May 16, 2019
CO2 footprint, ethical sustainability, and reducing the excessive amount of clothes and collections produced annually by conventional fashion brands are all topics we care a whole lot about here at Vain Dane Athletic.
European production
Reducing the CO2 footprint of the production by keeping the transport to a minimum, and ensuring a high level of ethical sustainability is important to Vain Dane Athletic.
Who made my clothes
We will on our website inform the customers, who made their sportswear by listing under each item, where the fabric was made and who sowed the clothes. This is a way to be transparent, and we will also be the first to mention, where we need to improve - cause we do. Sustainability can be many things and not everyone agree what is the best way forward and what is considered the most "sustainable way".
In Riga, Latvia, we used a production company that employ Latvian women, who work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day with health benefits and holidays for our first bulk order.
However, we have chosen to move our production to another company in Lithuania, where our sustainable goals are more easily met and there is a bigger understanding for our sustainable work process. We love our new production company, which is SEDEX certified, and they are a 90% women run company. They understand our need to cut out unnecessary plastic, minimise cutoff, and ordering smaller batches to ensure all clothes are sold, and thereby removing the need for "Sale".
Our Lithuanian production floor
Our materials
Elastics
Our elastics are not made from a sustainable thread. The thread is Oeko-Tex certified, but the material itself is not considered sustainable. Also, this is one of 3 companies outside EU we work with.
Why have we chosen to use it then?
Because for us sustainability is also to ensure that the clothes last longer. The sustainable elastics on the marked today would within a very short period become worn and broken. This would automatically mean that the customer would have to buy a new pair as the elastic no longer supports the leggings and bras. Then we have not been true to our mission of making clothes that last longer and is of a better quality. We welcome the day, we get an elastic that can hold its elasticity longer, and we will switch immediately.
Why have we chosen a non EU country. There is currently no production in EU able to make high quality elastics. The company, Chun Fai, is based in Hong Kong, family owned and run by a woman.
Labels
We all know it....carelabels itch and we cut them off. What a waste. In Vain Dane Athletic sportswear, we aim to have only 2 labels in ECONYL® clothes and 1 label in other designs, as this is enough to inform the customer of the size, the fabric quality, and the washing instructions.
The same company makes our logo label and they are made from recycled polyester as well.
Our carelabels are made from recycled polyester and made at Makotex in Greece. They are Oeko-Tex and GRS certified.
Thread
We use Gramax EcoVerde sowing thread for all our clothes. EcoVerde is a 100% recycled polyester thread that is certified to Öko-Tex Standard 100, class I and GRS certified.
Pockets in running leggings
To make the inside pockets in our running leggings, we have used scrap material from other companies production. Scrap and cutoff fabrics that would otherwise be thrown out and not reused. The colours vary and you will find black, purple, and blue pockets in our clothes.
We cannot guarantee that the fabrics used for the pockets are sustainable textiles, but for us the sustainability aspect is that we are reusing something that would otherwise end up in a landfill.
Fabrics
We will be using different fabrics in our sportswear depending on design and purpose.
Regenerated Nylon
For our leggings and sportsbras, we have chosen the ECONYL® regenerated nylon yarn, as this is a product that helps us in getting closer to our Global Goal 14.1 taget goal of removing pollution from our oceans. ECONYL® yarn removes old discarded fishing nets from the oceans and transforms it into nylon fibers. Read more about ECONYL® yarn on the website under More -Sustainable Textiles.
Two highly certified Italian companies do the dyeing and weaving. Carvico/Lomellina does the main dyeing and fabric weaving and the smaller LYMA International does the bespoke pattern dyeing in their family run factory.
Fabric features
One of the reasons we chose to work with ECONYL® yarn is its many qualities. The fabric features include recycled yarn, UV protection and many other important features for high quality textiles and clothes making it last longer.
TENCEL™
We have chosen sustainable wood fibers for our t-shirts and training tops, as its a natural material, anti-bacterial, biodegradable, and compostable. TENCEL™ Lyocell and Modal fibers are produced from wood pulp from sustainably managed sources, a renewable resource.
The fabric is soft, breathable, and can be washed at 40 degrees celcius and still retain its colour and shape.
Our TENCEL™ textiles are dyed and woven in Portugal by Tintex, a highly certified company with a high representation of women in their management.
Drawstrings
All our drawstrings are made from recycled polyester in a GRS certified company, Shindo, in Japan. This is one of the non EU based suppliers we have, but their ethics and commitment to environmental improvements makes the product a more sustainable clothing component compared to anything on the EU market.
Cut-off and waste - a circular zero waste production policy
To ensure a zero waste policy and circular production all our cut-off textile and scraps/waste from the sowing production is collected and send along with the finished garments.
We store the waste until we have 500 kilos and then it's made into yoga mats in Denmark.
Always trying to improve and come up with new ways to help the sustainable movement, we have teamed up with a German and Spanish competitor and take all of their ECONYL® yarn waste as well. They currently dont have any use for it, so to ensure it is not discarded of in an unsustainable fashion, we take it in and make it part of our yoga mats.
