One clothing line is blending sustainability with comfortability

Meteorologist Sean Kelly spoke with Louise Ulukaya. She is the founder of Mon Coeur, a sustainable children’s clothing label that is dedicated to making cozy and playful kids clothing that lasts longer.

AUSTIN (KXAN) – The fashion industry as a whole is not environmentally friendly. The industry is responsible for nearly 10% of our annual global carbon emissions. Every year the fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic meters of water. 87% of the clothing fiber ends up in our landfills while half a million tons of plastic microfibers are dumped into our oceans.

One clothing line however, is eager to be more environmentally friendly towards our planet.

Meteorologist Sean Kelly spoke with Louise Ulukaya. She is the founder of Mon Coeur, a sustainable children’s clothing label that is dedicated to making cozy and playful kids clothing that lasts longer. You can read the interview below to learn more.

Sean Kelly, KXAN News: So tell me about the clothing line and how you came up with the idea.

Louise Ulukaya, CEO of Mon Coeur clothing line: It started when I was pregnant with my first son. And I couldn't find any truly sustainable brands out there for kids. Or you could find sustainable brands that were not so stylish. So I decided to create a brand that was both sustainable, very cute and stylish and very comfortable for kids. So I launched officially two years ago. Now, the whole supply chain is made entirely from upcycle and recycled material. So that means that there's nothing virgin that enters our processing cycle. And we're giving everything a second life. So when I say by everything, it's from fishing nets that we recycle, we make swimsuit out of it. We recycle plastic bottles to make patches zippers, we upcycle cotton, which are dead stock of cotton that would go to landfill. We upcycle it and we create yarn from it. And we make all the clothes from it. So the idea was really to not grow more cut, and then use what is going to waste and give it a second life.

Kelly: Do you have a goal to also make the lifespan longer as well?

Ulukaya: Everything is made in Portugal, everything is certified organic and also has the GRS certification which really explain how the process of recycling and upcycling because as we know there's a lot of greenwashing out there a lot of brands really trying to be more sustainable from our marketing perspective. For us, our DNA is really engraved within sustainability. So we really use technologies, certification. The whole supply chain is very important to us in order to make clothes that are truly sustainable.

Kelly: Why is sustainability so important to and also what what goals you have for for your clothing line in the future?

Ulukaya: There's so much cotton, so much material that is overproduced that we can actually give a second life because everything is pre consumer. All the cotton for instance that we use is cotton that is completely clean that hasn't been used hasn't been worn so so it's really taking the lead taking the time to do a lot of work. Research and Development taking a step back in trying to understand and see, okay, what can I do and make in whatever industry it is that you're in, in making things the right way. For consumer for the planet and for the generation behind us, in regards to lawn care, the goal is really to be to become the leader within the lifestyle, sustainable brand for kids and babies, which we are really on the path to become so and working really hard with the team every day in, in making better clothing, better options for all the kids and babies out there.