We brought the concept behind the FW21 ECO Collection alive with a swatch presentation inspired by environmental pain points.

KNITWEAR LAB designed and developed swatches for UPW from the sustainable and traceable yarns of their FW21 ECO Collection. For this collaboration we envisioned environmental pain points like climate change, water pollution, carbon footprint, melting glaciers, ocean plastic, and deforestation. Our swatches depicted the effects of the wildfires in California, the ocean plastic in Australia, the deforestation in South America, and water pollution in Asia, raising voice for radical change.

Transparency and Traceability
UPW – a world-leading yarn supplier based in Hong Kong, develops sustainable yarns with a commitment to environmental protection, and social and animal welfare. The high-quality yarns are spun from low impact raw materials which are sourced responsibly. Traceability is critical in achieving sustainable supply chains as it will lead to accountability and insight into the environmental and social impacts of the product.

UPW’s ECO Preferred Fibres include RWS wool, GCS cashmere, GRS recycled PET, and OCS and GOTS certified organic cotton. Their entire collection, comprising woolen-spun, semi-worsted, and fancy twisted yarns, is available at UPW’s StockStore® with no minimums, making luxurious and sustainable yarns accessible to small and large brands alike.

Presenting the ECO yarn collection
For this collaboration, we selected yarns out of UPW’s FW21 ECO collection, among which – RWS certified wool, traceable cashmere, organic cotton, and innovative man-made synthetics derived from renewable resources processed in a closed-loop production.

Our industrial knitwear designer and programmer Gaia Liesdek elaborates: ‘This was a challenging and inspiring project for the whole team of programmers and interns. We combined UPW’s sustainable yarns with the latest knitting techniques of the Stoll machinery to enhance the yarns’ raw beauty by giving it a visually attractive look.’

UPW
www.upwhk.com