About text

From plastic in our ocean... to seaweed in our clothes...

Inland Sea was born to create clothing that helps to solve the climate crisis, not cause it.

We are Inland Sea, a family run clothing brand that wants to do fashion properly and prove we can create clothing that not only looks and feels good, but is actually good for your body and skin when worn and also benefits the planet.

We are on a mission to change the fashion world and believe we are living in the dawn of a new green revolution where we have a real chance of giving the next generation, a planet, not to just survive on but to thrive on.

Read our story below...

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The power of one

Inland Sea was setup as a passion project in 2017 by Adam Costello. At the time Adam was living in Manchester, being an 'inlander' he witnessed the pretty awful pollution and litter in the city and as a keen a surfer, he knew where that would end up - the sea.

Adam therefore wanted to raise awareness of plastic pollution in the city and how that ultimately ends up in the ocean. He attended a Patagonia event and learned about how they were using recycled plastic bottles in their T-shirts. At that time hardly any independent clothing companies were using recycled plastic bottles (PET) in clothing, so Adam went about sourcing where to do this. He found a company in the US and designed 2 t-shirts which used a blend of 50% organic cotton and 50% recycled plastic bottles. Ordering 500 t-shirts on his credit card, along with a hefty import bill, the idea began!

Fast forward through years of massive climate change news, a global pandemic and the beginnings of a new world, Inland Sea has been able to react and help to raise awareness of several climate and social issues along the way.

In 2020 through Adam and his partner Vic's podcast called 'Things can only get Greta' they learned about the incredible powers of seaweed and that you could also create clothing from a fibre known as SeaCell which contains seaweed. This was a light bulb moment and Adam knew he needed to create a clothing range using seaweed fibre.

It was then through his other podcast The Ethical Pages Podcast, he learned where to get the t-shirts made using this type of new revolutionary fibre containing seaweed. The idea and contacts were all in place and the only issue now was funding to meet the minimum quantity order for the factory. Adam therefore turned to crowdfunding the idea using Kickstarter.

After 30+days of super intense marketing, during the 2nd national lockdown in the UK, with home schooling 3 kids Adam and Vic successfully raised just over £14K to fund the t-shirt project and the idea went ahead!

Read about the Kickstarter here

Pioneers of using seaweed in clothing

In March this year, Inland Sea became proud partners with Smartfibre, Germany, to import fibre which contains seaweed called SeaCell. This is a first for UK manufacturing, to spin the fibre with cotton at our partners cotton mill, in Dukinfield, run by English Fine Cottons.

We want to establish Inland Sea as a pioneer in using seaweed in clothing and to also educate and promote the use of seaweed as a realistic resource, to help solve the climate crisis.

We have the chance to do things right and that's why we are documenting the entire process, to prove fully traceability and transparency of our supply chain. We will also be monitoring the carbon used to attempt to prove a carbon positive clothing range.

You can follow and read more about the project below.

Collaborations

The future is green, brown and slimy...

Seaweed has the power to replace almost all the current fossil fuel driven energy and man made products. Which we now all know, has been the main cause of the climate crisis.

From plastic packaging made from seaweed, to seaweed paper for our returns slips and then the possibility to use seaweed as a natural leather alternative for shoes or bags.

With enough inspiration and innovation, we see seaweed as a realistic planet friendly alternative to the extremely problematic and unsustainable fashion crisis.

We also see investing in seaweed farms and seagrass restoration projects as part of our future vision.

Collaborations