Jackson Hole, WY –Mountain Khakis®, a leading mountain-inspired lifestyle apparel brand, announces its partnership with Bionic® yarn technology in their Spring/Summer 2012 collection.
Mountain Khakis’ new SS12 Fairway Crew and Polo styles feature a Bionic® Dpx (Duplex) Jersey Knit made using recycled plastic bottles.
The Bionic® life cycle and patented process starts with discarded plastic bottles. Redirecting bottles away from the landfill is one of many eco-benefits to the process. As plastic bottles are recycled into PET, or Polyethylene Terephthalate, the chips are transformed and melted into 2” fiber strips. Spun together with cotton through a proprietary spinning process to create a dual layer Bionic® Dpx yarn, the affect is a super-soft fabric surface of cotton and a core of recycled PET.
“In addition to developing the Fairway collection with Bionic® Dpx, we’ve been testing the ultra-durable Bionic® Hlx (Helix) in fabric for some of our heritage styles, and the results are exciting,” said Ned Hutchinson, MK Product Manager. “Reports show the tensile strength of Bionic® Hlx to be far superior to that of 100% cotton. Three times stronger, in fact. Watch for more Bionic® pieces from Mountain Khakis in the future.”
Bionic® uses a type of recycled PET fiber that can be produced universally in all nations. According to Tim Coombs, CEO of Return Textiles, “This is important to note because most non-Bionic® PET yarn's require a highly clean source of recycled plastic that can only be found in first world nations. In developing countries where plastic waste is a serious issue, there is no access to pristine recycled PET. Bionic® was created as a global solution for plastic waste.”
“We look forward to having our product incorporated into the Mountain Khakis’ product line,” said Coombs. “MK is a brand that believes in quality and durability for all walks of life; something we genuinely believe in.”
Bionic® transformed over 750,000 discarded beverage bottles into premium fabric in 2010. Their goal is to utilize over 25 million bottles in their material by the beginning of 2013.
Available in 5 colors, each MK Fairway shirt contains as many as 14 PET recycled plastic bottles. They will be available in February, 2012 at authorized MK dealers in the U.S., Canada and Japan and online at mountainkhakis.com.