Rudolf’s Hub 1922 goes Offuel with Labor Made
20/04/2022
The company says that this suite of products, which does not rely on fossil fuels, is all the more critical in the current geopolitical context, with rising prices and possible shortages of gas and oil derived raw materials. It also points out that ongoing innovation in recycling has made post-consumer waste a suitable resource for high quality chemicals. “A few years ago, waste of any origin was an unconceivable raw material for the chemical industry due to poor consistency and availability issues. Nowadays, through the upcycling of organic waste and the chemical recycling of plastics, Rudolf can present the denim industry and society with another option: textile finishing auxiliaries made from renewable raw materials and waste,” the company said. Rucogen Upcycle RNB, it said, is the ‘crown jewel’ of the Offuel range. This dispersing agent developed specifically for denim washing is made from chemically recycled PET plastic waste.
To highlight the possibilities of the Offuel range, and its 100th anniversary, Rudolf reached out to design studio Labor Made, based in Hiroshima, Japan, to create a sustainable and upcycled collection using textile auxiliaries from Hub 1922, its denim-specific division.
The thinking behind the collection centres on 'Mottainai', a Japanese word for ‘Don't waste what is valuable.’ Labor Made chose a denim fabric made by Kaihara which has the mill’s highest pre-consumer waste content, pocket bags are cut from vintage Japanese yukata and the back patches are recycled and reprinted. “The intent behind the collection is refining how we embrace waste and discarded materials and turning them into beautiful items,” said Gordon Muir of Labor Made.
Image: Rudolf & Labor Made
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