A bag that tastes like olives: reducing fashion's carbon footprint by experimenting
Bacterial cellulose, grape and banana peels, mushroom-based vegan leather. The study of materials is at the heart of the work of the Danish duo Ditte and Nicolaj Reffstrup.
by Lisa Corva
5' min read
5' min read
A bag made from olive oil processing waste. Small, handy, colourful. But above all, environmentally sustainable. It is just one of the many green projects of Ganni, the Danish brand with 47 monobrand stores worldwide (the latest has just been opened in Bangkok). Behind it, there is a couple from Copenhagen: Nicolaj and Ditte Reffstrup.
'Fashion and sustainability are two words that don't go together at the moment,' Nicolaj begins. "Fashion is newness, that is, everything that is new, always new, everything that you do not yet own. Fashion is desire. Yet change is possible, and we in fact talk more about responsibility than sustainability. From all points of view: from the carbon footprint - we plan to reduce it by 50 per cent by 2027 - to the search for new eco materials'. At Copenhagen Fashion Week, a new version of the Bou Bag, the brand's best seller, was just presented. "It is made of Oleatex, a futuristic material patented in Turkey, which uses waste from olive oil production. So totally vegan, an alternative to leather. Something about the texture reminds me of kombucha,' Ditte explains with a smile.
The search for new fabrics is Ganni's challenge. "This year we decided not to show at Copenhagen Fashion Week, but to present our Fabrics of The Future. From 2019 we are focusing on young designers: they often do not have access to experimental materials, we support them, providing the capital and the spaces where they can imagine and create. This is how the future is invented, perhaps with a bag that comes from an olive grove'. Some experiments have seen the light of day and have been adopted in the various collections. For example, from the partnership with Mylo, which created mycelium leather, a non-skin derived from mycelium (the vegetative apparatus of mushrooms), a capsule collection of hand-decorated graffiti bags and wallets was launched, on sale in stores in Copenhagen and New York. The collaboration with Vegea, which produces a material made mainly from grape skins and waste from wine production, resulted in trainers launched in 2021.
Then there is Pyratex, a mix of organic cotton and banana peels from which jersey is made, the basis for a capsule collection of sweatshirts and sportswear. "This year we focused on Renewcell, a recycled cotton; on InResST, a recycled nylon; on Savian, or faux fur, a faux fur based on BioFluff; and on Celium non-skin, a bacterial cellulose compound." Ganni presented the young designers it collaborates with - Nicklas Skovgaard, Roege Hove, Alectra Rothschild/Masculina, Sarah Brunnhuber/Stem, Jens Ole Árnason, Sahar Jamili and Sisse Bjerre - with the new eco materials, and then gave them complete creative freedom. Jens Ole Árnason did not create clothes, but a sculpture, using Ganni's own production waste. Alectra Rothschild/Masculina instead mixed two materials: Oleatex and Circulose, recycled cotton and denim. "We know that we are not going to save the world with organic cotton: we have to find alternatives and even greener solutions, we are working on it. They may never go into production, but it is important to try, to experiment. We will also talk about this at the Global Fashion Summit, the focus of which will be on sustainability, to be held in Copenhagen in May'.
Nicolaj and Ditte Reffstrup entered the fashion world in 2009, when they took over Ganni, a small cashmere jumper brand. Since then, the brand has grown to become one of Denmark's biggest fashion exports, and in 2017, investment fund L Catterton (controlled by Lvmh) acquired a majority stake. Thus allowing the pair more freedom and peace of mind to explore new avenues, but also to expand: into the US, where they already have shops in New York, Miami and California. April saw the launch of a collaboration with Paloma Elsesser: a plus-size model, African-American mother and father of Chilean and Swiss descent, she is known for her campaigns on body positivity and inclusivity.
