. The company pledges to be carbon neutral with its manufacturing and shipping policies this year.

Many companies are finding other innovative ways to address their environmental impact. “Madewell has a program I love which takes back used denim, from any retailer, for recycling and gives credit toward your next Madewell purchase,” said Mallet. “More and more brands are sensing their responsibility and making positive efforts to cater to their consumer’s demands.”

While all these steps are beneficial for the planet, Mallett also explained the companies get something out of it, too: their customers’ trust.

“If a consumer is feeling good about a brand, they are much more likely to be a repeat customer,” she said. “The idea that people buy a story or an aspiration or how a brand makes them feel, and not just a product, definitely comes into play here.”

As more brands address climate change through better manufacturing and shipping practices, consumers will have more choices for protecting the environment every day.

As Mallet said, “We all have to do our part for the next generation in taking care of the Earth.”

This article originally appeared in the April 23rd, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.