Fashion Revolution Week is all about questioning the status quo — that’s why we love it. ECONYL® has been a proud supporter and participant of this international mission for the last three years. This movement about questioning brands, materials, supply chains, the people who make our clothing, the designers who set the trends and all of the processes from start to finish.

The core question Fashion Revolution asks is #whomademyclothes? This simple question has been a powerful movement to educate people about the social and environmental impact of our clothing purchases.

While Fashion Revolution has been a successful initiative, sustainability is not static and we must continue beating the drum. The questions must continue to be posed to encourage more and more progress to be made every day.

Our company is proud to be on the path of continuous improvement toward a more sustainable and circular economy. Pursuing real answers to tough questions about ‘what’s possible?’, and ‘how can we do better?’ is how our ECONYL® regenerated nylon was born.

Fashion Revolution week was born from a tragic event — the Rana Plaza Factory collapse in Bangladesh — but it is fueled every year by the myriad problems that continue afflict our planet and that are connected to the fashion industry. The task is gigantic, and everything seems to be interconnected.

How do we even begin address these issues?

How can we shed light on so many different topics, processes, materials and suppliers?

It seems impossible! But it’s not. Fashion Revolution has started to chart the path forward.

Fashion Revolution is fueling a collective journey for a growing community that is connected though social media and through many events organized around the world. These are the kind of conversations we need where we are all involved, and we don’t feel isolated anymore. We can now connect with millions of people to create the future fashion industry we want. It’s a collective dialogue guided by questions rather than answers — and open to everybody.

We remember joining Fashion Revolution three years ago. We were pretty much the only ingredient brand participating with our homemade “I made your fiber” posters. Today many more brands are participating, and we really appreciate the impact this initiative has made so far. All of the people and brands that have participated are beginning to changing the face of the industry — and it all started with a simple question!

In support of Fashion Revolution Week this year, we are sharing a gallery of our teammates who make ECONYL®. It’s an amazing ingredient that you might find in your clothing but also in your sunglasses, in your backpack, in carpet flooring and now also in furniture.

ECONYL® is a 100% regenerated nylon that comes from waste instead of oil and can be regenerated infinitely, giving designers endless possibilities to create new products without ever having to use virgin raw material.

Klavdij in Ajdovščina, Slovenia, with a pile of ropes and fishing nets.
Jan in Ajdovščina, Slovenia, with some carpet fluff, the upper part of old carpets that we regenerate into ECONYL® yarn.
Jozica in Ljubljana, Slovenia, works in the chemical lab. She checks the waste material that will become ECONYL® yarn.
Mensur works in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in the washing line where fishing nets are cleaned and prepared and where we started testing our carpet recycling system, now implemented in Phoenix.

The team in this photo takes care of the nylon waste material when it arrives from all over the world to Slovenia and they make sure it is treated properly. Some of them take care of the chemical process and spend the days around pipes and labs to make sure the quality and purity of the material is of the same quality as virgin nylon. Others are responsible for checking the bobbins of yarn or the colors in the textile lab. Some teammates make sure the shipments are on time and the yarn is kept at optimal temperatures and well packed to be sent all over the world. This year we also have one member of the sustainability team — caught in front of a whiteboard — while explaining the ECONYL® process and the CO2 savings in using our material compared to virgin nylon.

Jaka works in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a member of our sustainability team and the men of the data for ECONYL®.
Paolo, in Ajdovščina, Slovenia, with fishing nets.

Now, in our fourth year of participating in Fashion Revolution Week, it’s nice to see so many teammates we’ve featured in our campaigns in the past are still on our team. Some even asked if they could be part of the campaign again! It’s proof of how a sustainable product like ECONYL® can ignite the passion of the people who create it.

Bobbins of our ECONYL® regenerated yarn wouldn’t get to our customers if it wasn’t for Ziga.

Our supply chain was forever changed in 2011 when we started producing the ECONYL® yarn. Sharing this journey with us are also underwater divers, volunteer divers, of the Healthy Seas Initiative. We founded it together with an NGO and another business partner to recover ghost nets from the seas and create awareness on the problem of marine waste and ghost fishing. The nets recovered by the volunteer divers are then regenerated in our ECONYL® plant in Slovenia where, together with other waste, they become new ECONYL® yarn.

The Health Seas initiative: Ghost Fishing volunteer divers. Picture by Areti Kominou / Ghost Fishing Greece
The Health Seas initiative: Ghost Fishing volunteer divers. Picture by Areti Kominou / Ghost Fishing Greece
The Health Seas initiative: Ghost Fishing volunteer divers. Picture by Cor Kuyvenhoven
The Health Seas initiative: Ghost Fishing volunteer divers. Picture by Areti Kominou / Ghost Fishing Greece

Our team and the divers of Healthy Seas are all proud to be part of the answer to the question:

Who made my clothes?

We all made them!

Workers in Ajdovscjna and workers in Ljubljana (Slovenia).

People in Phoenix, where we have our carpet recycling facility and we are able to recover nylon from old carpets and give it a new life into ECONYL® yarn.

And also, people in Woodlands, California, in the new facility we are about to open.

And there is the team in Arco, Italy, where the company headquarters of Aquafil is located.

Aquafil invented and developed the ECONYL® process. Arco is where the first little pilot machine for regeneration was built and tested. It was a messy and challenging adventure but we all kept looking for the answers and overcoming every challenge along the way.

Thank you, Fashion Revolution for your leadership. We are proud to be part of this effort and will continue to ask the tough questions and seek better answers until we achieve the circular economy that you’ve shown us in our reach.

Ruzica is in charge of checking that there is no difference at all between bobbins of ECONYL® yarn of the same color.
Aleš is checking that the regenerated ECONYL® raw material is pure and transparent as it should be for 100% quality yarn.
You can find Boro always around our bobbins of ECONYL® regenerated yarn to check quality.
Jan in Ajdovščina, Slovenia, about to unload a truck of fishing nets.
Vitomir works in the chemical plant, at the very beginning of the ECONYL® regeneration process.
Sanel in Ajdovščina, Slovenia, with fishing nets.
Mirko keeps an eye on the spinning to get the best quality ECONYL® regenerated yarn.
Zikret works in Ajdovscina and he is in charge of the plastic components to prepare for regeneration.