Research by The World Wide Fund for Nature reveals that another two planets would be needed if every nation used the same rate of resources as Australia alone (WWF, 2017). At Baiia, we hold strong values in treasuring the earth we live on and are conscious of the impact of our actions. One of our values expresses our dedication in caring for the world and the lives it holds.
"Know what’s important, think of tomorrow. Our planet and its inhabitants are the end all and be all. Let’s treat them as if our lives depend on them. They do. "
We recognise how habits of overconsumption and low quality can reduce the longevity of garments and our environment. We control this need for more, through ensuring our designs are timeless, versatile and practical whilst accommodating for high quality, non-harmful materials. We want our women to not only look good, but feel even better for all the right reasons.
Digital printing and natural dyes
Not only does the material of our swimsuits meet the needs of our environment but the creation of our beautiful prints are naturally dyed with skin-safe and certified planet-friendly, water-based Italian inks. The process in transferring our prints to swimsuit involves carefully transferring the print onto the garment through a non-toxic and sustained process. We choose to print rather than dye our fabrics as traditional fabric dying releases greater chemicals and uses more energy and water.
Packaging
Your Baiia is sealed and sent in our compostable satchels to avoid any use of unwanted plastics, read more here.
The depths of our swimsuit material
Setting ourselves apart from the average swimsuit, we've taken into consideration the reasons why we've actively avoided using virgin fabrics since we founded. One big reason: Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous oxide is 300 x more potent than C02 and is created during the production of virgin synthetic fabrics like nylon. These synthetic fabrics are also oil-based, meaning that to make new clothes requires further drilling of these oils from our precious earth. Instead, we substitute for non-harmful and longer-lasting materials that eliminate the unnecessary need for barrels of unrenewable oils.
Striving for our swimsuits to offer no harm to the seas that surround us, we carefully source our fabric from a recycled fabric supplier in Italy; Econyl. Their fabrics are of exceptional quality and regenerated from 100% from reclaimed industrial and post-consumer waste such as fishnets and other plastic waste found in our oceans and recovered by our divers in the Meditteranean.
100 million marine animals die each year from plastic waste. While we can't fix this devastation, we can help by cleaning our oceans from plastic and transforming it into a forever lasting material. In addition, our plant-friendly fabrics are also human-friendly being certified Standard 100 by Oeko-Tex; the world’s leader in testing fabrics to regulate harmful substances.
One Baiia Wrapsuit:
- Saves 40 grams of oil
- Uses 90% less water
- Uses 85% less energy
- Leaves a 75% less carbon footprint
- Uses 65% less sulfur dioxide
Relevant supporting articles:
WWF. (2017). What is Sustainability. https://www.wwf.org.au/ArticleDocuments/355/pub-fact-sheet-what-is-sustainability-31aug17.pdf.aspx
Image Credit: @thedharmatrails Vivien wears her Banksia Wrapsuit while collecting plastic from the beach.
