Sustainability
Mission & Contribution
Harley's Attik and Dakota Harley Co. are dedicated to ensuring circularity, ethical manufacturing, and eco-consciousness are woven into the fabric of everything we create. These elements are crucial and required for any and all ideal partnerships/collaborations, manufacturers/vendors, contributors that are connected to our company.
Our goal is to exhibit, educate, and encourage eco-conscious practices and a circular economy overall, while still providing our community with quality products and services that can be enjoyed and/or utilized beyond one season, but for years to come.
Fashion does not have to be the wasteful and harmful contributor it has been for decades.
We actively strive to be a part of the solution to improving fashion's relationship and connection with nature (*ahem,* humans included).
Around 85% of all textiles produced by the fashion industry end up in landfills, making it a major
contributor to environmental damage. What’s more, one in every five items produced by the
fashion industry reach landfills without being worn even once.
Can we not?
We know that things aren't perfect or 100% sustainable/eco-conscious, but the focus is to be as close as possible while being objectively real about what brands and consumers can do to be more aware and help make a difference together.
Overconsumption & Overproduction
We want the world to experience our art/apparel products; however, not in support or at the expense of overconsumption and overproduction. As an emerging, eco-conscious lifestyle brand, Dakota Harley Co. | Harley's Attik maintains our art/art apparel/home decor collections are made-to-order domestically and internationally either in-house by hand or human-operated machinery.
This ensures less textile waste from overproduction and no surplus of items waiting to be purchased. We encourage our community to be present with their wardrobe by considering what one wears and what's collecting dust.
Of course, we cannot and do not want to tell anyone what to do, and hastily judging others is not in our brand DNA. We hope that, by example and education, our community adapts to a seasonal practice of responsibly donating/upcycling, and/or reselling gently used items. Sometimes for us, buying a new item or a few new items, are a cool, somewhat, symbiotic tradeoff for maintaining and cleaning our wardrobe.
Make space and Audit Your Closet!
Packaging
As our first step toward more earth-friendly packaging, we recently started using bags made of post-consumer recycled plastics for all apparel orders shipped from our in-house facilities. The share of recycled plastic per bag depends on each facility, but it’s at least 50% for the outside (white or grey) packaging and at least 30% for the inside (clear) bags that are used in multi-item shipments.
PCR packaging protects the products just as well as the virgin plastic bags, and they look almost the same. However, choosing PCR plastic over virgin plastic is the right thing to do to minimize the environmental impact plastic has on our planet.
Textiles
We are dedicated to sourcing quality natural, plant-based, and or responsibly recycled natural and synthetic textiles, trims, and notions to create our apparel, accessories, and home décor.
Organic, natural, biodegradable, toxic-free, fair trade, and/or ethical/cruelty free fibers are generally acceptable for creating apparel and accessories.
Currently, we are open to utilizing recycled synthetic materials, like polyester, where their fiber content is less than 50% of the entire fabrication and/or the material will be upcyled for non-apparel items.
We do not source or promote the usage of acrylic materials for new items; however, recycled or donated acrylic apparel/accessories may be accepted for our upcycling initiatives.
Our printing partner's high-quality printing tech creates almost no wastewaters and uses less energy than standard industry printers.
Print and Dye Info
Our apparel is printed with the direct-to-garment (DTG) printing method. The printing tech we use is made with sustainability in mind, and our manufacturer's Kornit printers use almost zero wastewater and less energy than standard industry printers, lowering our carbon footprint. The inks we use for printing are vegan, water-based, and free of harmful chemicals. Based on ink supplier guidelines, left-over ink is properly and carefully disposed
