North Carolina-based Keel Labs has teamed up with American environmental advocate Aditi Mayer to launch a T-shirt called "Kelsun". The T-shirt, made from Keel Labs' star product, Kelsun, a seaweed fiber, demonstrates a major breakthrough in the field of sustainable textile alternatives and highlights the versatility of Kelsun as a convenient alternative to traditional fibers in the fashion industry.
Made from a blend of 70% Kelsun fiber and 30% cotton, this Kelsun T-shirt showcases the flexibility of seaweed material in knit construction. Meanwhile, the t-shirt is screen printed with seaweed ink from Living Ink and features Keel Labs' signature Spun K on the pocket.
In promoting the launch of the Kelsun T-shirt, climate activist Aditi Mayer, who is on a mission of sustainable fashion, emphasized the need for the fashion industry to revisit the importance of fiber choices and pointed to Kelsun's great potential to address the environmental issues posed by traditional materials.
With a brand's material choices alone accounting for more than half of its total emissions, there is an urgent need for the industry to revisit its choice of fibers, says Aditi Mayer. As someone who has long challenged the presence of fossil fuels in the fashion industry and opted for nature-based solutions, Kelsun was able to create an option that integrates renewable resources to solve the plastic problem in the fashion industry while eliminating pesticide use and agricultural land.
This launch is more than just the birth of a t-shirt, it's the realization of our mission, says Tessa Callahan, Co-Founder and COO of Keel Labs. It provides the industry with a mass-producible product that breathes new life into sustainable fashion.
By utilizing seaweed, nature's highly regenerative biological resource, Kelsun fibers are manufactured using 70 times less water than cotton and completely eliminating the use of land. By seamlessly integrating seaweed into fiber production and utilizing industry-standard equipment, Kelsun is a practical solution in the textile supply chain that meets the urgent need to reduce environmental burdens
