Arch & Hook introduces BLUE® at London Fashion Week, the first ever hanger made of Marine Plastics®
Represented by Hooton Creative & Strategic PR.
Arch & Hook, the world’s leading and only sustainable hanger brand, launches BLUE® – the world’s first hanger made entirely of Marine Plastics®. Created for use in the fashion industry, BLUE® turns the hanger industry on its head by presenting a 100% recycled, fully closed loop alternative to source plastic for hangers.
Arch & Hook BLUE® will debut at London Fashion Week supported by Roland Mouret and the British Fashion Council.
Fashion’s Dirty Little Secret
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- Providing a sustainable alternative for the billions of hangers that end up in landfill each year due to the ‘garment on hanger’ – one of the most polluting stages in the apparel lifecycle.
- Roland Mouret and the British Fashion Council support the launch of Arch & Hook BLUE®.
- Plastic is derived from ocean sources, creating a 100% recycled, fully circular, modular hanger.
Creating a more sustainable fashion future
Blue® hangers are initially intended for use in the ‘garment on hanger’ (GOH) transport stage of fashion retail distribution. This unknown, unseen stage is when garments are transported from factories to stores, before being discarded for branded front of house hangers. It is estimated that 150 billion garments are produced globally every year . There are currently no figures available for hanger production, on a local or global level. If just two thirds of these garments use GOH, this would mean that an estimated 100 billion hangers are used annually for this stage alone. The majority of these hangers are used once and 85% will end up in landfill, taking more than 1,000 years to degrade.
Committing to change
London based French designer Roland Mouret and the British Fashion Council are supporting the launch of BLUE®, and have issued a letter of intent to apparel companies in (1 Source: Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 44, ScienceDirect) the UK. The letter invites them to “Switch to Blue” and join Arch & Hook’s BLUE® fully circular hanger program. Thanks to clever notches and add-on bars and clips, the modular patent-pending BLUE® hangers can be used for any garment, in any combination.
At the end of their lifespan, BLUE® hangers can be collected and remade into hangers, over and over again.
“I was introduced to Roland [Mouret] at the end of 2017, in a big old bank vault in London. We both believe in the power of design and creativity as the main drivers of innovation. We connected instantly on the fact that our planet is what we have in common, and that sustainability is in our hands,” says Sjoerd Fauser, Founder and CEO of Arch & Hook.
“Sustainability is going to bring people together. I was very fortunate to meet Sjoerd from Arch & Hook. Together we’ve found a solution for the future of the fashion industry. Opportunities are or will be available – fashion has to come together to take action. We’re grateful to the BFC for allowing us to meet,” Roland Mouret states on the partnership between his brand and Arch & Hook.
Contributing to cleaner oceans
Arch & Hook sets a new precedent for fashion brands worldwide with the unique BLUE® program. Arch & Hook BLUE® hangers are made from plastic soup; a mixture of plastic and other waste harvested from the four most polluting rivers in the world, that would otherwise end up in the ocean. These rivers cause 90% of ocean plastic pollution, according to the World Economic Forum. The combination of materials, collected in the world’s most polluted areas, is sorted and separated, shredded, transported, and prepared as raw material which is suitable to make hangers.
Comments Fauser, “At Arch & Hook we strongly believe that we are in the early stages of a new industrial revolution. Cleaning up what humanity has caused is crucial before eliminating plastics entirely.”
Switch to Blue
During London Fashion Week, Arch & Hook will host a BLUE® showroom at the Positive Fashion Exhibition. The designer showrooms, located at The Store X (180 Strand), are elevated ‘retail’ spaces with a focus on Positive Fashion. All brands taking part will adhere to at least one of the Positive Fashion pillars: Sustainability, Craftsmanship & Community, and Equality & Diversity. Customers and trade are welcome to visit – embracing the inclusivity of LFW. “Single use plastic has too much presence in luxury life. We designers have a responsibility to change that. By coming together and using our creative talents, I really believe we can make a difference,” adds Mouret.
“We can’t sit back and let someone else handle the problem any longer. If we continue to abuse plastics, by 2050 it is estimated there will be more plastic, by weight, in our oceans than fish . The time to act is now,” concludes Fauser.
The BLUE® launch will be supported by a film made by Arch & Hook together with Ridley Scott Creative Group, called ‘Fashion’s Dirty Little Secret’. Created to raise awareness of hanger pollution in the fashion industry, the film stars Model Mafia activist Nimue Smit wearing sustainable couture designs by Ronald Van Der Kemp, and features NASA imagery of one of the very first images of Earth taken from space. ‘Fashion’s Dirty Little Secret’ launches on Friday, 13 September alongside BLUE® at London Fashion Week and on YouTube.
All Arch & Hook hangers are manufactured as close to the end destination as possible to keep their carbon footprint down. From September 2019, brands can commit to the BLUE® hanger program by contacting the Arch & Hook offices in Amsterdam, London, New York and Sydney, and join Roland Mouret, as the first brand committed to using Arch & Hook’s Marine Plastics® hangers.
About Arch & Hook
– on a mission to make the functional, everyday object desirable and sustainable
Arch & Hook was founded in Amsterdam by Sjoerd Fauser and Anne Bas in 2015, and is now providing game-changing innovation in the global hanger industry. Arch & Hook caters to the retail, hospitality and luxury goods industries. The Dutch company believes that the clothing hanger can be sustainable both from an ecological and an economical point of view.
Arch & Hook is turning the hanger industry on its head by presenting a sustainable solution to the tens of billions of clothing hangers that end up in landfills annually. In June 2019, they released Mission-E® – the first 100% recyclable plastic program, before that, their bespoke wooden hangers. All wooden products are FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council) certified, and plastic hangers are made from recycled and recyclable high-grade plastics. With Arch & Hook hangers, the fashion industry can, for the first time, protect our planet by using groundbreaking solutions to transport and display clothing and compliment their brand identity.
Arch & Hook sponsors the Copenhagen Fashion Summit.
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With love,
FWO
