How everything started – A Freyzein story
Freyzein started with a vision of launching a sustainable & circular clothing brand. Radically natural! The idea came up during a holiday at the Açores in the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of nowhere. Sabrina, my wife and co-founder of Freyzein was just pregnant with my daughter Pia and happy to relax a bit at the black volcanic sand beaches. The idea was simple: Freyzein wanted to create jackets to enjoy time in nature with the best apparel imaginable in the 21st Century. High-tech natural functional clothing making your life easier as well as doing good for the planet!
After this journey we decided to take a deep dive into the Circular Economy. Then we started to learn more and more about sustainability and closed loops as well as the Cradle-to-Cradle philosophy. In addition we read a lot about importnat figures in the field of circularity and sustainability, from the chemist Michael Braungart to the architect William McDonough. 1 We realized that most apparel is made from synthetics leading to environmental problems. 2
Diving deeper and deeper into the textile universe it got clear that there are several ecological & social problems connected to a basic human need like clothing. For example are textile dyeing, water pollution, and carbon emissions worldwide a problem connected to textiles.3 At the same time, there are social work-related issues. 4
A paradox!
Especially people loving nature, wanting to spend time outdoors, wear clothes out of synthetics harming the environment. Why is it like that? It must change!
We started to surround ourselves with people and institutions interested in helping us with this project.
After that we got a lot of support from institutions like the Gründungsgarage5, the Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs in Austria6, DeFINE´s fashion-tech program to support the fusion of cutting-edge technologies and innovation into the European Fashion and Design Industries. 7 Everybody understood our concept and was eager to help us with their professional networks, funding help, and expertise! We found our home base in the Science Park Graz in the Technical University of Graz!8 A network of professionals. But it was not only institutions that helped us. We got a lot of help from friends and family to continue our work on Freyzein Outerwear. Thanks to all of you for your help. Even if this was sometimes hard and some things went wrong!
While creating support for our project, we developed our first jackets and went into every detail from sewing yarn to zipper and the rubber band under circular design principles. A new approach in creating apparel including every component of the jacket and the whole supply chain.
The aim is to get rid of the concept of waste
That’s how our first collection of jackets was crafted. As beginners, we learned it the hard way and started the process from scratch. Made designs, created patterns, bought every component necessary to make a jacket. Spent unnecessary money. Tested jackets. Had learnings. Long nights and evaluated every supplier. Always searching for the best option available on the market. We keep on trying our best and are still in our early beginnings. But that’s how you start. And that’s important.
We are happy to present you with our first clothing jacket line. We are proud to introduce you to the Freyzein All-Stars Series. A lot of institutions, people, and mentors are involved to make it happen. The idea about Freyzein is much larger than us. We are aware that it is crucial to join forces with other like-minded stakeholders. It´s our honest approach to change a broken system and use our time to make it better! That’s why we are here. That´s how we will keep on improving!
We are happy that we have many more stories to tell and will keep on writing about our passion and research & developments.
Support us with buying one of our first All-Stars – Jackets!
Thanks
Jan & the Freyzein All-Stars Team!
1 https://sustainabilityguide.eu/methods/cradle-to-cradle/
2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43023-x
5 https://www.gruendungsgarage.at
