In 2019, Waverley Mills met with the CEO of Nudie Jeans Australia, Bryce Alton at the Legacy Summit in Sydney. The summit is a sustainabilty forum where producers, industry partners, and consumers can all meet under one roof.
Waverley Mills had the technology to be able to shred post-consumer Nudie Jeans, blend it with locally produced recycled wool to create a new product.
What was left to do but try?
"This was a huge opportunity for us to use jeans that have been handed in from consumers that couldn’t be repaired or adapted to the Nudie Jeans Re-use program. Also, a perfect occasion to see if we could collaborate with a local manufacture to create a closed textile loop in Australia." — Bryce Alton
The result is the beautiful Waverley Mills Recycled x Nudie Jeans throw.
The throw is made of post-consumer jeans and recycled Australian wool. Virgin polyester has been added to increase the durability of the yarn. The colour of the throw comes from the jeans!
There are 2 extra steps added to our usual recycled wool manufacturing process to incorporate the denim:
Step 1: Dis-assembling the jeans prior to ragging. Removing the zippers, studs etc.
Step 2: Ragging the jeans to create fibre to mix with our other recycled wool.
Pictured: Post-consumer Nudie Jeans entering the Waverley Mills ragging machine in Launceston Tasmania
The rest of the recycled process is then the same.
There are a limited amount of throws available.