Cleveland-based fashion line Found Surface launched a new collection Saturday, featuring four casual, everyday-wear pieces made entirely from sustainable materials.
The clothes are made from organic cotton sourced from Texas, plastic bottles and recycled cotton. The goal, 21-year-old founder and designer Aidan Meany said, is to have every aspect of the company operate with sustainability in mind.
“This whole company … doesn't exist without the foundation of being sustainable and trying to grow this garment industry back in Cleveland,” he said. “That's the entire basis that it's built on, not just some kind of campaign we're trying to convince people of.”
The unisex collection includes two mock-neck style tops, a pair of pants and a jacket with magnetic closures, all of which come in a selection four vibrant, rich colors. The necklines of the two tops are stuffed with plush fibers made from plastic bottles sourced from the Gulf of Mexico that are recycled and cleaned in North Carolina using steam and solar power.
“The process of recycling that is, like, crazy sustainable too,” Meany said. “Even when we bring in the bottles, they need to be cleaned and when we clean them, the steam generated from that is actually used and sucked into another machine that runs on steam. So even cleaning provides the energy for steps in the process as well.”
The clothes are designed to “be as universal as possible,” and to look good on every gender and skin tone, Meany said.
“When people put this on, it's hard to even describe how people react to it,” he said. “You see it in their face, and they feel good in it and comfortable.”
The garments can be purchased online at the Found Surface website. Prices range from $249 to $399.
Meany began brainstorming the collection in 2019 and started developing Found Surface during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when he said he could not ignore supply chain issues and shipment delays across the country.
“That’s when I realized that if we domesticated our supply chains and used the resources that were right around us, we could really solve a lot of those problems,” he said. “I was like, well, I know how to make clothes. That's my that's what I can bring to the table. So, I'll learn to do that sustainably and build our community here locally.”
Though he had a strong vision for his domestic, environment-friendly fashion brand, much of the company’s early development was spent researching sustainable businesses Meany could partner with.
Meany met with businesses across the country all while studying Industrial and Interaction Design at Syracuse University in New York. The only barrier his age presented in the process was balancing Found Surface with his schoolwork, he said. Though he was often the youngest person in the room, he saw it as an opportunity to learn from others.
“I've never had an issue with earning respect,” he said. “People can … invest hope in a younger person and they can see potential for seeing that the sky's the limit when you're young. So, I've always seen that as an advantage.”
Found Surface grew into a multi-generational family-run business, and includes Meany’s grandmother, who taught Aidan how to sew when he was 14, uncle and parents.
After the garments are cut and sewn, they are dyed in small batches using dyes that are better for both the fabric, and for the wearer’s skin.
No fabric goes to waste at Found Surface, as all scrap fabric is repurposed back into usable thread that is used to make tote bags. The bags are included for free in every order or can be purchased on the website for $39.99.
Fast fashion companies tend to do all of the garment production in one place, Meany said, which can be an appealing and fast production system from a business standpoint, but can lead to poor working conditions and low pay.
“That's not how it should be done,” he said. “It took a lot of time to really facilitate the supply chain and make it durable and, have good turnaround times and make sure everyone's getting paid respectfully and fairly.”
All products are shipped with zero-waste, recyclable packaging, including a recycled paper tag, hemp twine and recyclable aluminum pins.
Found Surface offers carbon-neutral shipping by calculating the dollar amount for the amount of carbon introduced into the atmosphere during the shipping process and donating that amount of money directly to a renewable energy resource located near where the order was placed.
Found Surface will be launching t-shirts made of recycled water bottle textiles next year that will cost between $12 and $15 wholesale along with other products made entirely of the recycled plastic textile.
“Using water bottles as textiles is really cost effective, he said. “It’s a matter of infrastructure it's a matter of investing in our city to set up the ability to do all these different components and not rely on shipping them across the country.”
Cleveland was the second largest clothing manufacturer in the 1920s, and Meany said many of the former factories are still in the city. He hopes to bring his partners to the city to repurpose those buildings and reestablish Cleveland as a hub for sustainable fashion.
Doing so, Meany said, would allow Found Surface to reduce its overall carbon footprint while also providing sustainable clothing at a reduced price.
"There's a way to do everything," Meany said. "It's just a matter of people getting together and solving those problems, which is something that we're really interested in doing now."
