From this... 

To this...

 
First stop NOLA. Never underestimate the audacity of drivers in this city. No one seems to have a working blinker and cars tend to confuse pedestrians for green lights. I had to learn this the hard way after someone crashed into the hydraulic jacks that lift the mobile store off its trailer.

Thankfully, they only clipped it and sheared one of the pump hoses off. Even more thankfully, the 8,000-pound shipping container-turned-mobile marketing machine didn’t fall from its 5-foot tall stilts and crush anything.

Despite that (and a few other) minor setbacks, New Orleans was a start. The city’s energy, enthusiasm, and lax open container laws made it the perfect place to announce that for the next 4 months, ML is going on tour!

This is uncharted waters for us. Our first Re-Spun product launch, first mobile store, and first nation-wide tour. Re-Spun has also become a first in the industry. No other brand has created new tees from the fibers of old ones.

While sustainable apparel is making headway to replace fast fashion, truly sustainable production comes from closing the manufacturing loop and shifting to a circular economy. This means re-learning our perception of waste and seeing it as a resource instead of a byproduct. We must take the tri-fold step from doing harm to doing less harm— to manufacturing products with the intention of enriching ecosystems and making the world a cleaner, safer place.

This concept has faced a slow uptake, but the apparel industry is changing. While we are still doing harm, Re-Spun gives Marine Layer the unique opportunity to spearhead that change within our industry. We can motivate ourselves and others to not only clean up the production line but clean up the planet while producing our product.

Pioneering Re-Spun has taken a tremendous amount of effort. Keeping it alive requires a huge amount of participation. That’s why we’re going city to city — getting people involved at the grassroots level — and drumming up excitement about what we think is the next frontier of sustainable fashion.

Hopefully, in the process, we can make waves into the circular economy while also successfully circling back to SF. Only 10,000 miles to go.