Marina Hamm touches the smooth, buttery fabric of a one-piece swimsuit in her Costa Mesa office, where the designer spends her days creating swimwear for action-sports brand Volcom.
“Isn’t that incredible?” she asks with pride.
It’s hard to believe the stylish swimsuit had a past life as a fishing net, salvaged from the ocean; that the swimsuit may one day dip back into the water where it once floated around as trash.
“It’s just like any other fabric, you wouldn’t even know,” the 39-year-old swimwear designer said. “It’s not a lesser product. It’s not like you’re doing good for the environment but it doesn’t feel as good or it has a certain smell. People wouldn’t even know.”
The surf wear industry has long been known for making products that use recycled materials to lessen the footprint on the environment. The ocean is, after all, the playground for many of the people who work in the action-sports industry, with many of the brands spawned in the coastal towns of Orange and Los Angeles counties.
Patagonia recently unveiled a wetsuit made of natural rubber. Vissla, based in Aliso Viejo, makes boardshorts out of coconut husks and this season is launching a t-shirt made of a blend of recycled cotton waste and a polyester made from recycled plastic bottles.
For its part, Volcom has long stood out for its environmental efforts. The company has a VP of Sustainability dedicated to finding ways to push innovations and, as a whole, Volcom has a mandate to be 20 percent sustainable by 2020.
“I would love for companies to take what we are already doing,” Hamm said. “Stay who you are, but do your best to be more sustainable.”
The tagline for Volcom’s fishing net swimwear line: “Caught up in a good thing.”
“People know fishing nets destroy marine life,” Hamm said. “People are really excited. It’s not just sustainable, it’s part of the ocean and for people who love Volcom, it’s a part of their life.”
Volcom used discarded fishing nets — made with regenerated nylon yarn called Econyl — for the women’s swim line launched last year, teaming with a yarn mill and fabric production company in Italy to make the suits.
“It’s amazing, I geek out over the science of it,” Hamm said. “The fabric is just as good as fabric nylon, the same as non-sustainable fabric. I get to design as I do normally. I didn’t have to worry about it not being as strong or not as good quality … my goal was to design beautiful swim wear, but that also happens to be sustainable.”
About 50 percent of Volcom’s swim line is made of the regenerated fishing nets, and of those, 100 percent of the nylon is from the recycled net — though some Spandex and Lycra are needed to give the swim wear its stretch.
Hamm grew up in Huntington Beach, where she developed a passion for the ocean and the environment, sparked by her “hippy” parents. “I grew up with my family being globally conscious,” she said.
It was when she started at Volcom six years ago, however, that she really saw what she could do as a designer to help reuse products, she said.
“There’s a feeling of guilt of creating something new, but if I create something that’s really not new, I feel OK about it,” she said.
Hamm regularly gives presentations on the importance of sustainability to retailers and their employees.
“I try and encourage people – think about how it actually touches you, before it piles up in your front yard,” she said. “As a designer, I want to create and keep creating beautiful products, but we all need to do it responsibly.”
Much of Volcom men’s wear uses Repreve, a fiber made of recycled water bottles used to make apparel. And this summer, the company is launching a boardshort made from hemp.
Other ideas on Hamm’s list: bottoms made out of ocean plastic and rubber grown only on sustainable farms. “Really, every little bit counts,” she said.
By the end of this year, Volcom plans to use the fishing net material in three of its top-selling swim lines. The material is also used in a collaborative collection with Georgia May Jagger, fashion model and daughter of Mick Jagger.
Hamm said the response had been positive.
“People love it. They love doing something and being involved and being conscious, but they also love that we didn’t increase our prices,” she said.
“We’re really saying that this should be the norm — that this is important and this is how people should be doing business.”
