What do a fishing net, a Hollywood carpet and our PURE collection swimsuits have in common?

You guessed it, nylon!

ECONYL® Regenerated Nylon is a name that is regularly coming up in the news and that more and more brands are referring to. Aquafil, an Italian company specialized in nylon-6 production, recognized very early on that primary resources needed to be saved and solutions to be found. As pioneers in this field, they heavily invested in R&D and put up a unique process that allows the full recovery and regeneration of nylon from pre- and post-consumer wastes. ECONYL® Regenerated Nylon was born! And the door to truly circular processes was opened, as Aquafil says with “endless possibilities”. For designers’ imagination to know no limits!

When we started the search for a fabric with a reduced environmental impact, it quickly became clear that it needed to be made with ECONYL®. Of the 50% post-consumer waste used for its fabrication, around 25% are coming from fishing nets. Most of them come from aquaculture and fish farms, and partner environmental organizations, such as Healthy Seas or Net-Works, ensure that ghost nets are rescued from the oceans and included in the process. This revolutionary approach allows the production of nylon with the same characteristics as virgin nylon but with a climate change impact reduced by 80 % and a significant contribution to the issue of ocean plastic pollution.

The fabric for our suits from the PURE collection is made by an Italian producer, and consists of 78 % ECONYL® Regenerated Nylon mixed with 22% Lycra® for elasticity. This fabric is highly resistant to usual swimwear threats, such as chlorine, UV or sand, and combines comfort, support and an elegant touch. Everything we were looking for.

This is how the swimsuits we propose have a lower environmental footprint. But we do not want to stop there. Equally important to the early life of a product is its afterlife, or everything that happens once the consumer is done with it. To this day, there is no solution for regenerating nylon from swimsuits, since the nylon fiber is blended with the elastane and their separation is extremely tricky. Is this a reason to do nothing? No! At kaio swim, we are inspired by the Cradle to Cradle principles and believe that what is impossible today, will happen soon enough. So who knows how old swimsuits might be valorized? Regenerated, upcycled, re-used, detoured…

With this spirit, we invite you to return your old kaio swim swimsuits so that we can store them and keep them ready for the big day. And to thank you for your contribution to our efforts towards circular economy, you will get a 10%-voucher off your next purchase per kaio swim suits returned.

We will keep you informed about any exciting development.