Meet The Woman Turning Old T-shirts Into Your Next Pair Of Jeans

Stacy Flynn just made a pair of Levi’s 511 jeans — out of old T-shirts.

Five recycled cotton T-shirts, to be exact, plus a small amount of virgin cotton.

That may not sound like something to get excited about — after all, it’s one pair of jeans, made out of someone else’s used clothes — but Flynn disagrees. She believes every piece of used clothing has value — even socks and underwear. And clearly Levi Strauss & Co. feels the same: The clothing manufacturer teamed up with Flynn’s Seattle-based textile technology startup Evrnu to create the 511 prototype and prove the viability of her plan to reduce the colossal amount of waste in the garment industry.

“This is not an entirely altruistic concept,” Flynn said. “We are in crisis. We are running out of water. If we don’t make a move now, our business, our industry, is game-over.”

Here’s what Flynn is talking about.

Americans throw away 82 pounds of clothing individually each year. Only 15 percent of that gets donated or recycled. The rest goes to a landfill.

Additionally, each new piece of clothing uses a huge amount of resources during production. For example, one cotton T-shirt requires 700 gallons of water.

To change this wasteful cycle, Evrnu recycles old cotton garments, breaking down textiles to create brand new premium fibers. Flynn and her business partner, Christopher Stanev, have been refining the technology since founding the company in 2014.

Their new denim prototype brings that technology one step closer to commercialization. And having a product to put in investors’ hands will help Flynn sell her concept to angels, VCs and high net-worth individuals. Evrnu is currently raising $2 million, with 25 percent secured so far.

One of Evrnu’s investors is New York’s Gotham Gal, angel investor Joanne Wilson. Throughout her career, Wilson has made about 90 investments, 70 percent of which have focused on women-owned businesses.

“I am beyond excited about what Stacy is doing,” Wilson wrote in a post on her website. “We all need to be thinking about the future of our environment.”

Flynn’s strategy for making you pay attention is tapping into the brashness that just comes naturally to her.

“It helps to not mince words if you have to get a point across quickly,” Flynn said. “And right now, this industry and our world is in crisis. There are a lot of people out there making it obvious, but I’m making it obvious with a solution.”

Flynn and Staney are the only full-time Evrnu employees, and there are nine to 11 contractors helping with certain areas of development. Stanev, chief scientific officer, is the brains behind the process, which involves cleaning and breaking down cotton waste and realigning the molecules into something new.

Flynn is a specialist in textiles and manufacturing. She worked as a fabric sourcing and testing manager at DuPont, a fabric specialist at Target and the development manager of men’s and women’s denim at Eddie Bauer.

She completed her undergraduate studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she was originally rejected with a “not right now” letter. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Flynn confronted the head of admissions and told him she rejected his rejection. She was ultimately accepted into the school.

“If I want something and I feel like something’s worth fighting for, I will relentlessly pursue it,” she said. “It gets my foot in the door. But you can’t stay in the door unless you’re able to perform.”

Flynn’s tenacity is a big part of Evrnu’s growth. She spends her days talking to investors and media, not only explaining the technology but why brands and consumers should care about sustainability. The conversations can be exhausting, but to Flynn it’s worthwhile.

“I see this as being one of the greatest design challenges of our century — what we perceive as waste, how we break it down and build it up into new, useful and beautiful products so people don’t have to feel guilty about consuming,” she said.

Source: Upstart Business Journal, Melissa Wylie
Photo: Evrnu cofounders Stacy Flynn and Christopher Stanev hold the pair of recycled jeans made in collaboration with Levi Strauss & Co. The pair of Levi’s 511 jeans are made out of five used cotton T-shirts and a small amount of organic cotton.