Commitment to Sustainability

Supply Chain

With the exception of our elastic which is from a woman owned business in Canada, all materials from start to finish are from the US*. It’s no secret that transportation accounts for a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions, but cutting down on the carbon emissions associated with overseas shipping (specifically maritime shipping) greatly reduces the carbon footprint of our supply chain.

Materials

All packaging supplies are made from 100% recycled and recyclable materials, meaning you can toss everything from your Black Dog Bikinis package in your household recycling bin, as long as your city recycles number 4 plastics. That said, “reuse” comes before “recycle” in the 3 R’s of recycling, and we hope you will reuse our supplies before recycling them. Our poly mailers come with two seals, so you can keep the bag and use it the next time you need to ship something. Our tissue paper makes great gift wrap, scrapbooking paper, or even decoupage with a little mod podge. The opportunities are endless! Our care cards double as sticker sheets, so you can add a fun touch to your junk journal, phone case, water bottle, or whatever the kids put stickers on these days.

Waste

Now for the kicker- textile waste and fast fashion. The US alone is responsible for 17 million metric tons of textile waste each year. That’s an incomprehensible amount of waste. There are a myriad of systemic problems that inform this statistic, but I make every bikini to order to ensure there is no inventory sitting around that could potentially go to waste. Additionally, I turn my scraps into scrunchies to further reduce waste. (More accurately I give my mom my scraps every few months and she turns them into scrunchies for you- it’s a team effort!). 

Ethical Labor

A huge component of sustainability is ethics- who is making your clothes? How much are they being paid? What are their working conditions like? By purchasing from Black Dog Bikinis you never have to stay awake at night grappling with those questions- I am making every single bikini with my own two hands in my lovely, sunlit San Clemente studio. I wish these were the conditions in which all articles of clothing were made.

A final note:

I could rattle on about the importance of ethical and sustainable fashion for days, but the bottom line? If you don’t need a new bikini, don’t buy a new bikini. If and when you do need a new bikini, Black Dog is ready for ya!

*I reached out to all of my suppliers to ensure that their materials were also from the US, and my thread supplier informed me that ALL nylon thread is manufactured overseas, predominantly in China, though my supplier is based in the US.