H&M is one fashion brand that doesn’t just say they want to change their ways. They also do it. On top of their Conscious line, they’re making kids’ clothes from plastic bottles.
This year, H&M partners with Danone AQUA for the bottle2fashion project.
The endeavor creates recycled polyester from plastic bottle waste from the shores of Indonesia. This season bottle2fashion will collect and recycle around 3.5 million PET bottles.
For the H&M kidswear collection, the recycled polyester has been blended with organic cotton and recycled cotton to create cozy, everyday pieces in fashion-forward colors and silhouettes.
“Helping to keep beaches and oceans clean, bottle2fashion is another exciting step forward for a more circular and collaborative approach at H&M. To give a second life to disposable plastic bottles as recycled polyester is valuable in so many ways — to Indonesia’s environment, economy, and social values — but also the world and our customers,” says Nellie Lindeborg, assortment sustainability responsible at H&M.
The collaboration with bottle2fashion also supports the Indonesian government’s initiative against marine pollution — while also generating local jobs — by collecting PET bottles, sorting, cleaning, and shredding them into flakes, and then making them into recycled polyester fibers.
“Through the bottle2fashion initiative that we’ve conducted alongside H&M, for this season, Danone-AQUA has successfully collected around 71 tons of PET bottles from Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Island) and Bandung Area. This is to show our commitment to prevent plastic from going into the ocean, which is also the manifestation of our #BijakBerplastik movement,” said senior sustainable packaging manager, Danone Indonesia, Ratih Anggraeni.
The entire collection is made from a blend of recycled polyester from the bottle2fashion project, organic cotton, and recycled cotton. Cheerful, comfortable, and coordinating hoodies, joggers and long-sleeve tops form the collection and include stylish prints and colors.
“For this collection, we wanted to focus on pieces that kids could really be kids in — playful, comfy, and confident — so hoodies, joggers, and some long-sleeve tops. Though the garments can be coordinated, we put together a wide-ranging color palette that could be easily mixed and matched. I always love to see what kids come up with and I hope they will also learn about the bottle2fashion project along the way,” says Sofia Löfstedt, head of kidswear design at H&M.
You can now shop the bottle2fashion collection here.
