Dive Brief:
- Champion has partnered with technology firm CiCLO Textiles on a collection of crewnecks and joggers that reduce plastic textile pollution, according to a Wednesday news release from HanesBrands.
- The CiCLO tech says it allows synthetic textiles to “behave more like natural fibers when they enter the environment,” per the release. It says the material allows clothing to mitigate synthetic microfiber pollution from materials like polyester and nylon, which aren’t inherently biodegradable.
- The move comes as HanesBrands considers a sale of the Champion brand, which has been weighing down its bottom line.
Dive Insight:
Though Champion experienced a 19% sales decline in HanesBrands’ most recent quarter, the company has been working to position the activewear brand for long-term profitable growth through a “more disciplined” product and channel segmentation approach, the company said.
HanesBrands has also made recent efforts to attract a younger consumer. This year, it launched the M by Maidenform collection of innerwear and the Hanes Originals product line with a national media campaign. The collection with CiCLO could be a bid to bolster those efforts, with younger generations more likely to care about sustainability.
The collection, Eco Future Reverse Weave, launches Dec. 6 and will be available through Champion’s retail and e-commerce channels.
In addition to using more natural fibers, the collection also uses dyes from pomegranate, annatto fruit and terminalia chebula fruit, per the release.
CiCLO, which was founded in 2017, is owned by Intrinsic Advanced Materials, a joint venture between Intrinsic Textiles Group and Parkdale Advanced Materials. By adding microorganisms to conventional polyester and nylon, the company says its technology can break down these materials, leaving only basic natural elements that give “polyester an eventual expiration date.”
