Outerknown, a Culver City, Calif., fashion brand started by surfing champion Kelly Slater recently announced a collaboration with New Denim Project, which is based in Guatemala and a rising star in sustainability.
SUSTAINABILITY
Outerknown to Unveil Collection With New Denim Project
Working with sustainable manufacturers is central to the mission of Outerknown, a Culver City, Calif.–based fashion brand started by surfing champion Kelly Slater. It recently announced a collaboration with one of the rising stars in the community of sustainable vendors.
Outerknown is scheduled to release in late February a capsule collection made with the New Denim Project, a design lab based in Guatemala. The New Denim Project has cultivated a reputation for making clothes out of scraps of denim that other manufacturers might have thrown into a landfill. In 2019, the New Denim Project worked with Madewell on a capsule collection that featured coats, skirts and tops.
Outerknown started collaborating with the New Denim Project in 2020, when the brands worked together to make face masks. A wider collaboration was developed, and keeping textiles out of landfills was not the only reason Outerknown partnered with the New Denim Project, said Megan Stoneburner, Outerknown’s director of sustainability and sourcing.
“We were excited to leverage a closed-loop industrial manufacturing process that not only keeps a valuable material in circulation but is dye free and uses minimal water and energy,” Stoneburner said. “Over the next 10 years, we will be working hard to design out water and pollution from all our products by making them with regenerative and recycled materials, using safer and cleaner chemistry, and keeping everything going through repair, resale and recycling. We want to keep our products out of the landfill and in circulation forever.”
The collaboration collection has no formal name yet but features dresses, T-shirts, chambray shirts, flannels, as well as men’s knits, Henleys, and Outerknown’s best-selling style—a heavy flannel-style shirt named the Blanket Shirt.
The collection is made from 30 percent to 80 percent recycled cotton and features subtle irregularities in texture and coloring to bring a homespun feel to it. Retail price points will range from $68 to $148.
