Did you know that many of your clothes are made from plastic?

As with all manmade fibres, regular lycra is a non-renewable plastic product created from oil. This makes it unsustainable and problematic. It is for this reason that I am happy to announce that from now on all our digitally printed spandex products are going to be manufactured using only eco-lycra. This amazing new fabric is created from 80% post-consumer waste. Many years in development, this fabric takes end-of-life fishing nets that would otherwise be sent to landfill or discarded in the oceans damaging our natural habitats, and other waste plastic products, and turns it into usable lycra. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there are currently more than 640,000 tons of abandoned fishing nets in the oceans. The nylon-made nets float in the ocean leading to micro-shredding, as well as entwining and suffocating animals such as dolphins and turtles as they drift. These polluting nets are collected and made into a delicate nylon yarn. This yarn is then intricately knitted to create the eco-lycra, and the finished fabric is of the utmost quality. It is luxuriously soft, and super durable. The colours stay vibrant, and the fabric keeps its stretch, year after year after year. The wonderful thing about this regeneration process is that it is potentially infinite – the chemical structure of the plastic fibres allows for infinite regenerations. These sorts of plastic recycling processes are possible, but not yet widely available; but the more pressure there is on the fashion industry to make systemic change, the more demand there is for sustainable practices, the more widely available these options will become.

The eco-lycra we use at BangBangCrash is produced in Italy, (this is our closest supplier at present,) and digitally printed within the UK. This is one of the most environmentally friendly methods of printing, as it is extremely precise. Most printing and dyeing methods involve a lot of water, rinsing toxic inks and chemicals into the water system. With digital printing the inks are embedded precisely and directly into the fabric, so no water is needed and negligible ink waste is produced.

TRANSPARENCY: Just as with any other man made fibre fabric eco-lycra will shed micro-plastics over time, but I am of the opinion that these plastics are better as garments than ocean waste.

So that’s the word on eco-lycra! Hope you are as happy about the change as I am. Fashion does not need to cost the earth, and I want BangBangCrash to continue to adapt as necessary.

Love,
Jojo x
Creative Director