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Made from petroleum-based synthetics such as nylon and polyester, swimwear has long been a roadblock for brands looking to move away from fossil fuels. Now, New York label Mara Hoffman thinks it may have cracked the code to unlocking a more sustainable swimsuit.
The New York label is ordering more versatile fabrics, prioritising domestic manufacturing and shifting away from wholesale, to mitigate the supply chain delays that plagued its summer collection. It expects many of the changes to be permanent.
The brand’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection features a one-piece and two-piece black swimsuit made using a bio-based fabric designed to mimic the functionality of typical synthetic swimwear. Called Pyratex Power 3, the material is made from dissolved wood pulp that’s processed using a low-toxicity solvent. (Fabrics made from wood pulp often rely on chemical-intensive processing and manufacturing. The wood pulp is also derived from Canopy-approved sources, meant to avoid destruction of precious forests.)
While the swimsuit is not entirely petroleum-free — Pyratex Power 3 is about 11 per cent elastane — it marks a milestone for a brand striving to eliminate synthetic materials. If successful, it could facilitate other brands’ efforts to do the same. While natural materials, including those prioritising sustainability such as recycled wool and regenerative organic cotton, are gaining traction in fashion, the swimwear category remains overwhelmingly dominated by synthetics because no viable alternatives have emerged to replace them at scale with the same functionality — stretchy, form fitting, quick-drying, water-resistant.
“Every time I meet an innovator, the first thing I tell them is that my biggest challenge is swimwear,” says Dana Davis, vice president of sustainability, product and business strategy at Mara Hoffman. “We as a brand are committed to moving away from synthetics. We moved away from synthetics in our ready-to-wear line years ago. This is a stepping stone — this isn’t a 100 per cent natural material. But, it’s us getting to a place of being less reliant on those synthetics from fossil fuels.”
Mara Hoffman has used recycled materials in its swimwear since 2015, but that isn’t enough, says Davis, because of their inextricable link to continued fossil fuel extraction, harmful production processes as well as microfibre pollution.
The product is the result of a partnership between Mara Hoffman and Pyratex, a Spanish material research company that was also behind the banana waste-based fabric featured in Ganni’s latest Fabrics of the Future collection released in September. When Davis saw a material that Pyratex had developed for use in sportswear a few years ago, she recalls asking them if it could work in swimwear as well. They said they would look into it and come back to her. By spring 2021, the brand had a swimsuit ready for testing. Founder Mara Hoffman took it on a vacation, returned with feedback — primarily relating to the fabric's drying time, says Davis — and then collaborated with Pyratex to address it. Less than six months later, says Davis, “we had a viable material we could make into swimsuits”.
The launch marks the first time the fabric is being used in a swimsuit; the team behind Pyratex is betting it won’t be the last.
“We’re very excited about this collaboration. Our mission is to replace synthetic fabrics with bio-based ones, and Mara Hoffman’s swimwear is our first step into a branch of the fashion industry we’ve been wanting to enter for quite awhile now,” says Pyratex CEO Regina Polanco.
Perhaps the biggest test for the material, for both Mara Hoffman in selling the swimsuit and for Pyratex in expanding its use to other brands, will be the consumer’s reaction to its feel and texture. While it passes tests for antibacterial and quick-drying properties as well as to withstand chlorine and saltwater conditions, it is a distinctly different fabric.
“Despite the fact that the first swimwear garments were made from natural fabrics, like cotton, we have all become used to the characteristics of synthetic materials,” says Polanco. “Bio-based replacements can be just as functional as synthetic ones, but of course the feel and look will not be the same.”
Pyratex Power 3 is a micro Tencel lyocell material that uses an “interlock structure” designed to hug the skin the way a typical swimsuit does, and to “allow for more resistance and have better recovery while wet, which is often the challenge faced by brands looking for new materials for swimwear”, says Polanco. The main limitation is the colour options available for swimwear, she says, because some colours don’t have the same resistance to chlorine and salt water. “It’s all about testing different colours to check their performance and resistance.”
It comes with an added bonus, too: because it is more breathable than most swimsuit material, it can be worn as regular clothing or undergarments (the one-piece as a bodysuit), says Davis — which feeds into the brand's larger less-is-more sustainability ethos. “We want the customer to understand that these are options within it, and then hopefully reduce the amount that a customer needs to buy,” she says.
While the customer reaction to the Pyratex swimsuit still remains to be seen, Mara Hoffman isn't waiting to find out before pushing forward. "We're investing in it — we already have it planned out in our next collection," says Davis. "And we are not holding it proprietary. We are the first to bring it to market, but we want as many brands to use it as possible."
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