Marine Layer (asi/68730) was born a decade ago when founder Mike Natenshon’s then-girlfriend threw away his favorite T-shirt. Natenshon vowed to recreate the tee’s lived-in softness. “He was a man on a mission,” says Andrew Graham, director of custom projects at Marine Layer. After some research and development, Natenshon came up with a blend of supima cotton and micro-modal – a sustainable fabric that’s built to last, but is also “absurdly soft,” according to Graham.

Natenshon’s creation struck a chord with consumers. Marine Layer now has more than 40 brick-and-mortar retail stores and entered the promotional products industry as an apparel supplier around two years ago after trying – and nearly failing – to handle a large customization order from Facebook. “We learned the follies of working directly and the advantages of going with a distributor,” Graham says. “We’ll gladly give a 40% margin to our partners to not have to worry about the back and forth with a client. That allows us to do what we’re really good at, which is to make T-shirts.”

Sustainability has always been a core principal for Marine Layer, and the brand recently increased its eco-friendly efforts with the launch of its Re-Spun program, where consumers can send in their old T-shirts for store credit. Marine Layer will sort the garments and send them to a facility in Spain that can convert the fabric back to yarn. The 100% recycled fabric is returned to Marine Layer’s Los Angeles facilities and cut and sewn into a new shirt. The recycling process requires no water or added dyes, making it more sustainable than traditional apparel production.

Marine Layer also plans to launch a version of Re-Spun for corporate partners.  “We can actually create a 100% closed-loop program for your clients,” Graham says. If a company has old, unusable shirts sitting in their closet and doesn’t want them to end up in a landfill, they can instead donate them to Marine Layer, as long as the company commits to purchasing 70% of the new shirts created from the donation.

“Essentially, we can take your old T-shirts, we can break them down, and we can turn them into something new and really create an amazing sustainability story for your own brand that allows you to have zero waste when you’re making new T-shirts.”

Graham will be speaking more about the new Re-Spun initiative in the Fashion Zone at the ASI Show Chicago in July. In the meantime, check out our whole conversation with Graham in the below podcast.

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