Okewa’s Rainwear Made From Recycled Plastic Bottles

Wellington-based waterproof clothing brand, Okewa, which was founded by Nevada and Nick Leckie, has launched a new fashion collection made from 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles.

After Okewa’s project succeeded on Kickstarter, the company’s innovative waterproof clothing line is ready for pre-ordering. The coats are all two-layered, waterproof, breathable, and each one cleans up something between 22 and 31 plastic bottles from the environment.

“If we can re-use some of this resource already in circulation, we wondered why we shouldn’t do it instead of extracting new raw material for the collection,” Nevada told men’s fashion site, Hypebeast in July.

Okewa makes the fabric by shredding and melting the plastic bottles into pellets. Then it turns pellets into yarn, yarn into thread and thread into its innovative fabrics that are then waterproofed during the lamination process.

In this collection, Okewa, by combining an innovative way of thinking and the latest technology, showcases the possibilities of reducing environmental footprint without sacrificing the quality or aesthetics of the products.

Original article by WT VOX, August 21, 2018.