By Natalia Lima / Source: Ecorazzi

Eleven times world surfing champion Kelly Slater has launched a clothing line made with recycled fishing nets.

Outerknown, the surfer’s first venture into the world of fashion, features board shorts, tees and light jackets, all made sustainably. Thanks to the brand’s partnership with Aquafil, one of the world’s leading providers of synthetic fibers, and its ECONYL brand of recycled nylon, the fabric used in the clothing items is made with materials that were once polluting the world’s oceans.

“Because of my passion for ocean conservation, ECONYL is the ideal partner for us, not only are they re-writing the rule book for producing man-made fibers, but they are cleaning up the world’s oceans at the same time,” says Slater. “Making products in this way is the very reason why I started Outerknown.”

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there are currently more than 640,000 tons of abandoned fishing nets in the oceans. The nylon-made nets float in the ocean leading to ‘ghost fishing,’ a phenomenon in which animals like sharks, dolphins, turtles and other animals get caught unintentionally in the finishing nets as they drift.

ECONYL takes those abandoned nets and transforms them into nylon yarn that is then shipped to Outerknown’s global supply chain where it is converted into the textiles used in Slater’s clothing line.

“Our partnership with Outerknown was born out of a shared vision and ambition for sustainable change,” said Giulio Bonazzi, CEO of Aquafil. “Outerknown came to us with the goal of manufacturing nylon products that were not only made entirely of regenerated materials, but that would be endlessly regenerative without any loss in quality. This goes beyond the typical use of recycled materials and puts Outerknown on the cutting edge of sustainable fashion.”

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