Dior Creates Cool Beachwear Almost Completely Woven From Recycled Fabrics
Image via Dior
While the hope is to keep oceans pollution-free, plastic will nonetheless get swept into coastlines each day, no matter the constant reminders to keep it off. Dior is therefore riding—or surfing—with these ebbs and flows in a long-term partnership with Parley for the Oceans, an environmental nonprofit that innovatively rethinks how marine plastic can be managed.
In Fall 2023, Dior will unleash its ‘Beach Capsule’, a set of elegant beach essentials whose yarns and fabrics are spun from Parley Ocean Plastic—that is, repurposed ocean plastic debris and fishing gear picked up from coastlines and remote islands around the world, including the Maldives, the Dominican Republic, and Sri Lanka. The threads are then transformed into high-performance materials present in many of Adidas’s products too.
Dreamed up by the label’s menswear artistic director Kim Jones, these pieces blend Parley’s proprietary remixed plastic into Dior’s quintessential savoir-faire.
Surf's up!
— Dior (@Dior) May 29, 2023
Discover our eco-innovative #DiorParley Beach Capsule, featuring a wetsuit and surfboard https://t.co/lHzlpyHFgJ. Designed by Kim Jones in collaboration with @ParleyForOceans, the sustainable line was inspired by the deep ties that unite Dior with nature. pic.twitter.com/4iukRQhi55
The styles stem from Dior’s affinity with nature. Christian Dior was a known lover of flowers, gardens, and the sea from childhood, and Jones looked to this admiration to inspire the Beach Capsule.
“Nature always held a special, central place in Christian Dior’s heart, and in those of his successors, including me. It constantly inspires and nourishes me,” Jones pens in an open letter. “This new Beach Capsule—imagined as a tribute to the beauty of oceans—reflects this ambition [for a more responsible future], fusing sustainability and appeal,” he elaborates, adding that the pieces are constructed with 96% recycled fabrics.
The selection brings functional separates like a thick T-shirt, a polo shirt, a sweater, knitted vests, wetsuits, footwear, a surfboard, and jackets that can be folded to stash inside a pouch mirroring the silhouette of the iconic Saddle bag. Per Wallpaper, about 59% of the recycled materials used in the pieces come directly from marine plastics.
Further forging the ties between the two brands, on June 8, World Oceans Day, Dior handed over the reins of its socials to Parley to share educational content about how to protect the world’s beautiful oceans to millions of luxury enthusiasts. The pair’s friendship dates way back to 2019, when they first worked together to come up with sustainable materials for clothing.
The Beach Capsule might be soaked in inventive components, but it also preserves motifs many associate the Dior brand with. “Marrying desirability with sustainability, these highly singular materials—made ever-more sublime by a palette of blues and ochres—are adorned with iconic patterns, such as the Dior Oblique, timeless bayadeÌ€res, as well as the Adriatic graphic motif, drawn from the House’s archives, showing up on a silky jacquard and chineÌ for a bewitching three-dimensional effect,” the fashion house details in a statement.
Parley concludes that the looks are an example of how “ocean threats” can be converted into “wearable symbols of change.”
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[via Dior, Wallpaper* Magazine, DSCENE, Parley for the Oceans, images via Dior]
