For a fact, It’s not easy at all to find activewear that is ful­ly sus­tain­able. I’ve spent quite a long time slow­ly trans­form­ing my wardrobe into a more respon­si­ble place: trousers, shirts, jumpers, coats… but when it came to sports­wear, I was sud­den­ly lost. Which mate­ri­als can be eth­i­cal, yet assure good com­fort and per­for­mance while mov­ing?

It has been a real­ly hard ques­tion for years in the sports­wear field. The most com­mon answer was sim­ply none. Poly­ester and nylon blend­ed with elas­tane have been for a long time the fit for sports: com­fy, breath­able, and flex­i­ble. But these mate­ri­als are cer­tain­ly harm­ful and pol­lut­ing through­out the whole man­u­fac­ture process.

Today’s materials

Luck­i­ly, today, new busi­ness­es have arrived at a great inno­va­tion for us. Ful­ly recy­cled poly­ester and nylon are final­ly mak­ing their way. From plas­tic bot­tles to a soft reborn fab­ric. Mak­ing what was a harm­ful waste into a final­ly sus­tain­able mate­r­i­al.

I’m so hap­py to share with you four brands doing great prod­ucts with the stan­dards of mod­ern sports­wear yet sus­tain­able. In these gar­ments, you will be able to run, esca­late, med­i­tate, lift, dance, and every­thing else that you can imag­ine.

Hopaal

We are start­ing with the French brand Hopaal, that has the whole sup­ply chain well sur­veyed:

• First­ly, the yarn is spun at Tori­no, in north Italy
• Then, it is knit­ted close to Lyon in France
• Final­ly, the con­struc­tion of the gar­ment takes place in Por­to, north­ern Por­tu­gal.

All are with­in 1000km of the brand’s head­quar­ters in Biar­ritz so effi­cient, car­bon-free trans­port is grant­ed on every step.

They offer a reduced vari­ety yet focused on sports­wear, with shorts and a t‑shirt for men, and leg­gings, a t‑shirt and a sports bra for women. All made of recy­cled poly­ester. Elas­tic and breath­able, putting com­fort and per­for­mance first.

Seagale

We have a sec­ond brand designed in France, and man­u­fac­tured with­in the neigh­bor­ing Italy, Spain and Aus­tria: Sea­gale. They offer many prod­ucts, but we can high­light a sports t‑shirt for men. It’s made with recy­cled poly­ester and elas­tane, cre­at­ing a high per­for­mance piece of appar­el per­fect for train­ing.

Tripulse

Our third activewear brand Tripulse is designed in Swe­den and they use a new mate­r­i­al that is com­plete­ly com­fort­able, breath­able and anti-bac­te­r­i­al. It is the wood-based Ten­cel. It comes from sus­tain­ably man­aged trees such as euca­lyp­tus, pine or spruce, reg­u­lat­ed with the FSC or PEFC cri­te­ria. Its pro­duc­tion doesn’t con­tain harm­ful chem­i­cals and at its end of life, it’s com­plete­ly biodegrad­able and com­postable.

This is one of its best inno­va­tions, decom­pos­ing super fast, an incred­i­ble 5 to 10 000 times faster than poly­ester or nylon. (8–30 days instead of 20 to 200 years)

Tripulse focus­es on activewear for women, offer­ing leg­gins, t‑shirts, tank tops and shorts, all designed with enjoy­ment in mind and with a time­less, mod­ern fit. To gain the stretch qual­i­ties, instead of using the clas­si­cal Span­dex, they are choos­ing ROICA V550. It is a fiber that is cer­ti­fied Cra­dle to Cra­dle Gold, being total­ly com­postable.

As anoth­er great inno­va­tion, this brand sells also prod­ucts which aren’t per­fect­ly sewed, for a low­er price. They are called “ZeroWaste” and they are a great option to not gen­er­ate more waste with prod­ucts that didn’t fit pro­duc­tion stan­dards.

Iron Roots

Our fourth brand, Iron Roots, is designed in the Nether­lands and man­u­fac­tured all in the EU, offer­ing many dif­fer­ent styles for the active men and women out there: not only t‑shirts and shorts but longsleeves and hood­ies too.

They have a super mod­ern fit, with the same nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al we have been talk­ing about: Ten­cel. Its anti bac­te­r­i­al prop­er­ties that go along with the light­weight and breatha­bil­i­ty make it the most promis­ing fiber for sus­tain­able activewear.

With all your new equip­ment, you will be able to start 2023 tak­ing good care of your body, inside out, and of the envi­ron­ment as well. A win-win right?