How can we make swimwear more sustainable?

Davy J is a swimwear brand that’s designed to be sustainable, made from abandoned or spent fishing nets, pre-consumer plastic components and textile discards. The brand’s Founder, Helen Lofts, is a development economist by background as well as being a passionate circular economy advocate.

She grew up by the sea in Devon, which probably has something to do with it. She also loves open water swimming and got frustrated with swimwear that didn’t last. She set up Davy J in 2017 and has since won multiple awards including the Sustainable Design Awards, Women of the Future Awards for Entrepreneurship in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2018.

Here she explains the role of swimwear when it comes to the environment, and what we can do to make it more sustainable.

Why did you start Davy J?

It was a couple of things. I wanted to create styles that met a gap in the swimwear market between performance brands, which are generally fantastic for swimming lengths but are often lacking when it comes to style, and ‘beachwear’ alternatives that tend to give very little in the way of support and coverage. Our designs are for someone who loves wild swimming, wants to dive through the waves, jump off the back of the boat, play beach volleyball, run around with the kids, surf, swim, kite, paddleboard etc. However, they are also designed to last longer, fighting the trend of throwaway fashion.

What impact is swimwear having on the environment and why? 

Performance materials used for swimwear are traditionally made using a knitted or woven fabric predominantly composed of virgin synthetic polymers (such as nylon or polyester) which are not biodegradable and are made from non-renewable resources (oil).

Recent evolutions in material science have meant that it is now possible to replace the virgin polymer fibres within our fabrics for regenerated fibres of the same quality and composition but that are made from 100% recycled materials instead of from oil. This not only reduces the energy usage and waste required to create the fabric, but also removes materials that are otherwise damaging to the environment from our seas and landfill.

What is sustainable swimwear?

Using these recycled fibres in swimwear is a great start, but actually designing and creating products to last is the first principle in circular economy and sustainability and is one of the most pressing issues in fashion. In swimwear, this involves designing and creating suits that not only use sustainable materials, but that are built to last and stand up to the conditions they are exposed to, such as chlorine and salt water.

How do you make your swimsuits?

Davy J swimsuits are made using ECONYL® yarn - a 100% regenerated nylon from only waste sources. These include abandoned or spent fishing nets, pre-consumer plastic components and textile discards.

The ECONYL® Regeneration system is a chemical and mechanical process that allows you to create regenerated yarn from waste, keeping the same purity and strength characteristics of Nylon coming from virgin material. With this yarn, numerous textile products can be created and not only does it provide a smart way to find a use and value for waste material that would otherwise remain wasted and potentially damaging to the environment, but it also saves precious raw material that is normally used up in the production of virgin nylon.

For every 100 Davy J suits sold, around 9kg of waste has been regenerated and through a collaboration with the healthy seas initiative, spent and ghost fishing nets are actively collected by volunteer divers and fishing communities and fed into the regeneration process to prevent the damage they can have to wildlife and ecosystems.

In additional to the recycled composition of our fabrics, we also design our suits for durability, so they use a very high quality fabric and are double lined (meaning the lining is also a super high quality fabric rather than using a lower quality fabric on the lining). This means our suits will last longer, continue to look great over time and give you better value for money from your purchase.

Our suits are all manufactured within Europe and predominantly made with our production partners in the UK so we have a very close relationship with the workers making our suits as well as great oversight of the waste created as part of our production process so we can look to reduce this waste at every step in our brand journey.

What are the non environmental benefits of these materials in swimwear?

In additional to the recycled composition of our fabrics, we also design our suits for durability, so they use a very high quality fabric and are double lined (meaning the lining is also a super high quality fabric rather than using a lower quality fabric on the lining).

Is there anything else we can do to look after swimwear and stop it from contributing to waste?

RINSE! Rinsing your suits after use is key for durability. Take your suit in the shower with you after a swim or rinse in a bucket of freshwater. Nine times out of ten that will suffice, and your suits can be dried flat and used again and again. Every once in a while you may choose to wash your suit with detergent after a chlorine swim or a hot beach day and then we recommend hand washing using mild hand wash detergent and then rinsing thoroughly and drying flat. Washing machines are not kind to the elastane in your suits and so should be avoided wherever possible. Also, definitely no tumble dryers! Look after your suits and treat them with care and they will reward you with years of making you look and feel fabulous at the beach.