Phelps in a Dress

With the 11th annual FINA World Swimming Championships recently coming to a close,  we thought it would be appropriate to share with you the exciting cross road that we’ve discovered between the swimming community and the upcycling community. You might be familiar with Michael Phelps’ astounding eight gold medal wins at the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, China but do you remember what he was wearing? Speedo sure does. He was wearing the LZR Racer Full-Body and it was considered a revolutionary swimsuit technology. However, FINA banned the suit after Phelps’ overwhelming medal haul. Consequently, Speedo found themselves with an excess of unusable suits. Seemingly unusable suits? Seemingly unusable resources? Sounds like an upcycling challenge to us!

Speedo Unity Dress

With the 11th annual FINA World Swimming Championships just having come to a close, we thought it would be appropriate to share with you the exciting cross road that we've discovered between the swimming community and the upcycling community. You might be familiar with Michael Phelps’ astounding eight gold medal wins at the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, China but do you remember what he was wearing? Speedo sure does. He was wearing the LZR Racer Full-Body and it was considered a revolutionary swimsuit technology. However, FINA banned the suit after Phelps’ overwhelming medal haul. Consequently, Speedo found themselves with an excess of unusable suits. Seemingly unusable suits? Seemingly unusable resources? Sounds like an upcycling challenge to me!

The London based sustainable fashion label, From Somewhere, recently took on Speedo’s challenge and created an entire high fashion line of dresses and gowns made out of the LZR Racer swimsuit. Most notably, From Somewhere, created the “Unity” gown, an exquisite and vibrant garment made from Speedo’s 2008 Olympic swimsuits.

I don’t know about you, but we're thrilled to see a worldwide commitment to sustainability. It’s exciting to see new materials being used in a fresh way. Who knows, maybe we will start cutting up old swim suits into headbands or braid the fabric into a rockstar statement piece even the Man Repeller could be proud of. The possibilities are endless …and that’s why we love upcycling so much!