Iron Roots

Natural athletic apparel / Source: Iron Roots

CottonEuropeHempTextiles

5 MINUTE READ

Nate Tyler

WHAT WE SAY:

The relationship between athletic apparel and plastic is firmly entrenched, but Iron Roots is set on changing that. The brand, headquartered in The Netherlands, makes athletic clothing from natural fibres and dyes, championing clothing that comes from nature and can safely return to it.

It doesn't stop there. With a supply chain that's certified internationally, and workers paid living wages with vacation time and breaks, the brand fully embodies the ethos of sustainable fashion - from materials to waste, ethics, and social value. With price points higher than fast fashion, but not so high as to be unaffordable, Iron Roots shows what's possible if we just allow ourselves to lean away from the status quo.

KEY FACTS:

Iron Roots makes athletic apparel from natural fibres such as Hemp and organic Cotton, as well as Tencel and modal made from eucalyptus and beechwood trees. Its organic cotton is GOTS certified, and Tencel is FSC certified.
The brand offers standard, performance-based items like joggers, track shorts, t-shirts, sweatshirts, beanies, and more. All pieces are sewn with thread made from the same material as the garment, rather than nylon core thread.
In addition to natural fabrics, the brand also works with strictly OEKO-TEX certified dyes. The range of classic colours includes black, blue, green, and grey. In March 2023, Iron Roots released its first collaboration with Fabulous Fungi and Bio-aNAlytiX van Biezen: a range of performance t-shirts coloured Clean Coral using a dye made from fungi. The t-shirt had a limited run of 100 pieces and each included a ticket to a re-dye event in the price, encouraging users not to see changing natural tones as a flaw, but rather to embrace it as an opportunity for something new.
Iron Roots sources its materials around Europe to limit shipping costs and emissions, and to be able to easily visit different facilities in its supply chain. Its hemp and cotton come from Turkey, while its eucalyptus and beechwood come from Austria and Portugal.
Because Iron Roots uses only natural fibres and dyes, its products are said to be biodegradable in nature. However, the brand doesn’t advocate that approach. It offers customers a 20% discount to return old and used clothing so it can be recycled and made again.
To limit waste and ensure its clothes are used regularly, the brand doesn't make seasonal collections. Iron Roots takes other steps to minimise waste in its production, including designing products from a single fabric, using the same fabric for multiple items, and maximising cutting efficiency.
The brand is partnered with The Green Branch, which monitors the CO2 impact of its shipping and plants trees in South America to offset emissions and provide carbon neutral shipping for customers.
Iron Roots was started in 2017 by Erik de Groot and Ashkan Hashemzadeh. The label is privately owned and releases new pieces every couple of months. It has no physical locations, but is available online and in a number of stores around Amsterdam and The Hague.

Model wears t-shirt in cobalt blue / Source: Iron Roots

A rail of Iron Roots clothing / Source: Iron Roots

DIVE DEEPER:

Athletic wear is dominated by synthetic fabrics: polyester, elastane, and nylon. Iron Roots asserts that more than 90% of all sportswear contains plastic materials. While this isn't verifiable, polyester alone accounted for 54% of textile material usage in 2021. Polyamide (nylon) totalled 5%, and other synthetics equaled another 5%. That makes synthetic fabrics 64% of the total textile production landscape.
The problem with polyester and other synthetics is that they are rarely ever recycled and reused, partly due to a lack of infrastructure, and partly because doing so doesn't make economic sense. In the US alone, more than 15.4 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year, while in Europe, 5.4 million tonnes end up in landfill. Most of that waste is synthetic in nature.
When synthetic materials are discarded, they are either landfilled or burned, meaning they either decay into microplastics and leach toxic chemicals, or fill the air with CO2. They cause damage throughout their lifespans too - when synthetic materials are washed, they shed microplastics into waterways, which have been found in every corner of the world and in our own bodies.
Using natural materials, however, eliminates the pollution that comes with synthetics. In using fossil fuel-based textiles, brands contribute to greenhouse gas emissions related to drilling, refining, and manufacturing. Meanwhile, one hectare of hemp can sequester 22 tons of CO2, and remediate soils by pulling out heavy metals and toxics, such as in the case of Chernobyl. Eucalyptus can capture 10 tons of CO2 per hectare per year.
Besides environmental impact, Iron Roots actively works to generate social good too. The brand uses local, GOTS, and SMETA-certified factories in Portugal and Greece, where employees are paid living wages, with holidays, breaks, and regular working hours. Iron Roots visits these factories regularly to view the working conditions for itself.
Iron Roots works with partners who align with its mission, and has collaborated with Sea Shepherd and NatuurlijkSportief to create lines of t-shirts.

[It] "might involve a near impossible journey, but we are determined to create something that is as adaptable as elastane and as compostable as plants themselves."

Iron Roots in reference to designing plastic-free leggings

Key Design Considerations:

Sticking to your morals

Part of Iron Roots' ethos is to be completely plastic free. This isn’t easy, of course. The company would like to make leggings, but leggings are stretchy, and right now, no pair of leggings in the world has been made without synthetics. To stay true to its ethos, the brand will continue to research and experiment until it finds a solution to its leggings problem. When you make the commitment to go plastic free, it means sacrificing short-term gains for long-term impact, and making tough choices, not going the easy way.

Balancing price

It’s not possible to pay workers living wages and sell clothing at fast fashion prices. At EUR 85 [USD 91] for a hemp and organic cotton hoodie, for example, Iron Roots is priced higher than fast fashion, but is comparable to other brands selling hemp apparel - even underpriced in many cases. Iron Roots does a good job balancing the price of its pieces with sustainable materials and social impact, and brands should take note that purpose-driven design doesn't automatically mean pricing out the wider consumer market.