How long are you willing to wait for a garment that you saw online, liked and want to place an order for? A week, a fortnight? How about a longer, indefinite wait and that too for a tee, not a bespoke ensemble?
A limited edition collection of tees called ‘The Earth Tee’, launched earlier this month for World Environment Day, following a collaborative effort by designer Anita Dongre and R|Elan, has set the ball rolling for a new dimension in sustainable fashion.
The tees were made with fabric made by recycling used plastic bottles, boasting of less carbon footprint and water usage as compared to traditional method of garment manufacture. A few celebs, influencers and representatives of fashion media got to flaunt the tee.
Now, the portal www.theearthtee.com invites anyone who’s interested in the tee to register. The next set of tees will go into production when enough number of plastic bottles are recycled. For its maiden collection, The Earth Tee used R|Elan GreenGold, a polyester fabric made by recycling 25000 bottles that were discarded during the spring/summer edition of Lakme Fashion Week 2018, as part of the ‘Fashion for Earth’ initiative mooted by LFW and Reliance. The fabric, according to a statement, is made from pre-dyed fibres and doesn’t require much water.
The tag attached to the tee is no ordinary plastic/paper tag. It’s a plantable seed paper tag that can grow into a sapling with some care.
The Earth Tee is a follow up to the collaboration between Reliance and Anita Dongre for the ‘Songs of Summer’ collection unveiled at LFW early this year. The collection featured long line jackets, jumpsuits, tunics and saris in light-as-air gossamer silks, muls and cotton, in addition to fabric made from recycled plastic bottles.
The tees may not make their way to retail stores soon as it won’t be mass produced. However, there are indications of a larger collection by Anita Dongre using the Green Gold fibre for the retail sector.
