Girlfriend Collective

High quality ethically and sustainably manufactured clothes made from recycled materials in sizes XXS-6XL

Did you know that your fave workout wear is made from materials, like plastic, that clog our landfills and pollute the earth?

Sorry:( But, don’t worry. It’s not just your stuff, it’s pretty much everybody’s synthetic clothing.

But Girlfriend Collective is on a mission to change all that.

The brand was founded by husband and wife Ellie and Quang Dinh in 2016 when Ellie couldn't find eco-friendly athleisure wear and her husband was on a mission to make polyester completely from recycled water bottles.

From there Girlfriend Collective was born and is eco-friendly to their core.

They examine every step, from fibre to fabric, to ensure they know its impact on people and our planet. For instance, their packaging is 100% recycled and recyclable and their clothes are made from recycled materials like post-consumer water bottles, fishing nets retrieved from the seas, fabric scraps and other waste.

They even sell a filter that attaches to your washer to help you capture all the tiny little pieces of plastic (called microfibres) that shed in the wash (yes, it even happens with Girlfriend Collective's).

All products are BPA free and the plastic they use (recycled PET) is used in single-use water bottles and food containers that have been repeatedly safety tested for over 30 years. They say, "If it’s safe enough for your sandwich, it’s safe enough for your legs!"

Their Bio Collection takes things to a whole other level.

It uses new cutting edge technology that allows the fibres in synthetic clothes to break down and return to the earth in the same way a natural fibre does (most comparable to wool).This not only helps them clean up their clothes, but it helps them work toward their bigger goal of cleaning up the plastic-polluted activewear industry as a whole.

It's their intention to make everything Bio (biocompresive), but that'll take a hot second...Still, their existing compressive items are head and shoulders above many others.

A single pair of compressive leggings recycles 25 water bottles, prevents 18.61 of CO2 and saves 3.11 gallons of water.

Their yarn making process is the ultimate example of slow fashion in action.

The yarn, which ultimately becomes the soft, sturdy, squat-proof leggings that adorn your lovely legs, includes at least a dozen steps of repeated sorting, washing, chipping, weighing and logging. In fact, it requires so much time and precision that each knitting machine can only produce about 100 pairs-worth of fabric in a 24-hour period!

We've all heard of how environmentally destructive the dying process can be, right?

It's common practice for companies to use non eco-friendly dyes and chemicals, then freely dump the wastewater into streams and rivers. Not Girlfriend Collective!

Every single drop of water used to dye their fabric gets sent to their *very own* wastewater treatment plant--which is literally 100 feet away from the machines so it doesn’t even have time to think about escaping!

Even better, they donate their dye mud to a local pavement facility where it’s recycled into sidewalks and roads for the community.

Not surprisingly, they have exquisitely high business practice standards.

These include multiple industry certifications to ensure compliance and transparency, while providing their employees with fair wages, free catered meals, guided exercise breaks, health checkups every 6 months and health insurance.

And these principles extend to their partners:

The primary recycling partner is Taiwan--a world leader-- where recycling is a community affair with people gathering each night to sort their waste into containers
The core sewing partner in Vietnam is SA8000 certified (this guarantees a slew of really important stuff, including no forced or child labor, safe working conditions and the right to unionize)
All recycled fabric is certified Standard 100 by Oeko-Tex (the world’s leader in testing fabrics to regulate harmful substances)

ReGirlfriend Program*

This program is designed to let you send back your old bras, leggings and shorts to be recycled into new ones (only compressive ones for now; they encourage you to resell or donate your Bio pieces).